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Black Queer AF Media Tour to Bring Culture and HIV Awareness Across the South
The name says it all: The Black Queer AF Media Tour will stop by four Southern cities to present the Blackest, queerest entertainment show around. It’s presented by the Normal Anomaly Initiative, which has been organizing Black Queer AF events for Houston’s African-American LGBTQ communities for several years.
People With HIV Have Been Arrested in Indiana for Donating Plasma
Eighteen people living with HIV in Indiana were arrested between 2001 and 2019 for donating plasma, though, thanks to effective screening methods, none of them posed a risk of transmitting the virus, found a new report by the Williams Institute. The Williams Institute is a research center focusing on law...
FDA Approves Blood Test for Colon Cancer
This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new blood test to screen for colon cancer, according to an FDA announcement. Guardant Health’s Shield is not a replacement for colonoscopies but has potential to improve the low screening rates for colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States (lung cancer tops that list by far).
CRISPR Gene Therapy Does Not Prevent HIV Rebound
EBT-101, a CRISPR-based gene-editing therapy, was safe and well tolerated in an early study, but it did not prevent viral rebound in the first four participants who interrupted antiretroviral treatment, according to a report at the International AIDS Conference (#AIDS2024) in Munich. One person, however, did see a decline in his HIV reservoir, and viral rebound was delayed for four months.
Can Cancer Meds Play a Role in an HIV Cure? These Researchers Aim to Find Out
Three HIV scientists exploring potential HIV cures received grants totaling $1.2 million from amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. All three will focus on ways to eliminate the so-called HIV reservoir, where latent virus hides out, even when people are on successful treatment and their viral load is undetectable. (If treatment is stopped, the virus rebounds and begins its damage.)
Testing Transmission and Infection of H5N1 Flu From Cows
Highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza viruses spread mostly among birds, but occasional infections in mammals do occur. The first documented outbreak of H5N1 in cattle occurred in the United States in spring 2024. During this outbreak, the virus has spread within and between cattle herds. In addition to poultry, cats and people have also been infected. If the virus spread through the human population, it could pose a great risk to public health. Yet how the cow H5N1 virus transmits between mammals isn’t well understood.
Long-Acting Cabotegravir PrEP Is Safe During Pregnancy
[At the International AIDS Conference], HPTN 084 researchers presented new safety and pharmacokinetic (PK) findings for long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) [Apretude] when used before and during pregnancy. The findings show that CAB-LA used as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) was generally well tolerated and generally safe for both pregnant cisgender women and their babies. In addition, PK findings suggest that no dose changes are needed when using CAB-LA during pregnancy. To date, none of the women who became pregnant and continued to receive CAB acquired HIV during pregnancy.
NIAID Research to Eliminate the Threat of Viral Hepatitis Across the Globe
A Year of Hepatitis Advances to Mark World Hepatitis Day. Viral hepatitis affects the lives of about one in twenty people in the world, resulting in over a million deaths each year. NIAID is working on many ways to prevent and treat the different types of hepatitis, including the development of vaccines and improved therapeutics and diagnostics.
Medicaid Urged to Ensure Access to Long-Acting Meds That Treat and Prevent HIV
A policy brief written by health advocate experts urges Medicaid leadership to capitalize on the promise of long-acting medications to treat and prevent HIV. The brief spells out a series of recommendations to ensure that people eligible for Medicaid have access to these “game-changing” injectable HIV meds. The...
A New Way to Measure and Predict Human Immune Health
The immune system senses and responds to changes in physiologic health, and a new tool called the immune health metric (IHM) can measure and even predict some of these changes, an NIAID study has found. If doctors could use the IHM to detect health problems long before symptoms appear, they could potentially act early to prevent disease, the investigators suggest. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Wistar Institute Launches Center Dedicated to HIV Cure Research
Thanks to a $24 million institutional investment from Wistar, The Wistar Institute is building a new HIV Cure and Viral Disease Center dedicated to HIV research, according to a news release. Philadelphia-based Wistar is one of the top independent nonprofit institutions researching HIV, cancer, immunology and other infectious diseases. Wistar...
