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21 APRIL 2023 VOLUME 25 ISSUE 16

Media Coverage

  • ‘A Quick Death or a Slow Death’: Prisoners Choose War to Get Lifesaving Drugs

    In Russian prisons, they said they were deprived of effective treatments for their HIV. On the battlefield in Ukraine, they were offered hope, with the promise of anti-viral medications if they agreed to fight. It was a recruiting pitch that worked for many Russian prisoners. About 20 percent of recruits in Russian prisoner units are HIV positive, Ukrainian authorities estimate based on infection rates in captured soldiers. Serving on the front lines seemed less risky than staying in prison, the detainees said in interviews with The New York Times.

    April 21, 2023
    Treatment
    New York Times

  • Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality” Bill Already Affecting Care

    Activists and health-care providers are already seeing the chilling effects of Uganda's proposals to further criminalise homosexuality. Sara Jerving reports.

    April 21, 2023
    General
    The Lancet

  • Payer Groups to Congress: We’ll Cover Preventive Care, For Now

    Payer trade groups have written Democrats chairing five key U.S. House and Senate committees stating their Affordable Care Act plans will most likely continue to offer many preventive health services at no cost to members while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the challenge known as Braidwood vs. Becerra. Advocates aren’t sure they mean it or for how long. The plaintiffs in Braidwood, a federal case in Texas, are contesting the right of the government to require payers to cover the full cost of care meant to prevent certain illnesses or conditions.

    April 21, 2023
    General
    Health Payer Specialist

  • Why Does the Mifepristone Decision Matter for the HIV Community?

    This month, a radically conservative, Trump-appointed judge in Texas ruled to halt the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of a safe, effective and commonly-used medication abortion drug, mifepristone (“mife”), which is used along with misoprostol (“miso”) to terminate pregnancies. It’s important to know that the ruling has not gone into effect and is being considered by the Supreme Court. But ultimately, it could lead to a nationwide ban of this essential medication.

    April 20, 2023
    Hormonal Contraceptives and HIV
    POZ Magazine

  • Trim the Sugar: New HIV Vaccine Design Improves Immune Response

    A new HIV vaccine from Scripps Research has shown a significantly improved ability to neutralize the virus in preclinical tests, and it will soon be studied in healthy people who volunteer to participate in clinical trials. The new and unique vaccine design, described in a paper in Nature Communications on April 9, 2023, uses tiny protein "nanoparticles" to display multiple copies of HIV's surface protein Env, thus presenting itself to the immune system much as real HIV particles would without causing HIV infection.

    April 20, 2023
    HIV Vaccine
    Medical Xpress

  • Individuals Seeking Mpox Vaccination Are Also at Increased Risk of STIs, HIV

    New research has found that many patients who are HIV-negative and seeking vaccination against mpox infection participate in behaviors that put them at high-risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and would benefit from HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) initiation.

    April 20, 2023
    General
    Consultant 360

  • As Few as Two PrEP Pills a Week Protect During Anal Sex – But Vaginal Sex May Need Daily Dosing

    A comparison between the people allocated to oral PrEP in the two pivotal studies that compared it to injectable PrEP, HPTN 083 and HPTN 084, has found that the pills provided 99 percent protection against HIV infection to the gay and bisexual men and transgender women in HPTN 083 as long as they consistently took two or more pills a week. But the cisgender African women in HPTN 084 had to maintain daily PrEP – all seven pills a week – to receive the same efficacy.

    April 19, 2023
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Congress Must Reauthorize AIDS Relief: We Still Have Work To Do

    The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has saved more than 25 million lives over the past two decades through the generosity of the American people. Through HIV prevention, testing and treatment, it has provided opportunity and hope to millions of people who otherwise would have faced a grim future. At the same time, it has advanced US national security interests, engendered goodwill toward America, and helped thwart extremism. Few programs have achieved a better return on investment. Indeed, PEPFAR stands as one of the most successful foreign assistance programs ever.

    April 19, 2023
    General
    The Hill

  • Perinatal HIV Nearly Eradicated in US

    Rates of perinatal HIV have dropped so much that the disease is effectively eliminated in the United States, with less than 1 baby for every 100,000 live births having the virus, a new study released today by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds. The report marks significant progress on the US government's goal to eradicate perinatal HIV, an immune-weakening and potentially deadly virus that is passed from mother to baby during pregnancy.

    April 18, 2023
    General
    Medscape

  • HPV Is Incredibly Common—But Most People Still Don’t Know It Can Cause Various Cancers

    Most Americans don’t know that human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause multiple types of cancer beyond cervical cancer, according to a new survey from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The survey, which is being presented at a conference by the American Association for Cancer Research, showed that in 2020 fewer than 30 percent of people understood that HPV can lead to penile, anal, or oral cancers.

    April 18, 2023
    General
    Self

  • HIV Vaccine Research ‘At a Crossroads’ After Recent Failures

    It has been more than 40 years since HIV emerged, causing a pandemic that has left more than 40 million people dead and more than 38 million currently living with the infection worldwide. There are no HIV vaccines currently available, and after the recent failures of three experimental vaccines in development, there are now zero candidates in late-stage trials.

    April 18, 2023
    HIV Vaccine
    Healio

  • At What Point Can We Consider PrEP an HIV Vaccine?

    Despite many attempts, an effective vaccine against HIV has remained elusive. More than a decade ago, however, daily oral PrEP was introduced and has become a successful tool for preventing new HIV infections, with an effectiveness approaching 100 percent when taken as prescribed.

    April 18, 2023
    PrEP
    Healio

  • Dried Blood Spot Test Validated for HIV, Hep B, and Hep C

    A test that uses a single drop of dried blood to detect HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C has been validated and is now in use in some high-risk settings in Denmark, according to research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.

