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Campaign to elicit donations for health projects from airline travelers winds down amid funding woes

The Switzerland-based Millennium Foundation, a UNITAID-funded campaign to solicit donations for health projects from airline travelers, "is being wound down after spending nearly $20 million to generate less than $300,000 over the past four years," the Financial Times reports.

2 Mar 2012

Budget cuts threaten global health progress, advocacy group warns in report

The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) -- consisting of 40 global health research and advocacy organizations -- on Tuesday held a congressional briefing to launch its third annual policy report, titled "Sustaining Progress: Creating U.S. policies to spur global health innovation," GlobalPost's "Global Pulse" blog reports (Donnelly, 2/28).

1 Mar 2012

'Global leadership' through foreign assistance is 'strategic imperative' for U.S.

"[T]oday, with the national debt approaching $14.7 trillion, Americans rightly demand fiscal responsibility. Yet efforts in Congress to cut billions from the president's proposed budget for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are short-sighted," Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

1 Mar 2012

CD4 T cells can directly kill HIV-infected cells

A subpopulation of the immune cells targeted by HIV may play an important role in controlling viral loads after initial infection, potentially helping to determine how quickly infection will progress. In the February 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard describe finding a population of HIV-specific CD4 T cells - cells traditionally thought to direct and support activities of other immune cells - that can directly kill HIV-infected cells.

1 Mar 2012

China's AIDS Action Plan calls for education, condom distribution to stem spread of HIV

China's State Council, or cabinet, on Wednesday "published the country's AIDS Action Plan for the 12th Five-Year Program period (2011-2015) on the website of the Chinese government," Xinhua/China.org.cn reports.

1 Mar 2012

Republican presidential candidate Santorum could be beneficial to global health programs if elected president

In the Republican campaign for the presidential nomination, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), "the most religiously conservative candidate, surprisingly, is the most fervent advocate for U.S. global health diplomacy," Jack Chow, former U.S. ambassador on global HIV/AIDS and former assistant director-general of WHO on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, writes in a Foreign Policy opinion piece.

1 Mar 2012

FDA revises safety information on statin labels

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it is revising safety information on the labels of some statins (cholesterol lowering drugs).

1 Mar 2012

Group requests more research, better communication from WHO on use of hormonal contraceptives, HIV risk

"The International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) expressed concern Monday over the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Technical Statement on Hormonal Contraceptives and HIV and its accompanying press release," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports.

1 Mar 2012

First clinical assessment of how interferon fights infections in people

A drug once taken by people with HIV/AIDS but long ago shelved after newer, modern antiretroviral therapies became available has now shed light on how the human body uses its natural immunity to fight the virus—work that could help uncover new targets for drugs.

1 Mar 2012

HIV treatment to be extended to asylum seekers in UK

Now foreign nationals are to be offered free treatment for HIV under the NHS under plans backed by the government. Campaigners say the move in England will reduce the risk of Britons being infected and cut the costs of more expensive later treatment. Currently only British residents are eligible, which excludes migrants.

29 Feb 2012

Novartis defends challenge to Indian medicines patent law

Pharmaceutical company Novartis "has spoken out following criticism about its challenge to India's patent laws, insisting that access to life-saving drugs is not under peril by the move," Pharma Times World News reports. The case, which the Indian Supreme Court is scheduled to hear next month, challenges "Indian patent law, notably Section 3(d), which states that a modification of a known chemical composition is non-patentable," the news service writes.

29 Feb 2012

Breakthrough discovery about Rhizobium radiobacter

A new discovery involving two Simon Fraser University scientists could lead to a little known and benign bacterium becoming a vital new tool in the development of a vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus.

29 Feb 2012

Examining link between 'power structures,' disease spread through study of incarceration, HIV treatment

In this Open Society Foundations (OSF) blog post, Daniel Wolfe, director of the International Harm Reduction Development Program at OSF, examines "the ways that power structures, rather than individuals, contribute to disease rebound and spread," citing a recent study by MJ Milloy and colleagues, published in the journal JAIDS, "which shows the link between incarceration and the failure of HIV treatment."

29 Feb 2012

Health indicator reports show more HIV-positive South Africans receiving care but costs increasing

Two new reports from southern Africa's Health Systems Trust show that pregnant women, infants, and people newly diagnosed with HIV infection are receiving more services, but the costs of care are increasing, PlusNews reports.

29 Feb 2012

TMED7 protein can shut down immune system after infection has been cleared

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a new 'off switch' in our immune response which could be boosted in diseases caused by over-activation of our immune system, or blocked to improve vaccines.

29 Feb 2012

WUSM to study children with weakened immune systems

Not all viruses make us sick. But which ones are friends and which ones are foes? Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a five-year, $3.3 million grant to study children with weakened immune systems to identify the viruses that make children sick.

29 Feb 2012

IDWeek 2012 to take place October 17-21 in San Diego

Abstracts are now being accepted for IDWeek 2012, the first-ever combined meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS).

29 Feb 2012

Swaziland looking to shore up funding for AIDS treatment, testing supplies

"Cash-strapped Swaziland is struggling to fund its HIV programs, and experts are warning of long-term damage to treatment and prevention schemes if steps are not taken to ring-fence funding and supplies," the Mail & Guardian reports.

28 Feb 2012

Examining HIV/AIDS in Zambian prisons

In this post in PSI's "Healthy Living" blog, Mannasseh Phiri, PSI's country representative in Zambia, examines HIV/AIDS in Zambian prisons. Phiri reports the findings of a survey recently conducted by the IN BUT FREE (IBF) Prisons Project "to determine the extent and magnitude of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Zambia's prisons."

28 Feb 2012

Scripps Florida receives NIH grant to create novel HIV inhibitors

A Scripps Florida team has been awarded nearly $1.5 million by the National Institutes of Health to identify and develop novel potent inhibitors of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS.

27 Feb 2012