Category Archives: HIV/AIDS

PEPFAR partners reveal HIV prevention service cuts from expanded “Mexico City Policy,” as organizations endorse act to end its restrictions

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“Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, is hitting services for young women the hardest, survey finds When the Trump administration State Department began to enforce a newly reinstated, and greatly expanded version of the restrictions on health information provided by U.S.-funded overseas organizations known as the “Mexico […]

Lower age of consent for HIV testing linked to higher adolescent testing rates, study finds

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Sub-Saharan African countries where adolescents 15 or younger could be tested for HIV without sign-off by parents or guardians show 11 percent higher rates of testing for the virus among those from 15 to 18 years old than in countries where the legal age of consent for testing is 16 or older, according to a […]

Study finds HIV care, diagnosis barriers for men fueling epidemic among young women

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The following is a guest post by Zahra Reynolds, MPH, of MEASURE Evaluation Young women who have sexual relationships with older men often are dealing with inequitable power dynamics, little capacity to negotiate safe sex or to refuse sex, and—therefore —a greater risk of acquiring HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately […]

Study highlights “missed opportunities” to prevent HIV infections with PrEP

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In the three years following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a daily oral antiretroviral medicine to prevent HIV infection, records show that 885 South Carolina residents older than 13 were diagnosed with HIV. About two-thirds of them had visited health care facilities before their diagnoses — for a combined total of more […]

What We’re Reading: In HIV and TB treatment, science supports human rights

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The science is clear, HIV criminalization is abusive, discriminatory and counterproductive – The  destructiveness of HIV-specific laws that fueled stigma and discouraged diagnosis by criminalizing people living with the virus for not disclosing their status, for spitting, and for other supposed means of exposure or transmission was always apparent. For some time now, this International […]

Senate extends PEPFAR, while funding remains a question

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With a matter-of-fact and unanimous approval of the PEPFAR Extension Act of 2018, a five-year renewal of the U.S. flagship program to combat HIV globally, the U.S. Senate Wednesday evening showed that what was once considered revolutionary, can now be considered routine. Perceptions that efforts to stop the spread of an incurable virus across countries […]

State Department objects to Tanzania LGBT persecution without noting health impacts; IAS delineates damage to HIV responses

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The U.S. Department of State today issued an expression of concern over Tanzanian government actions targeting its LGBT population, noting that the violence, oppression and intimidation recently unleashed “inhibits development, economic prosperity, peace and security.” Missing from those cited global goals is health, although health is a driver of all of them, while discrimination, bias, […]

What we’re reading: Do forbidden words, restrictive policies compromise leadership of infectious disease responses?

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Trumps State Department eyes ban on terms like “sexual health” – Whether this could or will actually happen, leaving programs for “sexual and reproductive health services,” as just “reproductive health services” remains unclear. This Politico report notes, however, that one of the current administration’s first moves in 2017  was to reinstate, expand, and rename the global gag rule, […]

Guide gives direction to the last 90

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The following is a guest post By Sharon Weir, Ph.D. of MEASURE Evaluation For almost 35 years, HIV/AIDS has been a household word across the globe. At first a death sentence, HIV has infected 78 million people, killing almost half of them as the world battled it into submission as a treatable, chronic—but still dangerous—condition. […]

Dolutegravir results in low-resource setting highlight benefits

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A standard of care treatment in high-income settings, the benefits of dolutegravir-based treatments for HIV have been clear, with a built-in barrier to the development of drug-resistance, and a less frequent or severe side effects that interfere with staying on a medicine. But the benefits in low-income countries have been harder to assess, with costs, […]