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HIV Infection Blog
Related terms: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Acute HIV Infection, Acute Retroviral Syndrome, AIDS, AIDS-Related Complex, Chronic Symptomatic HIV Infection, HIV Infection, Acute, HIV Seroconversion Syndrome, Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection, Primary HIV Infection, HIV, ARC, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV/AIDS
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Half of Known Strains of HIV Originated in Gorillas
Posted 3 days ago by Drugs.com
MONDAY, March 2, 2015 – Since HIV first appeared in humans in the early 1980s, scientists have been laboring to discover where and how the AIDS-causing virus first developed. Now, an international team of researchers says it has confirmed that two of the four known groups of HIV strains affecting humans originated in western lowland gorillas in Africa. HIV-1 has four known groups, M, N, O and P, explained a team led by Martine Peeters, of the University of Montpellier in France. According to the researchers, prior studies have shown that groups M and N originated in chimpanzees in southern Cameroon. This new study shows that groups O and P originated in western lowland gorillas in Cameroon, the team reported March 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Although all four subtypes of HIV can infect humans, only one – Group M, found in Cameroon chimps – eventually ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection
Taking Pill Before, After Sex Cuts HIV Infection for Gay Men: Study
Posted 9 days ago by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 25, 2015 – There's new evidence that gay men not infected with HIV can stay that way if they take a pill called Truvada in the days before and after a sexual encounter with an infected partner. The strategy is known as "pre-exposure prophylaxis," or PrEP. Prior studies had suggested that chronic, daily use of Truvada (a combo pill of tenofovir plus emtricitabine) could slash rates of HIV transmission in partners where one person was already infected and the other was not. Now, two new studies – one from Britain and one jointly conducted in France and Canada – appear to bolster those results. They were presented Tuesday at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle. The British investigation, called PROUD, involved 500 gay men and seems to reconfirm the effectiveness of standard, once-a-day PrEP. That study found that this dosing ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, Truvada
Most HIV Infections Come From Undiagnosed or Untreated People: Study
Posted 11 days ago by Drugs.com
MONDAY, Feb. 23, 2015 – If an American becomes infected with HIV, chances are he or she contracted the virus from someone who didn't know they were infected or wasn't getting proper treatment. That's the message of a new U.S. study, which found that undiagnosed and untreated people with HIV may be responsible for more than nine out of 10 new infections. The findings "highlight the community-wide prevention benefits of expanding HIV diagnosis and treatment in the United States," a team led by Dr. Jacek Skarbinski, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in the report. Looking at 2009 data, Skarbinski's team said that about 45,000 new cases of HIV were transmitted that year, adding to the total of more than 1.1 million Americans who were already living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Using national databases, the investigators estimated that more than 18 ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis
Some HIV Strains Cause Early Damage to Immune System, Study Finds
Posted 15 days ago by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Feb. 19, 2015 – Fast-replicating strains of HIV damage the immune system in the very early stages of infection, resulting in quicker disease progression, a new study says. The results confirmed previous findings that people with faster-replicating HIV strains have a quicker decline in levels of infection-fighting immune system CD4 T-cells, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These results reinforce our previous findings suggesting that interventions that affect [HIV)] replicative capacity can not only impact disease progression, but also the efficiency of transmission to other people," senior study author Eric Hunter, co-director of Emory University's Center for AIDS Research in Atlanta, said in a university news release. The finding is independent of viral load and whether patients have certain gene variants that boost immune ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection
Doctors Pinpoint Why Child Who Appeared Free of HIV Suffered Relapse
Posted 16 days ago by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 18, 2015 – HIV hid deep inside a young Mississippi girl born with the virus who suffered a disappointing relapse last July, after more than two years in which she appeared to have been cured by early, aggressive drug treatment, her doctors report. They now know that the girl's HIV was dormant all that time – not simply percolating undetected – because tests have shown that her recurring virus was an exact match to her mother's HIV, said the girl's pediatrician, Dr. Hannah Gay, of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, in Jackson. "It appears that the virus had been dormant all of those many months and years, because there's no evidence of diversity that would have been detected if low-level viral activity had been going on," she explained. Despite the setback, Gay and her colleagues believe that all babies born with HIV should receive the same rapid medical ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Reduction of Perinatal Transmission of HIV
