Don’t miss this opportunity to order your copies of VHComics’
second volume of the popular comic book, “Non NUKES!” Meet
the latest addition to the non nuke (NNRTI) class and find
out what Marcus is up to in his search for finding the right
anti-HIV treatment for him.
¡Nueva sección en
español de educación sobre VIH para el paciente!
VHConcepts, the 1st USA-based, independent
AIDS2008 Conference Hub, will be providing with its
partner Infodyne Health Literacy Project select LIVE
conference feed from Mexico City!
Recent News in HIV
updated 7/15/2008
Summary of this
week's selected articles
July 15, 2008
This week’s selects include articles about
research findings that are both surprising
and interesting …The first article is about
how vaginal microbicides may benefit men
more than women; the next article is about
how different public health approaches in
Europe and Africa yield similar results; and
the last article is about the possibility of
using herbs or botanicals as adjuncts in
treating drug resistant TB in patients also
infected with HIV. HIV and Women: (1)
Reutersreports
that the authors of a
study
published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences state,
“microbicides that will be used by women to
protect themselves against infection, could
provide greater benefit to men". This is
because drug-resistant HIV is less likely to
be transmitted from one person to another,
so men might still be protected from
contracting HIV when they have sex with
women who have developed drug resistant form
of the virus. In addition, according to the
director of research for the
American
Foundation for AIDS Research,
“Women who use microbicides in an effort to
protect themselves from HIV could end up
with fewer treatment options if they
contract the virus, because of possible drug
resistance” and “trial researchers could use
microbicides that contain drug combinations
that would not promote the development of
resistant HIV strains”...Read
more.CLICK
HERE FOR MORE INFO ON MICROBICIDES.
HIV and Alternative Medicine: (2)
Findings of research on herbal
immunotherapy being used as adjunct against
multi-drug resistant tubercolosis (MDR-TB),
and extensive drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB),
and in patients infected with both HIV and
Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections is
promising and “supports prior trials
indicating clinical benefit of adding
immunomodulators to TB treatment regimens.
The combination of anti-tuberculosis therapy
(ATT) with botanical preparations enhances
the clinical efficacy of directly observed
therapy (DOT) and is safe and beneficial
even to patients with poor prognosis due to
drug resistance and/or co-infection with
HIV. This unique combination results in
significantly shortened duration of
treatment and is more cost-effective than
anti-tuberculosis therapy (ATT) alone”. The
study appeared in the
current
issue of International Journal of
Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences...Read
more.CLICK
HERE TO VIEW FACT SHEET ABOUT THE GLOBAL
RESPONSE TO DRUG RESISTANT TB.
HIV in Other Countries: (3)
“New research published in the international
open-access (freely available) medical
journal PLoS
Medicine compares two
different public health approaches to HIV
treatment. The study authors find that the
highly individualized approach to drug
selection used in Switzerland is just as
effective as the South African approach that
used a limited number of drug combinations
for all patients”. Although the authors also
conclude that many patients would benefit
from earlier initiation of therapy,
particularly in South Africa...Read
more.CLICK
HERE TO VIEW FULL RESEARCH ARTICLE
and
CLICK HERE TO VIEW RESEARCH ABSTRACT
TRANSLATED IN FRENCH.
Editors—Isis Chen Lan Lum and Lillian
Thiemann
