AIDS Compendium
NIH awards grants to fund HIV/AIDS research in developing countries
The Fogarty Center of the NIH has awarded $2.7 million in grants for HIV/AIDS research in 15 countries. A separate set of grants totaling $11.75 million over five years also has been awarded by the Fogarty Center.
Stay connected - Sign Up for the E-mail News Wire!Seven grants have been awarded in the first series. The primary target of the funding is to train HIV/AIDS researchers in 15 low- and middle-income countries. The grants are the newest installation of the AIDS International Training and Research Program.
The State University of New York at Buffalo, a first-time recipient, received a grant for post-graduate training in HIV/AIDS clinical pharmacology. The research will be conducted in collaboration with the University of Zimbabwe and will support NIH-funded research networks in the African country.
Emory University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University will receive grant renewals.
Researchers at Emory University have been conducting training and research in Georgia, Mexico, Rwanda, Vietnam and Zambia.
China, Malawi and Cameroon have benefitted from the program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The University of Pittsburgh has fostered partnerships between Portuguese-language research programs in Mozambique and Brazil. Pittsburgh programs also have reached India.
Vanderbilt University has training sites in China, India, Mozambique, Pakistan and Zambia.
Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University in Uganda have been awarded a planning grant to build clinical trial capacity for research in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission. The program also will contain a component for treating pediatric and adult HIV.
Another planning grant was awarded to the Health Medical Research in Peru. The research will focus on establishing a Latin American AIDS Research and Training program in that country.
The second series of grants will focus on combating HIV and tuberculosis co-infections. Renewed grants have been awarded to programs in China, Haiti and Uganda. A new program will also be established in Tanzania.
Renewed grants were awarded to the Chinese Center for Disease Control, which is working with the University of California at Los Angeles and Yale University.
The program in Haiti is being conducted by the Haitian Study Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, Quisqueya University and Zanmi Lasante in Haiti, Dartmouth College and Weill Medical College of Cornell University in the United States.
In Uganda, the Joint Clinical Research Center, Makerere University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, the Kampala City Council, the National TB and Leprosy Control Program and Gulu University in Uganda will work with Case Western Reserve University and the University of Georgia in the United States.
Eric Goosby, MD, named U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator
The White House recently announced the appointment of Eric Goosby, MD, to the position of U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.
Goosby has been involved with HIV/AIDS public policy since the beginning of the epidemic in 1981. His work helped San Francisco General Hospital become a forerunner in treating IV drug users with HIV.
In the Clinton Administration, Goosby was director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy in the Department of Health and Human Services and was the deputy director of the White House National AIDS Policy Office. Experts believe that the relationship he fostered with Hillary Clinton in those years will be beneficial in developing and implementing new strategies to combat HIV/AIDS worldwide. He has worked in Rwanda and the Ukraine and has taken particular interest in HIV/tuberculosis co-infection.
Most recently, Goosby was a member of the scientific advisory committee at the Center for Global Health and was on the board of directors of the HIV Medicine Association.
Patients at South Dakota urology clinic may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis
Patients treated at a South Dakota urology clinic may have been accidently exposed to HIV and hepatitis after employees of the clinic reused some medical products that were intended to be single-use only.
Officials from the South Dakota Department of Heath, conducting a routine inspection at Siouxland Urology Center in Dakota Dunes, S.D., found that employees at the facility were reusing sterile saline bags, tubing and other medical supplies from cystoscopies.
About 5,700 patients treated at the facility since 2002 are now being contacted and warned about potential exposure to HIV and hepatitis.
According to the Siouxland Urology Center’s website, the facility will be offering free HIV and hepatitis testing for any patients who may have been put at risk.
“Though the risk to our patients of exposure to any virus here is minimal, we are offering free blood tests to patients who received cystoscopic procedures … to put to rest any concerns regarding these issues,” information on the website states.
The Siouxland Urology Center is now operating under a provisional state license.
Senegal releases men imprisoned for alleged homosexual acts
In Senegal, nine men who had been imprisoned for “membership of a criminal organization and engaging in acts against the order of nature” were released on Apr. 20, 2009.
The arrests had taken place on Dec. 19, 2008, at the home of an HIV prevention program leader. The men were sentenced to eight years in jail on Jan. 6, 2009.
Officials from the International AIDS Society praised the Dakar Court of Appeal for overturning the decision. Defense attorneys argued that police had raided the home on the strength of anonymous hearsay only and that the men had not been engaged in homosexual acts at the time of arrest.
Article 3.913 of the Senegalese penal code stipulates that homosexual acts may be punished by imprisonment of one to five years and fines of up to US$3,000.
HIVMA urges CMS to cover routine HIV screening
The HIV Medicine Association is encouraging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cover routine HIV screening.
Arlene Bardeguez, MD, MPH, chair of the HIVMA recently wrote, on behalf of the HIVMA, to William Larson, of CMS, encouraging support for coverage of routine HIV screening.
In the letter, Bardeguez praised CMS for taking steps toward initiation of the national coverage analysis. Bardeguez noted CDC recommendations for HIV testing in healthcare settings and wrote that the HIVMA has endorsed other guidelines which recommend routine screening.
Bardeguez also provided an overview of some key HIV-related statistics and wrote that routine testing is key to control and prevention of the infection. Included in this overview were comments on cost analyses which have demonstrated the financial benefits of routine testing.
One-third of injection drug users report sharing syringes
MMWR. 2009; 58:329-332.
National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System data showed that 31.8% of injection drug users reported sharing syringes during May 2005 to February 2006.
Data from 23 metropolitan areas in the United States were analyzed. Researchers asked participants whether, during the previous 12 months, they had shared syringes, shared injection equipment, had vaginal sex, had unprotected sex, had more than one opposite-sex partner, were tested for HIV, participated in an individual or group HIV behavioral intervention or had been tested for hepatitis C virus (HCV).
There were 10,301 eligible injection drug users in the study. Injection equipment was shared by 33.4% of participants. The researchers highlighted other key results in an article that appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report:
- 81.7% of participants reported having vaginal sex.
- 62.6% reported having unprotected vaginal sex.
- 47.2% reported having multiple opposite-sex partners.
- 71.5% had been tested for HIV.
- 27.4% reported participation in a HIV-related behavioral intervention.
GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer to combine resources for HIV specialty company
GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have announced plans to form a specialty company that will jointly develop HIV-related products.
The company will focus on research, development and commercialization of HIV drugs. Executives at Pfizer said that the strength of the company will lie in the combination of the Pfizer HIV pipeline with the distribution capabilities of GlaxoSmithKline. There will be 11 marketed products in the portfolio of the new company.
The company is expected to take approximately 19% of the global market share for HIV medicines. GlaxoSmithKline will initially hold 85% of the venture, and Pfizer will hold 15%.
