ViiV Healthcare’s single-tablet regimen Triumeq won Food and Drug Administration approval on August 22, 2014. Triumeq is the first FDA-approved single-tablet regimen (STR) that does not contain tenofovir (Viread), a widely used antiretroviral drug linked with bone and kidney problems in some susceptible HIV-positive individuals.
A meta-analysis of HIV patients in China shows strong relationship between didanosine-based treatments and increase in drug resistance.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) working group has called for the scrapping of so-called “homosexuality-related psychological disorders”.
With PEPFAR planning to shift about $100 million in HIV funding from South Africa to poorer countries, the New York Times reports, the country will face stern challenges in maintaining its AIDS effort.
Tivicay, the recently approved HIV integrase inhibitor — a class of antiretroviral drug that is designed to block a virus from entering the DNA of a host cell — demonstrated high rates of viral suppression in a recent study. Significantly, Tivicay is also proven effective for people who are resistant to HIV antiretroviral drugs, according to NAM.
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Health4Men, a project of the Anova Health Institute that addresses sexual health and HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM), congratulates sexual minority activists in Uganda for successfully challenging and getting overturned the country’s homophobic ‘Anti-Homosexuality Act’. As widely reported, this draconian Act not only resulted in a dramatic increase in persecution of sexual minorities within Uganda, it also severely limited the ability of HIV health organisations to function within the country.
A number of groups had attended to oppose the bill, which criminalized “homosexual touch,” punished R#8220;promotion of homosexuality,” criminalized renting housing to gay people. I was there with the Civil Society Coalition for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, discussing public health implications of HIV prevention and care, citing research from Uganda. Earlier, the Uganda Human Rights Commission had offered objections to the bill. Colleagues weighed in on legal grounds, and UNAIDS Country Representative, Mr. Musa Bungudu, reminded everyone of Uganda’s huge HIV burden.
Fifteen years ago, MIT professor John Essigmann and colleagues from the University of Washington had a novel idea for an HIV drug. They thought if they could induce the virus to mutate uncontrollably, they could force it to weaken and eventually die out — a strategy that our immune system uses against many viruses.
The widely used antiretroviral drug efavirenz was not linked with neurocognitive impairment in a study reported this week at AIDS 2014. Efavirenz (Sustiva, also part of the popular Atripla combo pill) has been associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric symptoms ranging from vivid dreams to depression, but whether the drug contributes to neurocognitive impairment (NCI) has been debated.