    April 18, 2023
    General
    Medscape

  • PrEP to Prevent HIV Moves Apace

    The best way to treat the worldwide epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is to prevent people from being infected in the first place, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) appears to be a successful way to accomplish prevention among people who acquire the infection through sexual activity.

    April 18, 2023
    PrEP
    Breaking Med

  • Treatment as Prevention Works: HIV infections down by 66 percent in NSW and Victoria

    Increasing treatment access and reducing undiagnosed infections is vital for combatting HIV, UNSW researchers have shown. A 10-year study into the impact of HIV "treatment as prevention" has found that a 27 percent increase in people accessing effective HIV treatment saw HIV infections decrease by 66 percent between 2010 to 2019, in NSW and Victoria.

    April 17, 2023
    Treatment
    Medical Xpress

  • A ‘Morning-After Pill’ for Sexually Transmitted Infections Is Almost Here

    Medicine may be about to achieve a long-sought goal: a “morning-after pill” to prevent sexually transmitted infections. It could sharply reduce soaring rates of illness and huge health care costs. The effectiveness of this pill—and it literally is a pill, a 200-milligram tablet of the antibiotic doxycycline—has been studied for a decade, and people have taken it covertly for years.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    Wired

  • Patient Navigators Help MSM Engage With HIV Care in Uganda, but Anti-Gay Bill Threatens Progress

    Men who have sex with men (MSM) recently diagnosed with HIV in Uganda experienced challenges in accessing care but benefited greatly from the support of patient navigators, according to a recent study published in PLOS Global Public Health. The researchers found that the men experienced social, emotional, and financial challenges that placed them at risk of dropping off the HIV care continuum. However, patient navigators empowered them with resources and information about HIV to overcome their fears, which helped them attend medical appointments and adhere to their treatment.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    aidsmap

  • Thousands Take Part in Marathon in Uganda To Promote HIV/AIDS Awareness

    Thousands of people took part in a Sunday marathon in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, aimed at promoting HIV/AIDS awareness as the country expects to end the scourge by 2030. The marathon, also known as the Kabaka Birthday Run, was themed "The Fight to End HIV/AIDS by 2030", which attracted sponsorship from the government, the corporate world, cultural leaders, and various individuals from the entertainment industry.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    The Star

  • Australia on Track To Become One of First Countries in World To Eliminate HIV

    A 10-year study has found that Australia could become one of the first countries to “virtually eliminate” HIV transmissions, with new infections decreasing dramatically. The findings, published in Lancet HIV, showed that HIV infections decreased by 66 per cent between 2010 and 2019 in New South Wales and Victoria, while there was a 27 per cent rise in people accessing effective HIV treatment.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    PinkNews

  • Threat to Affordable Care Act's Preventive Coverage Puts Public Health at Risk

    A broad range of preventive health services provided at no cost to patients — one of the most critically important aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — is now in jeopardy following a federal judge’s ruling inBraidwood Management Inc. v. Becerra. This deeply flawed decision flies in the face of sound public health policy, and the human, financial, and societal costs of establishing barriers to preventive services are immeasurable.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    Advocate

  • Federal HIV Funding Rerouted to Nonprofits, Bypasses Tennessee Health Department Entirely

    Nearly three months after the Tennessee Health Department said it would no longer accept and distribute federal funding for HIV prevention-related services, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will now reroute some of the funding through a Nashville-based nonprofit organization.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    The Tennessean

  • Most People Who Died of Mpox in the US Were Black Gay Men With Advanced HIV

    Of the 38 people who have died of mpox (the new name for monkeypox) in the United States, most were Black cisgender men who have sex with men, and among those with a known HIV status, all had AIDS, usually with a CD4 count below 50, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis published last week in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

    April 17, 2023
    General
    aidsmap

  • South Africa Has the Highest HIV/AIDS Rates Globally

    Regrettably, a much-needed focus on sexual health in South Africa has been eclipsed by discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic and renewed efforts are urgently needed to kick-start the process. Failure to do so is likely to exacerbate current problems of contraction and transmission and lead to a new generation of affliction and debilitation – and the humanitarian, social and economic costs will be difficult to bear.

    April 16, 2023
    General
    The Citizen

  • Gareth Thomas: ‘I Will Be a Voice for People With HIV. I Won’t Be Derailed’

    Gareth Thomas isn’t sure where to start. Or, rather, if he should even try to. Mum, Yvonne, warned against it before he left Bridgend yesterday. The publicist now hovering in earshot seems unconvinced. Yet here the two of us are on a wintery March morning: sitting in a west London hotel lobby, to discuss a relationship he was in 10 years ago. His sex life, specifically. In how much detail remains uncertain.

    April 16, 2023
    General
    The Guardian

  • 10-Year Study Shows Sustainable HIV Reductions with Combined Treatment and Prevention Strategies

    Increasing treatment access and reducing undiagnosed infections is vital for combating HIV, a world first study co-led by the Kirby and Burnet Institutes has found. A 10-year study into the impact of HIV ‘treatment as prevention’ found that a 27 percent increase in people accessing effective HIV treatment saw HIV infections decrease by 66 percent between 2010 to 2019 in NSW and Victoria.

    April 15, 2023
    Treatment
    Mirage News

  • US Sees Concerning Rise in STIs, Congenital Syphilis With No Signs of Slowing

    New CDC data shows a surge of sexually transmitted infections in the US in recent years. The most significant rise is in syphilis and congenital syphilis, which occurs when mothers pass on the infection to their babies during pregnancy. Dr. Irene Stafford, an OB/GYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist at UT Health Houston, joins Ali Rogin to discuss what can be done to address this.

    April 15, 2023
    General
    PBS

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