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HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice #2, 27 March 2003
A regular electronic newsletter for health care workers and community-based organisations on HIV treatment in resource-limited settings. It is supported by and produced in collaboration with St Stephen's AIDS Trust and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.

Its publication is also supported by Positive Action of GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim and the Access 4 Trust.
   Last updated: 18.06.04
IN THIS ISSUE
About HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice
News links from www.aidsmap.com
Nevirapine-based fixed-dose combination ARVs (main feature)

NEWS LINKS FROM WWW.AIDSMAP.COM
A selection of news stories which have appeared since 13 March 2003.

'Inspirational' Nkosi Johnson honoured by London HIV clinic
  • At a special naming and dedication ceremony held this morning the HIV

clinic at the West London Centre for Sexual Health was relaunched as the
Nkosi Johnson unit.

Adherence the factor most associated with HIV suppression in semen
  • Poor adherence was the single factor most likely to result in HIV being

detectable in the semen of men taking anti-HIV drugs in a Brazilian study
published in the April 2003 edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes.

Investment funds tell drug companies to improve treatment access for
poorest countries
  • A coalition of UK and European investment funds with $943 billion under

management are calling on pharmaceutical companies to take swift steps to
ensure that poor countries have access to essential medicines.

Is a liver biopsy really needed in an HIV/HCV patient?
  • Liver biopsies, the "gold standard" for reaching treatment decisions

for people coinfected with HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) may be unnecessary in
the majority of cases as tests on biochemical markers can, in most cases,
give an indication of liver damage according to two recent studies.

Pakistani and Afghani drug users at high HIV risk
  • The majority of Pakistani and Afghani male drug injectors lack basic

knowledge of HIV and the risk factors that lead to infection, according to
a study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The researchers found that only 16 percent of the study participants were
aware of the existence of HIV or AIDS.

Testing and conselling increases condom use in HIV-discordant couples, but unsafe sex under-reported
  • Voluntary HIV testing and counselling was associated with a substantial

increase in self-reported condom use amongst HIV-discordant heterosexual
couples in a study conducted by the University of Alabama and University
of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia. However, the study, which is published in the
28th March 2003 edition of AIDS, also showed that biological markers were
able to detect widespread under-reporting of unprotected sex.

Women do just as well as men on HAART, major cohort reports
  • Men and women do equally well on HAART according to data from the

EuroSIDA cohort published in the 1st April 2003 edition of the Journal of
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (now available online).

South African HIV treatment activists start civil disobedience programme
  • HIV treatment activists in South Africa are using the civil

disobedience tactics employed by the governing ANC to bring down the
apartheid regime to highlight the refusal of the ruling party to provide
anti-HIV drugs.

AIDS in Africa: WHO & UNAIDS reaffirm unsafe sex as main mode of
transmission
  • Last Friday (14th March) the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hosted an expert
consultation which addressed issues related to unsafe injection practices
and HIV in healthcare contexts and evaluated the relative contribution of
unsafe injections to HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa.

Alcohol increases SIV 64-fold in monkeys: implications for HIV transmission

HIV main infectious cause of death amongst pregnant South African women
  • HIV is the leading infectious cause of death amongst pregnant women in

South Africa, according to a report recently released by the country's
health ministry.



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