The AIDS Beacon™

Every year, March 10 marks the National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Coordinated by the Office on Women’s Health, the day is meant to encourage nationwide discussion about HIV and AIDS among women and girls.

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day provides an opportunity to educate women and girls about prevention, testing, and how to live a healthy life even after becoming infected with HIV.

To meet these goals, organizations across the country are sponsoring events to jumpstart dialogue about…

A recent study published in the journal AIDS has found that HIV-positive individuals undergoing HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) have shown no decline in the incidence of anal cancer.

Anal cancer is a disease in which cancer cells form inside the anal tissue lining. Common symptoms include bleeding, lumps, or pain in the anal area. Additionally, anal discharge and itching are other signs of anal cancer.

The incidence of anal cancer is increasingly common in HIV-positive individuals.

According to a study in Oncology…

Scientists and researchers from around the globe met last week for the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), a four-day conference presenting the latest research about prevention, treatment, and insight into HIV/AIDS and its complications.

Topics ran the gamut from novel therapies to public health strategies aimed at the global pandemic.

What follows are a few of the developments from the conference.

The View From NIAID

On the first day of the conference, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute…

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a Los Angeles based advocacy and treatment organization, continues to express concern over the high pricing for Merck’s anti-HIV drug, Isentress.

Isentress is an antiretroviral drug in the class known as integrase inhibitors. It was first approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2007 for use in patients resistant to other HIV drugs, which is known as salvage therapy.

In July 2009, Isentress received FDA approval for use as first-line treatment, meaning…

By the start of 2010, Haiti had begun to make strides towards alleviating the high HIV prevalence plaguing the nation. However, in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake this past January, the country is in dire need of foreign aid to rebuild the HIV/AIDS program it once had, lest what progress had been made is lost.

Before the quake, Haiti had an adult HIV prevalence of 2.2 percent and a total of approximately 120,000 people living with HIV. These thousands accounted…

The FDA has issued a drug safety requirement stating that all Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents (ESAs) are to be prescribed and used under a risk management program, called risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS), in order to ensure and promote safe usage of these drugs.

ESAs are used to treat anemia in individuals with chronic kidney failure, undergoing chemotherapy, HIV patients using zidovudine (Retrovir) and to reduce the number of blood transfusions during and after particular major surgeries. The mechanism of action…

According to a recent press release from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), using Invirase (saquinavir) and Norvir (ritonavir) in combination may lead to heart problems in some HIV and AIDS patients.

Invirase is an antiretroviral drug from the class known as protease inhibitors. It is used to treat HIV infection, and is used in combination with Norvir to enhance its effects.

Recently acquired data suggests that using these two drugs together can cause a condition known as torsades de pointes,…

On February 10, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) moved to alleviate the concerns of HIV/AIDS patients worried they would lose their emergency housing assistance under the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act.

HRSA announced that the previous 24-month cumulative cap on housing assistance would no longer be enforced.

The first people affected by this cap would have lost their housing this coming March.

However, with this announcement HIV/AIDS patients receiving short-term housing care can relax, knowing the…

In a press release by Dartmouth Medical School on January 29th, researchers reported on the successful creation of a vaccine for HIV-associated tuberculosis. Immunization with the vaccine was found to reduce the rate of tuberculosis (TB) infection by 39 percent.

The study, dubbed the DarDar Health Study, was a 7-year collaboration among groups in the United States, Zambia, Finland, and Tanzania.

Currently, TB is the leading cause of death among HIV-positive individuals in developing countries, and is responsible for approximately half of…

Progression of HIV could potentially be slowed with aciclovir, a commonly available antiviral medication used to treat herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2). This study is slated to be published in the medical journal The Lancet.

The findings were based on a Phase 3 trial that evaluated more than 3,000 heterosexuals in 14 sites in Africa infected with both HSV-2 and HIV.

For the randomized trial, Dr. Jairam Lingappa of the University of Washington and colleagues from around the world looked at…