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President Obama discusses Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic with president of Botswana

President Barack Obama met with Botswana's president, Ian Khama, on Thursday to discuss issues facing the country, including the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, Bloomberg reports (Johnston, 11/5).

6 Nov 2009

Gonorrhea medication may help fight cancer

Drugs sometimes have beneficial side effects. A glaucoma treatment causes luscious eyelashes. A blood pressure drug also aids those with a rare genetic disease. The newest surprise discovered by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is a gonorrhea medication that might help battle cancer.

6 Nov 2009

National Institutes of Health grants $6-million for brain disease research

Brown University, in collaboration with two other institutions, has been awarded a five-year, $6-million National Institutes of Health program project grant to help determine how a virus that can cause a rare brain disease attaches to host cells.

6 Nov 2009

Californians who lose jobs find health care safety net badly frayed

In this article for Kaiser Health News, Janet Wilson focuses on California and reports on how the safety net is fraying as economic woes take their toll on state budgets. "With a nip here and a slash there, California's budget crisis is now affecting health care for millions of residents, from wealthy Orange County to the struggling city of Oakland.

6 Nov 2009

ART as part of HIV prevention strategy supported by WHO

"AIDS drugs should be given to all who need them to reduce new infections, the World Health Organization said," following a three-day meeting on the topic of using antiretroviral therapy (ART) to help prevent the spread of HIV, Bloomberg reports. "Providing more antiretroviral drugs 'will achieve a significant transmission benefit,' Teguest Guerma, interim director of the WHO's AIDS department, said … 'In the past, there has been a false dichotomy between prevention and treatment. …'That is really what has been corrected. Prevention and treatment are two faces of the same coin'" (Bennett, 11/5).

6 Nov 2009

Grant awarded for research into a new treatment for methamphetamine addiction

Dr. Keith Flower - a research physician at the Addiction Pharmacology & Research Laboratory in San Francisco, CA - has been awarded a grant to investigate a new medication treatment for methamphetamine addiction. This grant has been awarded to California Pacific Medical Center's Research Institute through President Obama's AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009.

6 Nov 2009

UCSF HIV researchers receive two NIH grants to improve health of HIV positive patients

UCSF HIV researchers have received two NIH grants of $1 million each to study the use of web-based, patient controlled personal health records to improve health and HIV prevention outcomes for HIV positive patients.

6 Nov 2009

MSF calls for sustained commitment to global HIV/AIDS funding

During a press conference on Thursday, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned that the "global economic crisis and calls to commit funds to other health crises" threatened to undermine recent gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the Associated Press reports. MSF "says money for other health issues should be given in addition to money for [HIV/]AIDS" (11/5).

5 Nov 2009

Aging population need to be included in information technology, suggest psychologists

Technology is no longer what it used to be: Computers have replaced typewriters and landlines are in rapid decline. Technological advances are being made every day, making many of our lives easier and allowing information to be more accessible and available. However for some people, such as the aging population, technological progress can in fact be more limiting.

5 Nov 2009

PEPFAR expands efforts to improve health services worldwide through use of mobile devices

Fierce Mobile reports on the recent announcement that PEPFAR is teaming up with the United Nations Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Vodafone Foundation to be a founding member of the mHealth Alliance, "a group seeking to bring health services to the most remote corners of the globe using mobile networks and technologies." U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby announced the partnership during a keynote address last week at the inaugural mHealth Summit in Washington, D.C., according to the news service (Versel, 11/3).

4 Nov 2009

Phase III study results on miconazole Lauriad presented by BioAlliance Pharma

BioAlliance Pharma SA, a company dedicated to the treatment and supportive care of cancer and AIDS patients, has presented results on miconazole Lauriad® at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) in Philadelphia (October 29 – November 1st).

4 Nov 2009

AMFm subsidized malaria drugs to be delivered soon

Subsidized artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) under the Affordable Medicines Facility - malaria (AMFm) program will be available in select countries "in two week's time," SABC News reports. The announcement came Monday at the 5th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan-African Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

4 Nov 2009

Kaiser Permanente to host 2009 National Diversity Conference in San Francisco

Kaiser Permanente will host its 2009 National Diversity Conference November 4-6 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

4 Nov 2009

People with disabilities to attend free, three-day expo and conference

The anticipation for Abilities Expo Atlanta (www.abilitiesexpo.com) has been building for months. Thousands of people with disabilities, their families, caregivers and healthcare professionals are expected to attend this free, three-day expo and conference taking place Friday, November 6, through Sunday, November 8, 2009 at the Cobb Galleria Convention Center (Event hours: Friday 11:00 am - 5:00 pm, Saturday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, Sunday 11:00 am - 5:00 pm).

4 Nov 2009

Tinnitus patients need more support and advice on healthcare options

As many as one in seven people will experience tinnitus, or ringing in their ears, at some time of their life, but not enough is being done to support patients who experience this distressing condition, according to an extensive research review in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

4 Nov 2009

Experts team up to measure the hearing of people with AIDS

Specialists in HIV and in hearing at the University of Rochester Medical Center are teaming up to measure the hearing of people with AIDS.

4 Nov 2009

R&D of HIV treatments at crossroads

IP Overview HIV Therapy 2009” ( www.frinnov.fr/en/ip-overview/sciences-de-la-vie/hiv-therapy-2.html ) establishes a panorama of the patents claiming “HIV and AIDS treatments” and analyses the key and emerging thematic and the strategic positions of the actors involved in this sector. In order to fully analyze this field, the information coming from 6800 published patents and patent applications was aggregated.

4 Nov 2009

News outlets examine first World Pneumonia Day

To mark the first World Pneumonia Day, Inter Press Service examines how vaccines and other strategies can be used to combat the disease, which kills more children under age 5 each year "than measles, malaria, and AIDS combined, according to the Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia."

4 Nov 2009

GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer formally launch company to develop new HIV treatments

Pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Pfizer on Tuesday formally launched ViiV Healthcare, a company focused on the development of new HIV treatments, Dow Jones Newswires/SmartMoney.com reports (11/3).

3 Nov 2009

Health affairs issue focuses on HIV/AIDS, NTDs

By 2031 developing countries could need an estimated $35 billion to fight HIV/AIDS - three times the amount currently spent, according to a Health Affairs study published Tuesday, the New York Times reports.

3 Nov 2009