CROI: Married people should be primary target for HIV prevention in Uganda, national study shows
Uganda has undergone a striking change in the profile of people becoming newly infected, with older and married individuals now making up the vast majority of new infections, according to findings from a national study of HIV incidence conducted in 2004-5 and presented last week at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: MDR TB cases in South Africa - person-to-person spread likely to be chief cause
Further evidence that infection control in South African hospitals is vital for containment of the country’s growing epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis was presented to the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections on Wednesday, with the finding that every case of multi-drug resistant TB analysed in one rural hospital was the result of re-infection, not poor drug adherence.
Read More >>
CROI: Symptom checklist may help rule out advanced HIV in infants
Infants suffering from at least two of the following symptoms - oral thrush, swollen lymph nodes, nappy rash, weight in the bottom ten per cent of all children, enlarged liver or spleen, or gastric reflux – are more likely to be suffering advanced HIV disease, according to a review of clinical symptoms in a South African study of children with confirmed HIV infection designed to help doctors spot children in need of immediate treatment where HIV DNA testing and CD4 counting is not readily available.
Read More >>
CROI: HAART Breastfeeding study detects drug resistance in HIV-infected infants
Although studies have shown that taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) while breastfeeding significantly reduces the chances that HIV-infected mothers will transmit the virus to their infants, the babies who are infected (and not put on ART soon enough or left untreated) may be at risk of developing resistance to some of the antiretroviral drugs the mother is taking, according to a late-breaker presentation Tuesday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Door-to-door Ugandan VCT programme finds more HIV-positive males than females among serodiscordant couples
Home-based, voluntary counselling and testing has found that over 2% of cohabiting couples in the Bushenyi region of Uganda are serodiscordant for HIV. The men in these partnerships are more likely than the women to be HIV-positive, and condom use in these couples is very low, according to a presentation to the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston on Wednesday.
Read More >>
CROI: Tenofovir plus emtricitabine safe and effective when added to nevirapine for PMTCT
Addition of one week of postpartum treatment with tenofovir and emtricitabine to single dose nevirapine given at childbirth was safe and prevented the emergence of nevirapine resistance in mothers, according to the findings of a small pilot study presented this week at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Large cohorts show excellent responses to ART in developing countries
The positive impacts of antiretroviral programmes in several African countries and other resource-poor areas were highlighted in a series of oral presentations to the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston on Wednesday. These studies, which represent some of the first longer-term data on treatment response in low-income countries, pointed toward successes in patient retention, immune recovery, and reductions in mortality.
Read More >>
CROI: Untreated HIV-positive individuals have a higher risk of death even at CD4 counts over 350
Even with CD4 counts above 350 cells/mm3, untreated HIV-positive individuals have an increased risk of death compared with the general population, according to data presented on Wednesday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Three children in US infected with HIV from pre-chewed food
Three cases of HIV infection in small children in the United States are being linked to the practice of pre-chewing solid food before giving it to small children. In each case the children appear to have been exposed to blood from the mouth of an adult caregiver, investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control reported on Wednesday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Herpes virus suppression with valaciclovir lowers viral load in HIV positive women: could work for gay men too
A small study in Lima, Peru has found that giving the drug valaciclovir to women who are co-infected with HIV and genital herpes (HSV-2) significantly reduced the amount of HIV they had both in their blood and in their genital tract, as well as reducing the frequency and amount of HSV-2 virus shed.
Read More >>
CROI: Delaying HAART while treating opportunistic infections increases the risk of disease progression and death
Waiting to start combination antiretroviral therapy until after treatment of acute opportunistic or bacterial infections is associated with an increased risk of death compared with immediate HAART, according to a presentation Wednesday at the at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Sustained response to hepatitis C treatment lowers liver complications and death in HIV/HCV coinfected people
HIV/HCV coinfected people who achieve sustained response to hepatitis C treatment have a decreased long-term risk of liver-related complications and death, researchers reported Monday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: People receiving TB treatment no more likely to die than others who start ARVs
People receiving treatment for pulmonary TB are no more likely to die if they start antiretroviral treatment than their counterparts without TB, according to findings from South Africa presented today at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston. The only exception to this finding is malnourished people with TB who start ART less than 30 days after starting TB treatment.
Read More >>
CROI: Darunavir found effective and tolerable in treatment-experienced children and adolescents at 24 weeks
Week 24 results from a study of darunavir (Prezista) in a treatment experienced, HIV-infected pediatric population have shown the drug to be virologically effective and generally well tolerated, with a pharmacokinetic profile comparable to that in treatment-experienced adults.
Read More >>
CROI: AIDS vaccine: additional infection risk restricted to uncircumcised men
The Merck ad5 candidate AIDS vaccine, which appears to have increased the HIV infection risk of some trial participants (see this report), may have done so because it specifically increased the vulnerability of uncircumcised men to infection through insertive anal sex, the Fifteenth Conference on Retrovirues and Opportunistic Infections was told today in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Extended infant nevirapine prophylaxis reduces HIV transmission through breastfeeding
Giving nevirapine prophylaxis to infants born to HIV-positive mothers for six to 14 weeks can reduce the risk of HIV infection through breastfeeding by half, according to findings from randomised studies conducted in Malawi, Ethiopia, India and Uganda presented on Monday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: HAART use in mothers substantially reduces HIV infections in breastfeeding infants in Kisumu, Kenya
In a Monday afternoon session at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, several investigators reported successes in preventing of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). In the Kisumu Breastfeeding Study, low rates of HIV infection were seen in children when mothers were kept on three-drug HAART regimens from late pregnancy through six months of breastfeeding.
Read More >>
CROI: Unplanned pregnancy frequent among women after starting ARVs, need for family planning
Unwanted or unplanned pregnancy is a significant risk for women with HIV within 18 months of starting antiretroviral therapy, and in Uganda few were being offered family planning methods in order to avoid pregnancy, researchers reported on Tuesday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: DAD cohort finds increased risk of heart attack in people taking abacavir or ddI
One of the more surprising reports at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston on Monday was that the nucleoside analogue abacavir (Ziagen) appears to increase the risk of myocardial infarction (MI), or heart attack, by 90%, and didanosine (ddI, Videx) by 49%, No such increase was seen with zidovudine (AZT), stavudine (d4T, Zerit), and the additional risk due to abacavir and ddI largely disappeared after the drugs were discontinued. These findings were drawn from the large, multi-cohort DAD observational study.
Read More >>
CROI: Lactobacillus supplementation could help reduce vaginal HIV
The composition of the vaginal microflora affects the viral load within the vaginal secretions of HIV-positive women, according to a late-breaking abstract presented on Monday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: ARV provision in Africa could cut HIV transmission by 90 per cent
The provision of antiretrovirals (ARVs), along with comprehensive sexual risk behaviour and ARV adherence support programmes, cut the risk of HIV transmission by 91% over a three year period in a study from eastern Uganda, the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections heard today in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Aciclovir treatment for genital herpes does not reduce HIV acquisition in men or women, major trial shows
Another study has confirmed that twice daily aciclovir treatment to suppress HSV-2 (the virus that causes genital herpes), does not reduce the risk of HIV infection. The findings, from the HIV Prevention Trials Network study 039 were presented on Monday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>
CROI: Circumcising HIV positive men may increase HIV infections in female partners, but fewer STIs seen
There was a trend towards higher HIV incidence in the wives of HIV positive men who were circumcised compared with wives of men left uncircumcised, in the latest prevention study conducted in Rakai province, Uganda, investigators revealed at a press conference on the opening day of the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
Read More >>