Category: Highlights

It’s not enough to test for HIV and treat it – social factors matter too

It’s not enough to test for HIV and treat it – social factors matter too

Giving HIV-positive people access to antiretrovirals as soon as they become infected is an important step in controlling the infection. The challenge lies in making sure people who know they are infected actually take the drugs.   Author: Deenan Pillay, Director of the Africa Centre for Population Health and Professor of Virology, University of Kwazulu-natal

Seven lessons from AIDS 2016

Seven lessons from AIDS 2016

The 21st International Aids Conference that recently took place in Durban raised important issues on ARVs and treatment as prevention.   Author: Kerry Cullinan

HIV infection rates increasing in 74 countries

HIV infection rates increasing in 74 countries

DURBAN, South Africa — While the world has made progress reducing the number of people who die from AIDS every year by expanding access to life-saving drug treatments, many countries are increasingly failing to prevent the spread of HIV.

Decision Framework on ART Delivery

Decision Framework on ART Delivery

The Decision Framework is aimed at supporting the implementation of differentiated models of ART delivery. It provides a background to the principles and a menu of examples. A 5-step plan to guide ART programme managers is outlined and the key “elements” to consider are described along with the “building blocks” of service delivery. The Decision Framework gives guidance on how to prioritize differentiated care to address some of the common challenges of people living with HIV in a given setting. Further iterations of the Decision Framework will be developed to support other parts of the treatment cascade, specific sub-populations and other contexts. 

Vaginal ring is sort of effective at preventing HIV infections in women

Vaginal ring is sort of effective at preventing HIV infections in women

Findings that a vaginal ring could prevent the transmission of HIV in some women elicited cheers and cautious sighs of relief in the global health community. Two separate studies of the dapivirine ring found that it cut HIV cases by 30 percent among women who used it as opposed to those using a placebo. Author: Tom Murphy

Non-doctor emergency surgeons are saving thousands of lives in rural Ethiopian hospitals

Non-doctor emergency surgeons are saving thousands of lives in rural Ethiopian hospitals

Our Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Care Link was the first to introduce Continuing Medical Education (CME) programmes in emergency surgical and obstetric training for non-doctor health officers in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia in 2000. By the end of 2005, after consultation between our organisation, THET, the Federal Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, WHO, Addis Ababa University representatives, and the British Embassy (which was at that time funding our CME programme), consensus was reached on starting a task force in the country to develop a Masters programme in emergency surgery and obstetrics. The task force involved all the then-existing five...