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HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice #16, 23 October 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
Main article: Palliative Care for People with HIV and AIDS (part one of two)

NEWS LINKS FROM WWW.AIDSMAP.COM
A selection of news stories which have appeared since 9 October 2003

Grand Challenges offer opportunities for HIV research funding
  • The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a grant of US $200 million to challenge the scientific community to address a global public health research agenda. This is defined as a series of 14 'Grand Challenges' with one aim being, to encourage researchers who have not traditionally been active in public health to work on these issues. There is a deliberate echo of occasions when mathematicians, for example, have defined the main outstanding problems in a field in ways that have then led to the development of many new techniques.


GSK gives pan-Africa license to South African firm
  • Glaxo Smith Kline has announced that Aspen Health Care, the South African generic drug manufacturer, has been granted voluntary licenses for three of the company's antiretrovirals that will allow Aspen to supply the drugs throughout sub-Saharan Africa.


Global Fund approves $359 million for AIDS
  • The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, meeting today in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has approved $359 million in new funds over two years for programmes to prevent and treat HIV in the developing world. Grants totaling $623 million were approved this week.


Despite high rates of TB in HIV-positives, TB rates stable in HIV-negative S Africans with TB risk
  • TB rates remained static amongst HIV-negative gold miners, a population at high risk of the disease, during a period when TB prevalence generally has increased four-fold, according to investigators writing in the October 15th edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The reduced infectious period of TB in HIV-positive individuals, due to rapid disease progression, means that there are few cases of secondary infection in HIV-negative individuals, according to the investigators.


BHIVA preparing HIV/TB treatment guidelines - comments sought
  • Comments are being sought by the British HIV Association (BHIVA) on draft guidelines for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in HIV-positive individuals.


HIV-positive Africans as likely to access and benefit from HAART as Europeans in Swiss Cohort
  • HIV-positive migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to Switzerland are just as likely as northern Europeans to access HAART and benefit from anti-HIV therapy, according to data published in the October 17th edition of AIDS.


Vatican says HIV can pass through condoms
  • Dangerous misinformation about the lack of effectiveness of condoms is being spread from the highest levels of the Roman Catholic church throughout resource-limited countries, according to the BBC programme, Panorama.


Condoms close to 100% effective, says EU in Vatican rebuttal
  • The Vatican has today come under fire from the European Union's executive arm, the European Commission, after widespread media coverage, reported here on aidsmap, of their misinformation regarding the lack of efficacy of condoms for preventing HIV transmission.


AZT and nevirapine after birth reduce HIV transmission
  • Giving a single dose of nevirapine and a week's worth of AZT treatment after birth significantly reduces the risk of HIV infection for a child whose mother is not treated during pregnancy or labour when compared with nevirapine alone, according to findings from the NVAZ trial published this week in The Lancet.


Uncircumcised Indian men have 8 times higher HIV risk
  • Uncircumcised men have an eight fold higher risk of becoming infected with HIV compared to circumcised men, according to a study of 2298 Indian men presented on Thursday at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America by Dr Steven Reynolds of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.


Quarter of women with undetectable viral load have HIV in genital fluids
  • A quarter of HIV-positive women with an undetectable HIV viral load in their blood still had detectable HIV in their vaginal secretions, according to Italian research published in the October edition of AIDS.


Sexual transmission of HCV not seen in US women's HIV cohort
  • A large US study has found that very few HIV-positive women become coinfected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) after an HIV diagnosis. Writing in the November 15th edition of Clinical Infectious Disease, which is now available online, investigators also note that past or current drug use is by far the strongest risk factor for infection with HCV, and that a sizeable minority of women who do contract HCV will naturally clear the virus. Although several recent studies involving HIV-positive gay men have suggested that HCV may be more readily transmitted during sex than previous thought, the US investigators found no evidence of the sexual transmission of HCV in the women enrolled in their study.


Unusual abacavir hypersensitivity reported - initially diagnosed as throat infection
  • An unusual presentation of abacavir hypersensitivity reaction is reported in the November 7th edition of AIDS. The allergic reaction to abacavir closely resembled tonsillitis and was initially treated as such, and was accompanied by abnormal liver function.


Don't use tenofovir, ddI, 3TC combination warns Gilead
  • The manufacturer of the nucleotide analogue tenofovir (Viread) has written to doctors in the US warning them not to use the drug in combination with the NRTIs ddI and 3TC after a 24 week pilot study showed that patients using this combination experienced a high rate of virological failure and NRTI resistance.


Gilead issues tenofovir/ddI/3TC warning for European doctors - follows US warning last week
  • In agreement with the European Union's medicine regulatory body, the manufacturer of the nucleotide analogue tenofovir (VireadTM)has written to doctors in the UK and Ireland warning them not to use the drug with ddI and 3TC as a new HAART regimen in treatment naïve or experienced patients.




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