Kidneys From HIV Donors May Be OK for HIV Patients, Study Finds
Posted 11 Feb 2015 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 11, 2015 – New research from South Africa suggests that HIV may not be a barrier for kidney transplants between people infected with the virus that causes AIDS. The findings are good news for HIV-positive patients who worry about getting kidneys from others infected with the virus. The research doesn't appear likely to have an immediate impact in the United States, where HIV infection isn't as common and kidney disease is often treated with dialysis instead of transplants, experts noted. But in South Africa, "using HIV-positive donors might resolve some of the problems we are all experiencing in getting enough donors for our patients with end-stage kidney disease," said study author Dr. Elmi Muller, head of transplantation at Groote Schuur Hospital in Capetown. The revolution in treatment of HIV and AIDS is extending the lives of infected patients in South Africa as it ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Organ Transplant
FDA Approves Dutrebis (lamivudine and raltegravir) for HIV-1 Infection
Posted 10 Feb 2015 by Drugs.com
February 6, 2015 – The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Dutrebis, a fixed dose combination tablet containing 150 mg of lamivudine and 300 mg of raltegravir. Dutrebis tablet is approved for use in combination with other antiretroviral products for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults and pediatric patients greater than or equal to 6 years of age weighing at least 30 kg. The recommended dosage of Dutrebis is one tablet taken twice daily with or without food. Dutrebis approval was based on an open-label, single dose, randomized, two-period, crossover study in healthy subjects (n=108). One Dutrebis fixed dose combination table was shown to provide comparable lamivudine and raltegravir exposures to one Epivir 150 mg tablet plus on Isentress 400 mg tablet. Due to the higher bioavailability of raltegravir contained in Dutrebis, the exposures provided by the ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Lamivudine, Raltegravir
Blacks Account for More Than Half of New HIV Diagnoses: CDC
Posted 5 Feb 2015 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Feb. 5, 2015 – Blacks are diagnosed with HIV more often than any other group of Americans, and while their death rate from the disease is declining, it is still higher than in other racial/ethnic group. Those are the findings of two new U.S. government studies reported Thursday. The findings show the need to redouble efforts to provide black Americans with better HIV prevention, diagnosis and care, the researchers, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said. The first study involved an analysis of data from CDC-funded HIV testing in 61 regions across the country in 2013. Blacks accounted for 45 percent of people tested for HIV, the largest proportion of any racial/ethnic group. Blacks also accounted for nearly 55 percent of all new HIV diagnoses. Among blacks diagnosed with HIV, gay men accounted for about 37 percent of the new diagnoses, according to the ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection
Smartphone Device Detects HIV, Syphilis
Posted 4 Feb 2015 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 4, 2015 – A smartphone accessory that can detect HIV and syphilis has been developed by Columbia University researchers. The low-cost device can spot markers of the infectious diseases from a finger prick of blood in 15 minutes. It's the first smartphone accessory that replicates all the functions of a laboratory-based blood test, according to the researchers. The device was tested by health care workers in Rwanda who used it to analyze blood samples from 96 patients. The health care workers were given 30 minutes of training on the device, and 97 percent of the patients had a positive response to the device. The findings were published Feb. 4 in the journal Science Translational Medicine. "Our work shows that a full laboratory-quality immunoassay can be run on a smartphone accessory," team leader Samuel Sia, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Syphilis, Diagnosis and Investigation
FDA Approves Prezcobix (darunavir and cobicistat) for HIV-1 Infection in Adults
Posted 29 Jan 2015 by Drugs.com
TITUSVILLE, N.J., Jan. 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ – Janssen Therapeutics, Division of Janssen Products, LP (Janssen), today announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Prezcobix (darunavir 800 mg/cobicistat 150 mg) tablets, an HIV-1 protease inhibitor combined with a CYP3A4 inhibitor, for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) in combination with other antiretroviral agents for treatment-naive and treatment-experienced adults with no darunavir resistance-associated substitutions.[1] Prezcobix is a once-daily, fixed-dose antiretroviral combination tablet containing 800 mg of darunavir, marketed as PREZISTA® in the United States, and 150 mg of cobicistat, a pharmacokinetic enhancer or "boosting" agent, developed and marketed as Tybost® by Gilead Sciences, Inc., taken orally with other HIV-1 medications and with food. "Additional options remain an i ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Cobicistat, Darunavir
