News headlines

A selection of news stories which have appeared since 12 June 2003

UNAIDS says US$4.7 billion to be spent on HIV in poorer countries in 2003, US$10.5 needed by 2005

Less than half of the US$10.5 billion needed for to address the AIDS epidemic in low and middle-income countries by 2005 will be spent on the epidemic in 2003, according to a UNAIDS published on June 26th.

EU fails to commit 1 billion euros to Global Fund

Despite, pressure from the United Kingdom, France and President Bush, EU leaders failed to commit to donating ¬1 billion euros to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria at last weekend's EU Summit in Greece, agreeing instead `to make a substantial contribution`. The formula was agreed because Germany, the Netherlands and several other smaller states said that they could not afford to give more support because of ongoing budgetary problems.

Adherence in Cape Town poor just as good as US and Europe

In South Africa, the presumption that indigent patients might not stick to pill-taking schedules has served as an excuse to delay the extension of antiretroviral treatment to the HIV-infected population. However, according to a study published in the June 12th edition of AIDS by Dr. Catherine Orrell et al., "adherence is not a barrier to successful antiretroviral therapy in South Africa."

TB checks in HIV care valuable for new mums in South Africa

Health care workers at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa, have shown that offering routine TB checks for new mothers with HIV (and their male partners) can identify many previously unsuspected cases in need of treatment.

Private prescribing biggest risk for developing world drug resistance

Unless HIV treatment is properly controlled in developing countries, antiretroviral therapy could become useless due to poor practice in the private sector, according to an editorial in the June 21 edition of the British Medical Journal by Ruairi Brugha, a senior lecturer in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Three per cent of men who have sex with men HIV-positive in Beijing

Researchers from China and the USA suggest in this week's issue of The Lancet that men who have unprotected sex with men might worsen China's emerging HIV-1 epidemic because they form a sexual bridge between men and women.

Sex, not injections, drives HIV epidemic in Zimbabwe

In the last year, several researchers have challenged the view that the HIV epidemic in Southern Africa is the result of sexual transmission, arguing that poor medical practice and especially the re-use of syringes for injections - plays a bigger role than previously recognised. This claim is now strongly challenged in the journal AIDS by researchers working in Zimbabwe, based on a study of hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence among people living with HIV.

Exercise linked to lower triglyceride levels on HAART

People who exercise more show fewer signs of a major metabolic disturbance associated with HIV therapy elevated triglyceride levels - according to a study of 120 HIV-positive patients at Bostons Beth Israel Medical Centre, published this week in the June 15th edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Diet changes successfully reduce cholesterol in HAART-treated patients

Diet modification can successfully reduce cholesterol levels in HAART-treated HIV-positive patients, according to a small study published in the June 13th edition of the journal AIDS.

Do cholesterol rises in HAART-treated men reflect normalisation, or treatment side-effect?

A US study published in the June 11th edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that the increases in cholesterol levels seen in HAART-treated patients represent a normalisation of total and LDL cholesterol levels rather than a harmful consequence of therapy.