Hiv Infection

In vitro findings published in PLOS Pathogens showed that Schistosoma mansoni antigens have the ability to reduce HIV infection and replication, suggesting that coinfection with parasitic helminths stimulates an immune response that may reduce HIV transmission or disease, researchers reported.

An automated algorithm that used electronic health record data to identify individuals at increased risk for HIV infection could have averted about 40% of new HIV infections at a U.S.-based organization serving a general primary care population.

The Merck Foundation recently committed $7 million to promote access to HIV care and improve outcomes of vulnerable and underserved patients with HIV living in the southeastern United States, according to a news release.

In the United States, children born to mothers with HIV but who are not infected with the virus are hospitalized at more than twice the rate of children born to mothers without HIV, according to research published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. They also face twice the rate of hospitalization from infections.

Establishing a co-located hepatitis C virus clinic within an HIV clinic successfully managed co-infected patients — a typically hard-to-treat population — resulting in HCV treatment initiation in 70.5% of participants and an SVR at 12 weeks post-treatment or cure in 56.1% of patients, according to a study.

A case-control study conducted in British Columbia showed an increase in the incidence of ocular syphilis over 8 years, and according to researchers, an association between ocular syphilis and early syphilis and HIV infection.

Among the top stories in infectious disease last week were findings from the HOPE trial that determined the dapivirine vaginal ring reduced the risk for HIV infection by an estimated 39% and a study that indicated a novel hospital cleaning bundle that improved cleaning thoroughness and reduced vancomycin-resistant enterococci infections by 37% is also cost-effective.

Measuring the concentration of tenofovir in a patient’s urine can determine their recent adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, for HIV prevention or tenofovir-based ART, according to findings from the Tenofovir Adherence to Rapidly Guide and Evaluate PrEP and HIV Therapy, or TARGET, study.

Researchers identified ways that clinicians may be able to use electronic health records to identify candidates for HIV prevention medication.

ATLANTA — Infants born to mothers with HIV who were not infected at the time of birth had significantly higher levels of regulatory lymphocyte T cells than infants who were infected in utero, according to research presented at ASM Microbe.