FDA Approves Evotaz (atazanavir and cobicistat) for HIV-1 Infection in Adults
Posted 29 Jan 2015 by Drugs.com
PRINCETON, N.J. – January 29, 2015 --(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Evotaz (atazanavir 300 mg and cobicistat 150 mg) tablets in combination with other antiretroviral agents for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults. Evotaz is coformulated to be one pill, once-daily, combining the protease inhibitor atazanavir, which is marketed as Reyataz (atazanavir 200 mg/300 mg) capsules, and cobicistat, a pharmacokinetic enhancer marketed by Gilead Sciences, Inc. Today’s approval offers patients living with HIV an innovative treatment option that delivers proven suppression (HIV-1 RNA 70mL/min, a mean baseline plasma HIV-1 RNA of 4.8 log10 copies/mL, and a mean baseline CD4+ cell count of 352 cells/mm. At 48 weeks, 85% of patients in the Evotaz arm achieved HIV-1 RNA levels of Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Atazanavir, Cobicistat
Depo-Provera Linked to Higher HIV Risk, Researchers Find
Posted 9 Jan 2015 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Jan. 9, 2015 – The injectable birth control Depo-Provera is associated with an increased risk of HIV infection in women, according to a review of research in Africa. Women who receive the so-called "birth control shot" have about 40 percent higher odds of becoming infected with HIV, compared to women using some other form of birth control or no birth control at all, researchers reported. However, the review's authors said that the increased risk does not outweigh the contraceptive benefits of Depo-Provera, particularly in the African nations where these studies took place. Banning Depo-Provera would leave many women in developing countries without immediate access to alternative contraceptive options, which would likely lead to more unintended pregnancies, said lead author Lauren Ralph, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. ... Read more
Related support groups: Provera, Depo-Provera, HIV Infection, Medroxyprogesterone, Depo-Provera Contraceptive, Depo-Sub Q Provera, depo-subQ provera 104, Cycrin, Curretab, Amen
HIV Tied to Worse Hearing in Older Adults
Posted 29 Dec 2014 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Dec. 26, 2014 – A new study finds that adults with HIV tend to have worse hearing than those not infected with the AIDS-causing virus. Researchers led by Peter Torre, of San Diego State University, assessed the hearing of 262 men averaging 57 years of age, and 134 women averaging 48 years of age. A total of 117 of the men and 105 of the women were HIV-positive. While the study couldn't prove cause-and-effect, Torre's team found that people with HIV tended to have worse lower- and higher-frequency hearing. This was true even after the researchers took other factors into account, such as a person's long-term exposure to powerful HIV-suppressing antiviral drugs or their HIV "viral load." "To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that HIV-positive individuals have poorer hearing across the frequency range after many other factors known to affect hearing have been ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection, Hearing Loss
Is HIV Becoming Less Contagious?
Posted 3 Dec 2014 by Drugs.com
MONDAY, Dec. 1, 2014 – New research in Africa suggests that the AIDS virus is getting smarter about evading the immune system while evolving into a less contagious and less lethal infection overall. In the country of Botswana, at least, "anyone who is newly infected now with HIV is less likely to suffer disease than if they had been infected 20 or 30 years ago," said study co-author Philip Goulder, a research immunologist with the University of Oxford in England. "If this process continues, HIV will cause less and less disease." The research has caveats. It relies on research from just two countries, both in Africa, and might not apply to the rest of the world. And some of its findings are based on mathematical models of how HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is evolving. Still, the study is "good news," Goulder contended. Thanks to natural selection, some viruses actually evolve to make ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection
Most Americans With HIV Don't Have Virus Under Control, CDC Says
Posted 25 Nov 2014 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Nov. 25, 2014 – Fewer than one-third of Americans living with HIV had the virus under control in 2011, with many either not receiving regular medical care or unaware they carry the virus, a new U.S. study finds. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study estimates that 70 percent of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV in 2011 did not have their virus under control, even though combination drug therapies can effectively suppress the virus before it can develop into full-blown AIDS. A combination of indifference and lack of access to medical care appeared to outweigh ignorance as a driving factor in cases of uncontrolled HIV, researchers from the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS reported Tuesday. "For people living with HIV and AIDS, it's not enough to know – you also have to go for health care," said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden at a Tuesday news ... Read more
Related support groups: HIV Infection
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