Tagged: AIDS

  • September 26, 2013

    Efforts to prevent HIV must focus on gender equity

    Written by
    Ward Cates, President Emeritus, FHI 360
    Nirupama Sista, Director of the Leadership and Operations Center, HIV Prevention Trials Network, FHI 360

    The latest figures on HIV infections, as reported this week by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), revealed an impressive 33 percent reduction in new infections among adults and children since 2001. To continue down the road to success, future efforts must address the gender inequities that contribute to the disproportionate impact of HIV and AIDS on women and girls.

    More than half of the 35 million people living with HIV are women. In sub-Saharan Africa, almost 60 percent of people living with HIV are women. Young women between ages 15 to 24 are at highest risk of and most vulnerable to HIV infection. Closer to home, black women in the United States remain at high risk for HIV infection, and HIV-related illness is now one of the leading causes of death among black women between ages 25 to 34.

    Gender inequity is a key driver of the epidemic, making women more vulnerable to HIV in many ways.

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  • July 19, 2013

    A roadside attraction in Djibouti: Community and condoms at the SafeTStop

    Written by
    Carole Douglis, Development Outreach Coordinator, USAID East Africa

    Whether on foot, camel, dhow, containership, tanker, or truck—traders have likely criss-crossed Djibouti and its waters for as long as there has been trade. Today, the Port of Djibouti, one of Africa’s busiest, lies at the nexus of major shipping routes between Asia, Africa, and Europe.

    From Djibouti, most goods travel inland by trailer-truck: some 800 Ethiopian truckers arrive every day. After offloading coffee, cotton, beans and other commodities from Ethiopia, truckers wait 4 to 6 days to reload with imported electronics, spare parts, construction materials, food aid and much else.

    This range of activity makes a small community, virtually unknown outside Djibouti, both important and vulnerable. It’s called PK-12 for “Point Kilometre 12″ in French, the official language. Meaning that it’s 12 km from Djibouti town, the capital and site of the port. PK-12 looks like the mother of all truckstops. Colorful vehicles lie like flattened dominoes as far as the eye can see — thousands of them.

    Understandably, drivers with several days on their hands also ferry back and forth another invisible item. About 25 percent are thought to be HIV-positive. The number of HIV-positive young women and men from the community is not known, and the stigma is too strong for even the boldest to disclose their status.

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  • July 3, 2013

    PrEP use and risk perception: What’s the connection?

    Written by
    Amy Corneli, Scientist, Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, FHI 360
    Cynthia Geary, Director, Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, FHI 360

    Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of the antiretroviral drug combination of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine (Truvada®) for HIV prevention, its success will depend on user adherence to the daily drug regimen.

    Several trials of Truvada as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) showed it is most effective when adherence is high. Two trials, VOICE and FEM-PrEP, were unable to determine whether Truvada worked, likely because most participants did not take the study pills daily as directed.

    One explanation for low adherence to PrEP is that study participants might have thought they were not at risk of HIV infection.

    A study from FHI 360’s Preventive Technologies Agreement (PTA) explored this possibility. Our analysis of data from a randomly assigned cohort of 150 participants who received Truvada in the FEM-PrEP trial yielded some intriguing results, presented in a late-breaker poster this week at the International AIDS Society conference (IAS 2013) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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  • May 28, 2013

    Patriotism, sacrifice and an HIV vaccine

    Written by
    A. Cornelius Baker, Technical Advisor, FHI 360

    Over the past week, scientists and advocates around the world refocused their attention on the search for an HIV vaccine. Fittingly the observance stems from a long ago speech by President Bill Clinton. On May 18, 1997, Mr. Clinton delivered an inspiring commencement address at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. In the speech, the president challenged the scientific community and the graduating class from one of America’s foremost historically black universities to invest their talents in the discovery of an HIV vaccine. Mr. Clinton also called for a worldwide commitment to develop an “AIDS vaccine within the next decade.” Since that commencement, May 18 has been marked by scientists, advocates and governments as HIV Vaccine Awareness Day.

    In the years following Mr. Clinton’s bold challenge, there have been gains and setbacks in our quest to find an HIV vaccine.

