PEPFAR Has “Mandate Without Money,” Haitians Have ARVs without Water, Food, Shelter

A delegation of HIV-positive Haitains recently visited Washington to lobby for robust funding for PEPFAR. Read their compelling stories in this blog, which details how HIV-positive patients have access to HIV drugs but not necessarilly to a glass of water to wash the pills down or food to make the medicines tolerable and effective.

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Another Piece of Evidence in the Case for Earlier, Wider Access to ART

The case for earlier and wider initiation of antiretroviral therapy just keeps getting stronger.
First, there’s the increasing solid consensus that initiating ART earlier significantly increases an HIV patient’s chances of survival. Then there’s the fact that initiating ART earlier reduces the number of people needing more costly second-line therapy. We also know that the best [...]

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100th Antiretroviral Drug approved by FDA for PEPFAR

Federal officials today celebrated the approval of the 100th antiretroviral drug authorized under an expedited regulatory framework created five years ago, as a way to fast-track the delivery of cheap HIV drugs to the developing world through the PEPFAR program. A panel discussion, held at the Pan American Health Organization Headquarters to mark the milestone, [...]

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In AIDS Progress Report, Next Steps Are Key

The end of today’s UNAIDS progress report, detailing the latest figures on access to ARVs, is in some ways more important than the beginning. “The Way Forward,” the report’s conclusion, lays out important next steps in the campaign for universal access, at a time when the global economic crisis and questions about sustainability have cast [...]

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DOTS Not Enough When it Comes to TB in South Africa

Dr. Robin Wood, director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in Cape Town, has many startling slides to illustrate the astronomical problem of tuberculosis in South Africa—from photos of desperately poor, overcrowded shantytowns in the Western Cape to graphs that document the escalating rates of HIV/TB co-infection in his native country.
But there’s one image that [...]

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Cahn Addresses the Latest (Hot-Button) HIV Treatment Topics

This post is by Center Director Christine Lubinski, reporting from the 2009 IAS conference in Cape Town.
Pedro Cahn, president of Huésped Foundation, an Argentinean AIDS organization involved in HIV/AIDS clinical research, prevention and care, offered a refreshingly candid and provocative HIV treatment update as the second plenary speaker at the IAS conference today. Cahn, [...]

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HIV/TB Co-infection–The Deadly Duo Take Center Stage at IAS

This post is by Center Director Christine Lubinski, reporting from the 2009 IAS conference in Cape Town.
World renowned HIV/TB expert Dr. Gerry Friedland, a professor of medicine at Yale and a member of the Global Center’s Scientific Advisory Committee, opened this morning’s plenary session at the 2009 IAS conference by highlighting important operational research [...]

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