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Do not overlook people with disabilities in HIV prevention efforts

Winstone Zulu, an adviser for AIDS-Free World and the coordinator of Health Triangle Zambia who walks with crutches because of a polio infection as a child, writes in a New York Times opinion piece that people with disabilities are rarely exposed to sex education and are almost never considered in need of information about H.I.V. and treatment for it.

21 Jun 2011

IPS examines U.N. Security Council's dealings with 'non-security' issues

Inter Press Service examines the changing scope of the U.N. Security Council.

21 Jun 2011

Government and private sector must work together on HIV vaccine

The success of antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS "has fooled us into believing HIV is under control. It is not. … The fact remains that no sexually acquired infection has ever been controlled in democratic societies except by vaccines," Lawrence Corey, president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and principal investigator of the international HIV Vaccine Trials Network, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

21 Jun 2011

Michelle Obama heads to Africa

"U.S. first lady Michelle Obama left for Africa on Sunday, embarking on her second official solo journey abroad with a goal of advancing U.S. policies on education, health, and democracy," Reuters reports. Obama is due to arrive in South Africa on Monday, "where she will make stops in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Later in the week she will visit Botswana," the news service notes.

21 Jun 2011

CDT biomarker poor, inaccurate method for detecting unhealthy drinking in HIV-infected adults

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that among HIV-infected adults with alcohol problems, measuring their carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) biomarker was a poor and inaccurate method for detecting unhealthy drinking.

21 Jun 2011

Public-private partnerships leading to successes in HIV treatment and prevention

The recent achievements in studies looking at treatment as prevention "were only made possible by the partnership between publicly funded scientists and private drug companies," Ward Cates, president of research at FHI; Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa; and Myron Cohen, director of the UNC Division of Infectious Disease and the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Disease, write in an opinion piece in the Huffington Post.

21 Jun 2011

Viewpoints: Compromises on fixing Medicare?; 'progress' on AIDS; working families falling behind

Fixing Medicare should not compromise patient care. The president's health care bill created the controversial Independent Payment Advisory Board. This panel of unelected bureaucrats, whose sole purpose is to decide whether to offer Medicare benefits based on a budget, could lead to government rationing of care.

21 Jun 2011

Adequate midwifery could save 3.6 million lives, new report shows

Up to 3.6 million deaths could be avoided each year in 58 developing countries if midwifery services are upgraded by 2015, according to a major new report released here today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and partners.

20 Jun 2011

Mother and baby cytomegalovirus screening important to prevent consequences

According to health experts, pregnant women and newborns should be screened for a virus that causes brain damage and deafness. The study that appeared in the latest issue of The Medical Journal of Australia yesterday says hundreds of cases of cytomegalovirus (CMV) are likely being missed each year in Australia because of a lack of screening, denying babies treatment for the condition.

19 Jun 2011

Additional funding announced for PEPFAR programs in Africa

In a post on State's "DipNote" blog, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby describes accompanying Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Africa.

18 Jun 2011

Report outlines lessons from AIDS advocates

A new report from the consulting firm HCM Strategists and the nonprofit group FasterCures "analyzes the factors that helped patient advocates drive research into and drug development for HIV/AIDS, and tries to figure out whether there are lessons to be learned for other disease advocates," the Wall Street Journal's "Health Blog" writes.

18 Jun 2011

Integrating AIDS fight with other global health efforts is next step

An "invisible turning point" in the fight against HIV/AIDS recently occurred: "the realisation that simply strengthening the vertical programme that is AIDS has to end. The new opportunity is integration," a Lancet editorial states.

18 Jun 2011

Technology aids in maintaining quality of life in aging

Dorothy Rutherford is anxiously typing at her home computer, filling in answers to an online spelling game. Gerontologists say aging in place vastly improves the quality of life for seniors and is a lot cheaper for society than group homes and institutions.

18 Jun 2011

Civil unrest creates serious health implications in South Sudan

BMJ reports on the health affects of civil unrest in South Sudan, which will become the world's newest country on July 9.

17 Jun 2011

University of Leicester, Wellcome Trust curate AIDS poster exhibition at New Walk Museum

Images from around the world of the most serious epidemic in history are to go on public display in Leicester. Spreading the Word: AIDS Posters from Around the World is the exhibition curated by University of Leicester academic Dr Sarah Graham, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust. It takes place at the New Walk Museum from 15 July -28 August.

17 Jun 2011

AFP says battle against AIDS not over in India

Though the country has reduced by half the number of new infections since 2001, "UNAIDS coordinator in India, Charles Gilks, said that while the authorities should be commended for tackling the problem, the country had not yet won the battle," the news agency reports.

16 Jun 2011

Panel discusses funding for universal access to HIV treatment

The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog includes a summary of a recent Global Fund meeting on HIV financing. "The most dynamic and passionate remarks came from Morolake Odetoyinbo, CEO of the non-governmental organization Positive Action for Treatment Access in Nigeria and a woman living with HIV/AIDS. She argued that African nations were not doing enough to use their resources to care for their own people," according to the post.

15 Jun 2011

Local misconceptions of children's immune systems hindering HIV treatment in Malawi, study says

Some caregivers in rural Malawi have expressed a reluctance to begin antiretroviral therapy for children living with HIV because of a belief that their "bodies were too weak for pills and their blood was 'still raw,' but that as it 'ripened' with time, HIV-related opportunistic infections would leave them," according to a study presented this week at the 1st International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference in Durban, South Africa, PlusNews reports.

15 Jun 2011

Roundup: Conn.'s 'moderate' Medicaid cuts; Calif. adult day care threatened; disabled face 'unclear futures'

The national Center for Reproductive Rights filed a federal lawsuit Monday to halt implementation of the requirements that women wanting an abortion must have a sonogram and hear a detailed description of the fetus. The group called the mandates patronizing and an intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship.

15 Jun 2011

U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS declaration sets new targets in fight against disease

World leaders on Friday at the U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS adopted by consensus a declaration stating that HIV is "an unprecedented human catastrophe" and set new targets in the fight against the disease, the Associated Press/Forbes reports.

14 Jun 2011