Science Speaks: HIV & TB News

More complete data on PEPFAR results needed, says second GAO treatment report

Antigone Barton — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:58:35 +0000

The second of two reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office reviewing HIV treatment efforts suppported by the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief concludes that incomplete information on the results of those efforts will interfere with accurately evaluating partner countries’ abilities to sustain treatment programs. The GAO also has produced a report on PEPFAR [...]

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GAO report highlights complexities of analyzing PEPFAR treatment costs

Antigone Barton — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:48:00 +0000

With the groundwork for treatment provided through the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief having been laid in the first expensive years of country programs, with the purchases of generic antiretroviral drugs, and with economies of scale as the numbers of people enrolled in treatment increased, PEPFAR has reduced per patient treatment costs in recent [...]

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Report highlights cycle of deficits: with scant funding to fight HIV among gay men, missing data leads to missing response, and . . . scant funding

Antigone Barton — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:34:38 +0000

You can only imagine the impact of the HIV epidemic on men who have sex with men in a country where institutionalized discrimination, bias and abuse is so extreme that sex between men is a felony that can lead to life in prison. You can only imagine, because in such an environment the data is [...]

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Discrimination, neglect and HIV incidence — we’re reading why every day should be International Day Against Homophobia

Antigone Barton — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:05:38 +0000

While the immense accomplishments of the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the governments that have worked with them have seen drops in HIV incidence as high as 73 percent in southern Africa, the benefits of these successes are not shared equally . . .

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HPTN researchers: Don’t forget family planning in HIV prevention

Rabita Aziz — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:50:33 +0000

With pregnant women facing higher chances of acquiring HIV and greater dangers of life-threatening complications as a result of HIV, in addition to risks of passing the virus to their children, some of the most ambitious and promising developments in HIV prevention will be those that allow women to protect themselves both from the virus and from unplanned pregnancies, researchers at the HPTN annual meeting said.

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As sequestration strikes disease fighting efforts, Defense Department’s role in global health is little understood

Antigone Barton — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:56:14 +0000

With a role in global health responses and research so extensive that a chart outlining its efforts looks a little like a maze, the United States Department of Defense has to ground itself in "institutional humility" to integrate the roles of fellow agencies and foreign partners in international disease-fighting efforts, as one speaker put it.

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HPTN Annual Meeting: Superinfection raises questions, offers insights

Antigone Barton — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:01:10 +0000

What would people living with HIV do differently if they knew that they could be infected again, with a new strain, that could complicate both their disease, and their treatment?

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What We’re Reading: Cutting aid, cutting human rights, cutting disease-fighting efforts, and more . . .

Antigone Barton — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:30:20 +0000

UK to cut direct aid to South Africa – AIDS Alliance Response: While news that Britain plans to end direct aid to South Africa by 2015 was met with concern in opinion columns around the world, this piece from AIDS Alliance spells out why this will risk investments in the HIV response to date: the [...]

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HPTN Annual Meeting: Is “PopART” research, or just good health practice?

Antigone Barton — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:55:08 +0000

It sounds obvious, urgent, and ambitious: Make HIV counseling and testing as well as links to subsequent care and prevention services universally available, and watch the numbers of new infections drop steeply. Increasingly, Richard Hayes of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said Monday, it also sounds practical.

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HPTN Annual Meeting: The story of Project Accept one of both process and results

Antigone Barton — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:40:09 +0000

The HIV Prevention Trials Network is holding its annual meeting in Washington, DC this week, and Science Speaks is there, covering Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday sessions. As Tom Coates was getting ready to discuss the results of Project Accept, a 10-year study of the impact of community involvement HIV efforts on community-wide HIV incidence, he [...]

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