HIV/AIDS News

Medical schools around the country are trying to implement instruction in transgender care into their curriculum. Infectious Diseases in Children asked Katherine L. Margo, MD, emeritus associate professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, if transgender health education should be required in medical school curricula.

Gina Sequeira, MD, MS, is worried that an increasing number of states are proposing legislation that would ban access to gender-affirming health care for minors, even when they have parental consent.

The authors of a recent MMWR report noted several “unique considerations” that clinicians face when evaluating adolescent patients for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, including legal issues of consent and the potential need for more support to promote adherence to the medication.

In a letter, AAP President Sara H. Goza, MD, FAAP, asked HHS for “immediate, direct financial relief payments” for pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists “to keep practices open, pay staff, and procure needed supplies.”

Study findings presented at CROI showed that a United States-funded program designed to reduce the risk for HIV infection in adolescent girls and young women in high-burden countries had some impact among teenagers in Uganda, but several interventions produced no effects and researchers said the program needs to be modified.

During a trial conducted in six clinics in Lusaka, Zambia, infants randomly assigned to receive point-of-care early infant HIV diagnosis all received same-day test results and rapidly initiated ART, compared with an average wait time of 27 days for results among infants who received offsite diagnosing, findings presented during CROI showed.

Universal test and treat strategies implemented in communities in Uganda and Kenya more than halved HIV infection and mortality rates among infants after 3 years and reduced vertical transmission rates to 0.5% among women with known HIV, according to findings from CROI.

Levels of tenofovir-diphosphate, or TFV-DP, in dried blood spots were 31% to 37% lower among African pregnant adolescent girls and young women taking pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, compared with those who were postpartum, according to study findings from the IMPAACT 2009 trial presented during CROI.

Just 12% of adolescents with HIV aged between 12 and 24 years achieved viral suppression within 5 months after initiating ART, making them far less likely than adults to reduce their viral loads to undetectable levels, researchers reported.

Less than a quarter of adolescent men who have sex with men, or AMSM, have ever been tested for HIV despite being at higher risk for infection, study findings suggested.