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UCSF, Anacor to discover and optimize novel oxaboroles as antimalarial drugs

Anacor Pharmaceuticals announced today that the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) has been awarded $718,136 in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to discover and optimize novel oxaboroles as antimalarial drugs in collaboration with Anacor Pharmaceuticals. The NIH grant provides support for the period beginning September 30, 2011 and ending September 29, 2012.

12 Oct 2011

Russian Foreign Minister says country's HIV/AIDS problem is being 'aggravated' by U.S., NATO refusal to eradicate poppy crops in Afghanistan

Speaking on Monday at a conference on communicable diseases in the eastern Europe and Central Asia region, where AIDS is a growing problem, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made Russia's case for poppy crop eradication by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan asserting that the West "is aggravating the HIV/AIDS problem in Russia and the West by refusing to use its forces to destroy opium crops in Afghanistan," Reuters reports.

12 Oct 2011

Vertex announces availability of INCIVEK to treat hepatitis C in Canada

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated announced today that INCIVEK (telaprevir) tablets are now available in Canada for people with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C with compensated liver disease, including cirrhosis.

11 Oct 2011

Spain's Queen Sofia tours Haiti reconstruction projects amid ongoing cholera epidemic

Spain's Queen Sofia spent two days in Haiti "touring reconstruction projects that the Spanish government and her own foundation hope will improve housing, education, sanitation and health in Haiti," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.

11 Oct 2011

Cholera outbreaks reported in the DRC, Central African Republic

"There has been an increase in the number of cholera cases and deaths in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo where an outbreak has been ongoing since March, say humanitarian agencies," IRIN reports.

11 Oct 2011

WHO reports several large measles outbreaks in Europe, Africa

The WHO reported on Friday "that several large measles outbreaks have continued to spread in the past six months in Europe and Africa, and to a lesser degree in the Americas," the U.N. Media Centre reports.

11 Oct 2011

Scripps Research receives NIH grant to determine how HCV induces liver cancer

The Scripps Research Institute has been awarded a $2.2 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to determine how the hepatitis C virus (HCV) induces liver cancer.

11 Oct 2011

96% Campaign asks Obama to 'pay attention to science' and scale up global access to ARVs

In this RH Reality Check opinion piece, Matthew Kavanagh, director of U.S. advocacy at Health GAP (Global Access Project), and Dazon Dixon Diallo, founder and president of SisterLove, Incorporated, write, "With proof that treatment is prevention, and with this basket of broader prevention options, scientists and economists have finally been able to show what few could before: models of how we end the AIDS crisis."

11 Oct 2011

WHO facing shortage of funds as it works to scale up humanitarian response to Pakistan flooding

WHO representative Guido Sabatinelli has assured Pakistan health officials that the organization "will be scaling up its humanitarian response in all the flood-affected areas of Sindh to resolve health issues faced by the displaced people," News International reports.

11 Oct 2011

ICF wins re-compete contract with Centers For Disease Control And Prevention

ICF International, a leading provider of consulting services and technology solutions to government and commercial clients, has won a re-compete contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide data management support and technical assistance to more than 40 CDC-funded grantees.

11 Oct 2011

Positive results from Biotron's BIT225 Phase 2a trial on HCV

Australian drug development company Biotron Limited has released headline results from its landmark Phase 2a trial of its lead drug candidate, BIT225 in Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients.

11 Oct 2011

Potential vaccine against trachoma

An attenuated, or weakened, strain of Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria can be used as a vaccine to prevent or reduce the severity of trachoma, the world's leading cause of infectious blindness, suggest findings from a National Institutes of Health study in monkeys.

10 Oct 2011

Unither Virology receives NIAID contract for glycobiology antiviral platform

United Therapeutics Corporation announced that its subsidiary, Unither Virology, LLC, has been awarded a contract for up to approximately $45 million under a Broad Agency Announcement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for studies directed at the development of a broad-spectrum antiviral drug based on its glycobiology antiviral platform.

10 Oct 2011

Pharmasset adds two treatment arms to PSI-7977 ELECTRON trial on HCV

Pharmasset, Inc. announced today the addition of two treatment arms to the ELECTRON trial of PSI-7977, a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor, for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C.

10 Oct 2011

VGX International, Inovio partner to co-develop SynCon vaccines for hepatitis B and C infections

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leader in the development of synthetic vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced today that it has entered into a product development collaboration agreement with its affiliate, VGX International Inc., to co-develop Inovio's SynCon therapeutic vaccines for hepatitis B and C infections.

10 Oct 2011

UMass Amherst SPHHS wins HHS award to create Public Health Training Center

Training to improve the nation's public health system by strengthening the technical, scientific, managerial and leadership competence of current and future public health workers will soon be underway in Springfield, Holyoke, Pittsfield and the Berkshires, supported by a four-year, $2.5 million grant to the School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

10 Oct 2011

Experts take study on contraceptive use, HIV risk seriously but warn about drawing conclusions prematurely because of study's 'methodological weaknesses'

In this post in RH Reality Check, Jodi Jacobson, editor-in-chief of the blog, responds to an article published in the New York Times on Tuesday regarding a study suggesting that "HIV-negative women using injectable contraception might face a two-fold risk of acquiring HIV from their infected partners, and that HIV-positive women using injectable contraceptives may be twice as likely to pass the virus on to their uninfected partners."

10 Oct 2011

NIH awards LSUHSC $9 million grant to develop pneumonia vaccine

Dr. Judd Shellito, Chief of the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has been awarded approximately $9 million in grant funding to develop a vaccine against Pneumocystis, an important cause of pneumonia in people with HIV infection. This potentially fatal illness is the most common serious opportunistic infection in people with HIV.

7 Oct 2011

DfID's reduction in bilateral AIDS spending may increase need for funding later

In a letter to the Guardian in response to the news that the U.K. Department for International Development (DfID) plans to cut bilateral aid for HIV/AIDS by nearly one-third, Nathan Ford, medical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres, writes that the agency's decision "comes at a critical moment," after "[v]arious studies published in the past year have shown widespread access to treatment and prevention can dramatically cut HIV/AIDS transmission, and allow for consideration of an end to the epidemic."

7 Oct 2011

Huffington Post profiles UNITAID chair

The Huffington Post profiles Philippe Douste-Blazy, U.N. under-secretary-general of Innovative Financing for Development and chair of UNITAID, a financing mechanism he conceived in 2004 to help provide medicines for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries.

7 Oct 2011