What if by taking a pill every day, all 33 million HIV-infected people in the world could not only fend off the deterioration of their own health, but also reduce their chances of infecting uninfected sex partners by 96 %? This is the prospect that is offered by newly announced results of the HPTN 052 trial. (See the Kaiser Foundation report here, the UNAIDS announcement here
UNAIDS, WHO, PEPFAR and the Global Fund for AIDS TB and Malaria (GFATM) all depend on long-run projections in order to make the case for increased attention and financing for AIDS. This dependency is a response to the reality that HIV is a slow epidemic with extraordinary “momentum”. Even small changes in the course of new infections require years to implement and have health and fiscal consequences for decades thereafter. According to the UNAIDS web site, “[s]ince 2001, the UNAIDS Secretariat have le
About a year ago the Institute of Medicine assembled a committee of 12 to advise the US on the implications for its policy towards Africa of the long-term burden of AIDS there. The two co-chairs of the committee, Tom Quinn and David Serwadda, will release the report findings to the press on Monday, November 27 here in DC, and I will help them respond to questions from the press and public. A formal description of the committee’s mandate and a complete list of the committee members can be found here. If you would
Here in Vienna, at the crossroads of Europe, 20,000 people from 185 countries have gathered for the 18th International AIDS Conference. The Austrian physician who chairs the conference, Dr.
Should AIDS treatment be viewed as a complement to HIV prevention or as an alternative? AIDS activists have strongly argued that HIV prevention is impossible without AIDS treatment, that the two interventions are strong complements. Their principal evidence for this claim is the demonstrable fact that the presence of AIDS treatment increases the demand for HIV testing.