Microbicide Trials Network

Recent gains in the global fight against HIV/AIDS could be reversed as the "global economic downturn pinches poor countries' budgets and donors show signs of backing away from their promise to provide universal access to AIDS treatment," the British government together with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday, Reuters AlertNet reports...

The Senate Finance Committee's chair, Max Baucus (D-Mont.), and top Republican, Charles Grassley (Iowa), are working with colleagues in the House on legislation that would lower tariffs in an effort to help Haiti's apparel industry and help the country recover from the major January earthquake, CQ Politics reports...

New findings from a Université de Montréal and the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida (VGTI) study, in collaboration with scientists from the NIH and the McGill University Hospital Center, may soon lead to an expansion of the drug arsenal used to fight HIV. The Canada-U.S...

UCSF prevention experts have released the Positive Prevention Toolkit, a collection of resources designed to enable HIV/AIDS caregivers to provide prevention messages when interacting with HIV-positive patients. The goal is to help patients modify their behavior to reduce risk and decrease the spread of HIV...

During an appeal to government and private donors to pledge money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Monday, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe warned of the repercussions tightening budgets could play in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, the Associated Press reports...

2010 To Be 'Decisive Year' For Global Health, Global Fund Director Says In a BusinessDay opinion piece, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Michel Kazatchkine reflects on the organization's progress and impact on global health outcomes since its creation in 2002, as detailed in the organizations' 2010 annual report...

Heating Device Effectively Treats Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, Study Says "A heating device that uses radio frequency energy to heat parasites and kill them could provide a new way to treat ... cutaneous leishmaniasis in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, military researchers reported Monday," the Los Angeles Times' blog "Booster Shots" reports...

AIDS leaders gathering in London today face the daunting challenge of implementing new World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations for earlier treatment with better AIDS drug cocktails at a time when donors are backing away from the promise of "universal access," said Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)...

Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) infects nearly 100 percent of humans in early childhood, and the infection then lasts for the rest of a person's life...

Washington, D.C., soon will become the first city in the U.S. to distribute female condoms at no charge, the Washington Post reports...

New findings from a Universite de Montreal and the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida (VGTI) study, in collaboration with scientists from the NIH and the McGill University Health Center, may soon lead to an expansion of the drug arsenal used to fight HIV. The Canada-U.S...

In a Washington Post opinion piece on Sunday, freelance writer Jamie Rich examined the Cameroonian practice of breast ironing, in which women use heated plantain leaves or hot stones to "flatten adolescent girls' developing breasts, intending to protect the girls from the dangers of sex, consensual or otherwise...

By 2015, mother-to-child HIV transmission will be virtually eliminated and deaths from malaria and tuberculosis will continue to decline if health investments for the diseases are maintained or scaled up, according to an annual results report published Monday by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Agence France-Presse/Africasia.com reports (3/8)...

Researchers in the US have discovered that a latent form of HIV hides in progenitor cells in bone marrow, avoids detection by the immune system and retains the ability to reproduce and spread when the coast is clear (eg when treated people stop taking anti-HIV drugs)...

University of Michigan scientists have identified a new reservoir for hidden HIV-infected cells that can serve as a factory for new infections. The findings, which appear online March 7 in Nature Medicine, indicate a new target for curing the disease so those infected with the virus may someday no longer rely on AIDS drugs for a lifetime...

The Associated Press: "The time has come to change a policy that imposes a lifetime ban on donating blood for any man who has had gay sex since 1977, 18 senators said Thursday. ... The lawmakers stressed that the science has changed dramatically since the ban was established in 1983 at the advent of the HIV-AIDS crisis...

Despite being at high-risk for HIV infection, migrant workers in Southern Africa have a challenging time accessing HIV prevention and treatment services, according to a new study by the International Office of Migration (IOM), PANA/Afrique en ligne reports...

During the 39th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research, convening at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, lead researcher O.A. Gonzalez (University of Kentucky, Lexington) presented a poster of a study titled "TLR2 and TLR9 Activation by Periodontal Pathogens induce HIV-1 Reactivation." Although oral co-infections (e.g...

Former President Bill Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on Thursday launched MASSIVEGOOD - an initiative that allows travelers to make a $2 donation "to fight deadly diseases whenever they buy a plane ticket, book a hotel room or rent a car," Bloomberg/BusinessWeek reports (Varner, 3/4)...

Argos Therapeutics announced the publication of a manuscript in the February edition of Clinical Immunology, detailing positive immune response, safety and manufacturing data for its AGS-004 immunotherapy for HIV...