HIV/AIDS News

Approximately 40% of adult patients with HIV may want to have children, according to findings published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The desire was “surprisingly similar” at ART initiation and 2 years after successful treatment, researchers reported.

Black adolescent boys are at an increased risk for HIV, according to researchers, but a “culturally grounded” intervention geared toward educating mothers and sons about condom use and other protective measures promoted open communication between them about sex, which in turn could reduce the teens’ risk for STIs.

Adolescent girls and young women in Kenya are highly vulnerable to HIV during their first sexual encounter, according to study results published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

Tattoos are becoming increasingly popular among teenagers, with nearly one-quarter of teens aged 16 to 18 years asking for parental approval; however, many parents are concerned about the risk for infection and the social stigma associated with body modification, according to a C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll.

One-fourth of the global population are adolescents — about 1.8 billion people. These teenagers, according to the researchers, are an integral part of global agendas to address noncommunicable diseases, injury, infectious diseases and mental health. However, only 1.6% of all global development assistance is focused on this population’s health, they said.

An intervention to reduce the sexual risk for HIV in young transgender women resulted in a nearly 40% reduction of condomless sex acts at 1-year follow-up compared with participants who received standard of care, according to study results published today in JAMA Pediatrics.

A recent national survey revealed that almost 40% of women were at least ‘somewhat concerned’ about what would happen during their first OB/GYN exam.

Children who are perinatally infected with HIV have better dental and periodontal outcomes, including less tooth decay and bleeding, when they begin combination ART and integrase or protease inhibitors before the age of 2 years.

As ID professionals, we all are familiar with the concept of HIV treatment as prevention, or TasP. The science establishing TasP as an effective medical and public health strategy was established by HPTN 052, a randomized clinical trial involving 1,763 serodiscordant couples from nine different countries, which showed a 93% reduction in transmission risk in couples in which the infected partner was assigned to early ART. The implications of this finding were so significant that in 2011, Science highlighted the study as its “Breakthrough of the Year.” Collectively, results from HPTN 052 and several other landmark studies have validated that people living with HIV who have maximally suppressed virus on ART do not sexually transmit HIV to their partners. But surprisingly, this information has not been conveyed to the affected community in a meaningful way that would allow them to share its benefits.

Researchers said that annual funding of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief decreased infant mortality related to mother-to-child HIV transmission in Kenya by more than 10%. They suggested that when funding was examined on a cumulative basis, infant mortality dropped by nearly one-third.