via Citizen News Service, by Bobby Ramakant At the recently concluded XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), not only the decibels went up on ending AIDS but also sane voices were heard demanding a well-costed and thought-through strategy on how to end AIDS. One of the strategies that will complement a comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and Read More >>

via the Commission on HIV and the Law The end of the global AIDS epidemic is within our reach. This will only be possible if science and action are accompanied by a tangible commitment to respecting human dignity and ending injustice. Law prohibits or permits specific behaviours, and in so doing, it shapes politics, economics and society. Read More >>

via allAfrica, by Festus Mogae and Stephen Lewis In South Africa and across Africa, HIV continues to prey on women, sex workers and men who have sex with men. It is clear that to end the HIV epidemic, we must protect and support these groups. Archaic laws and customs make women and girls more vulnerable to HIV. Read More >>

via plosmedicine.org, by Trudie Lang and Sisira Siribaddana Why Do We Need Trials and What Makes a Trial a Trial? Clinical trials are needed globally to reduce disease burdens by helping developing safe and effective new therapies and vaccines. These solutions may be for non-communicable diseases like cancer and diabetes, or, as is especially needed in the Read More >>

via Lancet.com, by Salim S Abdool Karim  and Quarraisha Abdool Karim On May 10, 2012, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee voted in support of the use of tenofovir-emtricitabine for HIV prevention.1 If the FDA, which is scheduled to make its decision by June 15, adopts the committee’s recommendations, tenofovir-emtricitabine will become the first Read More >>

via aidsmap, by Michael Carter Excerpt: Danish safe-sex poster from ’89 “While unsafe sex among MSM [men who have sex with men] has increased substantially and the number of HIV-positive MSM living in Denmark has enlarged, the incidence of HIV diagnoses in this population has remained stable for more than a decade,” write the authors. “Our findings Read More >>

via AIDSmeds, by Tim Horn Excerpt: A key question from HPTN 052 is whether the results can be generalized to other contexts, Cohen and his colleagues explain. Examples include heterosexual couples with CD4 counts lower and higher than those studied in HPTN 052; high-risk heterosexual individuals, notably sex workers and their clients; men who have sex with Read More >>

via Nature News, by Erika Check Hayden Preventing the spread of HIV used to mean testing people for infection and encouraging them to practise safe sex. Increasingly, it also means prescribing drugs, as studies show that giving infected people or their uninfected partners antiretroviral drugs as soon as an infection is diagnosed can help to check the Read More >>

via AidsMap.com, by Gus Cairns Further testing of drug levels in the blood and immune cells of gay men participating in the iPrEx trial of tenofovir/FTC (Truvada) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has found that HIV infection in men assigned to Truvada was associated with a lapse in taking the drug after initially adhering reasonably well, rather than never Read More >>

viaCSIRO Publishing, by Richard Crosby and Willard Cates Jr. The global pandemics of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintentional pregnancy clearly necessitate innovative prevention strategies. Although recent biomedical approaches such as antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for persons living with HIV,3 ARV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV-negative people at risk of acquisition4–6 and adult male circumcision7,8 programs are Read More >>