HIV This Month - June 2013

Welcome to the 6th issue of HIV this month!  In this issue, we cover the following topics:

Reduce sexual transmission

• Identifying hotspots of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa
• High response rates to mobile phone surveys to monitor PrEP adherence and sexual behaviour
• Need for focused HIV/STI interventions at informal drinking establishments in South Africa
• Sexual transmission in St Petersburg may be self-sustaining without improved surveillance and prevention among partners of people who inject drugs
• Low rates of HIV status disclosure amongst pregnant women in Morogoro, Tanzania

Prevent HIV among drug users

• Extensive liver fibrosis in HIV-Hepatitis C co-infected patients compared to HCV mono-infected patients

15 million accessing treatment

• Routine testing of paediatric hospital inpatients a critical entry point for identifying HIV-positive children
• High uptake of HIV testing and linkage to care using comprehensive community-based monitoring
• Increased risk of mortality associated with delayed initiation of ART
• Late diagnosis contributes to persistently high HIV-associated mortality in the United Kingdom
• Multi-faceted community-based intervention for improving retention in care
• High CD4 count on initiating ART associated with unstructured treatment interruptions
• Preliminary evidence: tenofovir outperforms d4T and AZT in terms of the need for drug substitution and mortality outcomes
• Children: higher rates of virological failure on nevirapine-, as compared to efavirenz-based ART

Avoid TB deaths

• Dynamic model of active versus passive TB case finding

Close the resource gap

• Aid disbursements to reproductive health stable or slightly increasing
• New framework for delivering high-value care to patients with HIV/AIDS and co-occurring conditions

Eliminate gender inequalities

• Intimate partner violence associated with poor ART adherence, disease progression and hospitalization

Eliminate stigma and discrimination

• Social support, safer sex lives and developing a post diagnosis identity

Strengthen HIV integration

• Integration of ANC and ART services increases PMTCT uptake but provision remains sub-optimal
• Almost a quarter of deaths in pregnant and post-partum women may be attributable to HIV
• Integrating HIV testing into routine infant immunization programmes
• Feasibility and acceptability of routine HIV testing into a general paediatric out-patient clinic

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