HIV News and Research

RSS

Expanded testing reveals 2000 percent increase in number of HIV-positive Indian children

"Expanded testing across India in the past three years shows a 2,000 percent jump in the number of HIV cases among children, [Ghulam Nabi Azad] the country's health minister announced Wednesday," CNN reports.

30 Jul 2009

Higher drug doses needed to defeat tuberculosis in overweight and obese

The typical dose of a medication considered pivotal in treating tuberculosis effectively is much too low to account for modern-day physiques, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers said.

30 Jul 2009

Efforts underway in Namibia to treat pediatric HIV

Inter Press Service examines how efforts underway in Namibia have helped to decrease the number of infants born with HIV while also increasing the number of HIV-positive infants on life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs).

29 Jul 2009

Donors to reevaluate support for Myanmar's fight against HIV/AIDS

The AP/KTVZ.com examines how after years of strained relationships between the "military-run nation" of Myanmar and international donors that led to a large reduction in HIV/AIDS funding, donors are considering reinvesting in the country's HIV/AIDS programs.

28 Jul 2009

Gates Foundation donates additional $80 million to Indian HIV-prevention program, receives Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give an additional $80 million to Avahan, a foundation initiative launched in 2003 for HIV prevention programs in India, Bill Gates said on Thursday, the Seattle Times blog, "Business of Giving" reports.

28 Jul 2009

Research shows why HIV virus is so successful and so deadly

Retroviruses such as HIV that are already within cells are much more easily transmitted when they are next to uninfected cells than if they are floating free in the bloodstream.

28 Jul 2009

Autophagy helps HIV to proliferate

Not satisfied with simply thwarting its host's defensive maneuvers, HIV actually twists one to its advantage, based on new findings from Kyei et al. in the July 27, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology. Vojo Deretic and colleagues suggest that autophagy - a stress response process - helps HIV to proliferate and that conversely, blocking autophagy lessens HIV production.

27 Jul 2009

Adolescents at high HIV risk say peers should teach prevention

African-American adolescents have some of the highest rates of HIV infection in the United States, and efforts to educate them about preventing the disease must include the help of their adolescent peers, new research suggests.

27 Jul 2009

Antiretroviral syrup for babies, mothers safely reduces HIV transmission

Giving daily antiretroviral syrup to breastfeeding infants or treating their HIV-infected mothers with highly active antiretroviral drugs is safe and effective in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission through breast milk, a study led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill investigators has found.

27 Jul 2009

'Urine NGAL' gives clues to kidney injury in ICU patients and HIV-related kidney disease

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a frequent complication in patients in intensive care. A new laboratory test called urine neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin (NGAL) helps predict if patients will develop acute kidney injury, reports an upcoming study in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

26 Jul 2009

UNDP to help fund HIV/AIDS program in Philippines

The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) will help fund a three-year program in response to the increase in HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines, the Manila Bulletin reports.

24 Jul 2009

Prevention, vaccines addressed at IAS conference

During the 5th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, scientists "renewed the call for more immediate and urgent effort to be directed towards HIV prevention amid the dominance of treatment interventions and the world-wide search for a quick fix vaccine, which many agree, is years away," Health-e/allAfrica.com reports (Thom, 7/22).

22 Jul 2009

Hepatitis C infection: Treatment options equally effective, likelihood of success known early on

Results of a long-awaited study of 3,070 American adults at Johns Hopkins and 118 other U.S. medical centers show that treatment with either of the two standard antiviral drug therapies is safe and offers the best way for people infected with hepatitis C to prevent liver scarring, organ failure and death.

22 Jul 2009

Clinton says U.S. will work with India to address health challenges, hunger

The U.S. will work to address the health challenges facing India among other countries and will aim to improve maternal and child health care services through comprehensive dialogue, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday after visiting a Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) trade outlet in Mumbai, India, PTI/Yahoo! News reports.

20 Jul 2009

South Africa launches HIV/AIDS vaccine trial

"The first clinical trial of an HIV/AIDS vaccine designed and developed in South Africa was launched in Cape Town" Monday, the SAPA/The Times reports.

20 Jul 2009

MSM HIV infection rates in some African countries significantly higher than general population rates, study says

HIV infection rates among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in "some African countries are 10 times that of the general male population, and stigma, poor access to treatment or testing are to blame," according to a Lancet study published online on Monday, AFP/China Post reports.

20 Jul 2009

IAS Conference begins, report says economic crisis forcing Africans living with HIV/AIDS off life-saving medications

At a news conference opening the 5th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention on Sunday in Cape Town, South Africa, Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, expressed disappointment that the "G8 ignored the HIV-AIDS issue at its annual summit this month," which was "just four years after pledging at the 2005 Gleneagles [G8] summit to fight for universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010," the Globe and Mail reports.

20 Jul 2009

Discovery of gene linked to follicular lymphoma

California and Arizona researchers have identified a gene variant that carries nearly twice the risk of developing an increasingly common type of blood cancer, according to a study published online today by the science journal Nature Genetics.

20 Jul 2009

Tamoxifen kills fungus cells and may prevent them from causing disease

An FDA-approved drug used for preventing recurrence of breast cancer shows promise in fighting life-threatening fungal infections common in immune-compromised patients, such as infants born prematurely and patients with cancer. Some scientists suspected that tamoxifen has antifungal properties; now new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center shows that it actually kills fungus cells and stops them from causing disease.

20 Jul 2009

Gene variants associated with survival advantage in African Americans with HIV

From the start of the HIV epidemic, it appeared that some of the people who were infected with the virus were able to ward off the fatal effects of the disease longer than others.

20 Jul 2009