    In 2009, the world applauded when the U.S. Army’s research program and the Thai Ministry of Health announced the first HIV vaccine trial to show efficacy. The trial results showed that the candidate vaccines in the RV144 study worked in 31 percent of the people who were vaccinated. Although this level of efficacy is not sufficient to bring a product to market, it is a promising sign that a vaccine is indeed possible.

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  • May 23, 2013

    ROADS II: Transforming corridors of risk into pathways of prevention and hope

    Written by
    Dorothy Muroki, Project Director, ROADS II, FHI 360

  • May 22, 2013

    FHI 360 expert interviewed on Voice of America about HIV and TB in Nigeria

    FHI 360’s Deputy Country Director for Nigeria, Dr. Robert Chiegil, spoke with Voice of America’s health correspondent Linord Moudou yesterday about reducing the impact of HIV and TB in Nigeria and other African countries. Watch the video below.

  • April 10, 2013

    Getting to zero: National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day

    Written by
    A. Cornelius Baker, Technical Advisor, AIDS and Community Health, FHI 360

    More than half of the world’s population is under the age of 30 and has never lived in a time without AIDS. Despite the steady progress of our collective scientific and community efforts to end the HIV epidemic, the lives of young people continue to be especially vulnerable. To bring attention to this ongoing crisis and to commit ourselves to achieving an AIDS-free generation, today marks the first National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day.

    According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 50,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV each year. Of those, one in four is between 13 and 24 years old. Further, CDC reports that nearly 60 percent of new infections in youth occur in African Americans, 20 percent in Latinos and about 20 percent in whites. In 2010, CDC estimates that 87 percent of the 12,000 annual infections in youth occurred among gay and bisexual young men. Nearly half of all new infections among American youth occur in African American males.

    In a CDC Vital Signs report released for World AIDS Day 2012, the agency noted that “about 60 percent of youth do not know they are infected and so don’t receive treatment, putting them at risk for sickness and early death. These youth can also unknowingly pass HIV to others.”

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  • November 27, 2012

    World AIDS Day 2012: A Shared Vision of Getting to Zero

    FHI 360 has been partnering toward an AIDS-free generation since the beginning of the epidemic. As we approach World AIDS Day 2012, FHI 360 experts examine next steps needed to tackle HIV/AIDS for good. We’ll discuss new enhancements in the testing and treatment of women during pregnancy and in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. We’ll also take a look at the HIV treatment cascade and how it can help people to take the initiative to learn their HIV status and close some of the gaps in treatment and service. Finally, we will share perspectives from the field with a program profile and success story.

    As we look to the future, from our work in Cambodia to Kenya to the U.S., FHI 360 will continue to partner toward a shared vision of “getting to zero.”

  • October 25, 2012

    New Discovery in Race to Develop AIDS Vaccine

    A version of this post originally appeared on Natural Medicine. Reposted with permission.

    A new study published in the on line journal Nature Medicine over the weekend brings exciting news in the race to find an AIDS vaccine. Researchers from the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) have found that a key change in the outer coating of the HIV virus allowed two HIV positive women to develop “broadly neutralizing antibodies,” which are antibodies that can be used to target and fight most strains of HIV.

    The first broadly neutralizing antibodies were discovered over three years ago, and since then dozens more have been identified. But until now, researchers haven’t been able to pinpoint how they develop, which is critical to developing a vaccine. The new findings establish a link between a change in the virus after infection and the formulation of the antibodies that fight it.

    According to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the study is “an important step in trying to understand just how these broadly neutralizing antibodies evolve.”

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  • October 15, 2012

    Ending AIDS Among Latino Americans: ¡Sí se puede!

    Written by
    A. Cornelius Baker, Technical Advisor and Co-director of the Be the Generation Bridge Project, FHI 360

    The past three years have seen tremendous breakthroughs in HIV prevention research. Since 2009, we have seen the first vaccine to show effectiveness, a microbicide that was found to be modestly efficacious and two studies demonstrating that an HIV medication could be used as a pre-exposure prophylaxis or could reduce new infections by treating those with HIV earlier. These advances have led many to herald a new era in our 30-year campaign to end the epidemic.

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