A roundup of HIV-related news from Australian and selected international media.
In this edition:
Australia
Gay News Network, 10 Apr
Tags: John Della Bosca conferences social-research HIV
A major conference on HIV, hepatitis and other related diseases in Sydney next week will hear from former NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca while a planned symposium will also look at the potential impacts of new laws to licence sex work in the state.
Our Region
Gay NZ (New Zealand), 4 Apr
Tags: vilification stigma radio NZ HIV
The Broadcasting Standards Authority has declined to uphold a complaint about a text read out on radio station The Edge that “Dom, your song was so gay I’m pretty sure I just got AIDS from listening to it”.
Gay NZ (New Zealand), 9 Apr
Tags: Shaun Robinson workforce NZAF HIV-sector
The NZ AIDS Foundation has had a 30% staff turnover in just over a year, the organisation's chief executive has revealed.
Newcastle Herald (NSW), 9 Apr
Tags: education HCV HBV NZMA NZ immigration HIV
Relaxing health screening requirements for international students could lead to people infected with HIV and hepatitis being granted visas to study here, medical experts say.
International
San Francisco Chronicle (US)/AP, 6 Apr
Tags: Michael Weinstein AHF discrimination boycott USA schools HIV
AIDS activists are stepping up their call for a boycott of Hershey candy to protest the rejection of a student at a boarding school connected to the company because he is HIV-positive.
Chicago Tribune (US)/Reuters, 5 Apr
Tags: USA CDC sex-education schools STIs HIV
Public schools in the United States are making "little progress" in expanding instruction in how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, a n ew federal study concluded.
Sydney Morning Herald/AP, 11 Apr
Tags: mobile-phones engineers Africa HIV
Getting AIDS test results from labs to remote villages once took weeks in Mozambique, with the information sent by courier along the impoverished country's terrible roads. The delay could mean death.
HIV Treatment and Care
AIDSMeds (US), 10 Apr
Tags: eradication functional-cure cure therapeutic-vaccines treatments HIV
While geneThe most basic unit of genetic information. therapies that render the immune system impervious to HIV and drugs that potentially purge the virusA small infective organism which is incapable of reproducing outside a host cell. from resting CD4 cells continue to be watched closely by AIDS cure researchers and advocates, therapeutic vaccines may serve an important supporting role in these efforts, according to a commentary published by activist Richard Jefferys in the Spring 2012 TAGline newsletter.
Aidsmap (UK), 10 Apr
Tags: MTCT protease-inhibitors ritonavir premature-birth pregnancy HIV
AntiretroviralA medication or other substance which is active against retroviruses such as HIV. therapy during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of premature delivery, French researchers report in ClinicalPertaining to or founded on observation and treatment of participants, as distinguished from theoretical or basic science. Infectious Diseases. The large study showed that treatment with a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor was especially associated with prematurity.
Drugs
Los Angeles Times (US), 10 Apr opinion
Tags: LA op-ed needle-exchange HIV
The city's early action in AIDS/HIV prevention by providing a needle exchange program proved to be prescient. Now is no time to back off.
Hepatitis
Aidsmap (UK), 6 Apr
Tags: swiss-cohort gay men incidence HCV HIV
The annual incidence of hepatitis C infection in gay men with HIV is now nearly twice that seen in HIV-positive injecting drug users, according to a Swiss study.
Aidsmap (UK), 9 Apr
Tags: liver fibrosis CD4-percentage CD4-count coinfection HCV HIV
Liver fibrosis is associated with discordance between CD4 cell counts and percentages in HIV-positive people, according to US research published in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The association was especially marked for patients with a total lymphocyte count below 1200 cells/mm3.
Aidsmap (UK), 9 Apr
Tags: fibrosis CD4-percentage CD4-count coinfection HCV HIV
Discordance between CD4 cell count and CD4 cell percentage in people co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C is associated with markers of liver fibrosis and other indicators of liver dysfunction, Canadian investigators report in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The research also showed that discordance between CD4 cell count and percentage was present in almost two-thirds of co-infected patients.
GLBTI News
Sydney Morning Herald/AAP, 8 Apr
Tags: George Brandis John Robertson Alex Greenwich AME Tony Abbott same-sex-marriage
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is still opposed to same sex marriage despite his sister coming out publicly as a lesbian.
Sydney Morning Herald, 8 Apr
Tags: Exodus International ex-gays Anthony Venn-Brown Liberty Christian Ministries gay cure therapy christianity gay-men GLBT
Sydney groups with Christian roots claim they can turn gay people straight, Michael Lallo and Jonathan Swan report.
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