HIV Unmuted - The Game-Changing Research from AIDS 2024
This episode of HIV unmuted introduces a new host and format for the award-winning IAS podcast. Our host, Juan Michael Porter II, the Senior Editor for TheBody/TheBodyPro, takes a deep dive with a single guest in an intimate conversation that gives the listener a glimpse of the guest – who they are and how they got into this work – and an understanding of their topic of expertise.
Twice-Yearly Lenacapavir PrEP Is 100% Effective for Women
Lenacapavir, Gilead Sciences twice-yearly capsid inhibitor, demonstrated 100% efficacy for preventing HIV acquisition in a large study of young women in Africa, according to long-awaited results from the PURPOSE 1 trial. As previously reported, top-line findings were announced in June, and full details were presented today at the International AIDS Conference (#AIDS2024) in Munich. The study results were also published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Here’s How Cities and Urban Settings Can Better Respond to HIV
Globally, 70% of people are projected to live in cities by 2050. Consequently, urban settings will play a vital role in addressing the HIV epidemic as well as broader health issues. A new report assesses the urban HIV epidemic and offers actionable recommendations to improve HIV responses. Released to coincide...
HIV Vaccines Tested in PrEPVacc Fail to Reduce Infections
[Editor’s note: POZ covered the topline findings from the PrEPVacc study in December 2023, when researchers announced that the trial would be halted because it was unlikely to demonstrate vaccine effectiveness. Detailed results from the study were presented at the International AIDS Conference on July 23, 2024.]. The results...
An Isolated Viral Load Test May Generate False Positive Results for People Using Long-Acting PrEP
A single laboratory-based HIV viral load test used by U.S. clinicians who provide people with long-acting, injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) did not reliably detect HIV in a multi-country study. In the study, a single positive viral load test was frequently found to be a false positive result....
Exploratory Analysis Associates HIV Drug Abacavir With Elevated Cardiovascular Disease Risk
Current or previous use of the antiretroviral drug abacavir was associated with an elevated risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in people with HIV, according to an exploratory analysis from a large international clinical trial primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There was no elevated MACE risk for the other antiretroviral drugs included in the analysis. The findings will be presented at the 2024 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024) in Munich, Germany.
Watch HIV.gov’s Day 2 at #AIDS2024: U=U University, NIH Updates & More
On Tuesday at IAS’s AIDS 2024 in Munich, Germany, HIV.gov continued its daily coverage. Here are four updates:. Louis Shackelford of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network spoke with Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, Director of the Division of AIDS at National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. They discussed the case report of the “Next Berlin patient,” a person living with HIV who is now in remission off of antiretroviral therapy following a stem cell transplant. Dr. Dieffenbach explained that this transplant was unique because both the donor and the recipient had a genetic makeup not previously seen in similar HIV cure case reports. They also discussed how this approach is only possible in unique circumstances when someone has a condition such as a cancer that requires a stem cell transplant, and discussed other approaches being explored for scalable HIV cure. Among them, he discussed the use of HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies—antibodies that bind to parts of HIV that remain relatively stable even when it mutates—in cure research. Finally, they discussed a new analysis from a large study of long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Watch their conversation below and on YouTube:
Long-Acting Injectable Cabotegravir for HIV Prevention is Safe in Pregnancy
Long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) was safe and well tolerated as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) before and during pregnancy in the follow-up phase of a global study among cisgender women. The analysis of outcomes from more than 300 pregnancies and infants will be presented at the 2024 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024) in Munich, Germany.
Daily DoxyPrEP May Be Another Option for STI Prevention
Doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (doxyPEP) for prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) has been big news at recent AIDS conferences, but for people who have sex often, daily doxycycline pre-exposure prophylaxis (doxyPrEP) may also be an effective option, according to two small studies presented at the International AIDS Conference (#AIDS2024) this week in Munich.
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