aidsmap news: 5000 vertical HIV transmissions in India in 2021, 19 February 2024

News from aidsmap

5000 vertical HIV transmissions in India in 2021

The rate of vertical transmission of HIV in India (from mother to the baby) has reduced from over 40% in 2010 to 24% in 2021. Still, unless the full package of evidence-based interventions that reduce vertical transmission are properly implemented, it will be difficult to meet the elimination targets – which are to reduce the transmission rate to below 5% in breastfeeding populations and below 2% in non-breastfeeding populations, by 2025.

Major knowledge gaps on social harms after HIV partner notification

Even though a review of 16 studies including almost 44,000 people found that social harms associated with HIV partner notifications are rare (less than 1%), with the most common being relationships ending, researchers warn that further research is crucial to fill in the knowledge gaps they identified.

Unequal and inadequate: U=U communication from South African healthcare providers

People living with HIV in South Africa expressed a lack of awareness, confusion, and scepticism regarding U=U, according to a recent qualitative study published in PLOS ONE. Healthcare providers acted as gatekeepers and expressed fears that U=U knowledge would lead to increases in condomless sex.

Peer support after prison improves linkage to HIV care, South African study shows

Providing structured peer support to people with HIV after release from prison greatly improves enrolment in HIV treatment services, a randomised study carried out in South Africa has found.

Answer to COVID-19 severity in people with HIV may lie in the gut

People with HIV who develop severe COVID-19 experience major changes in gut bacteria that persist for months after infection and may explain both the severity of COVID-19 and the extent of post-COVID symptoms, Japanese researchers report in the journal BMC Microbiology.

High blood pressure can be controlled successfully in a large HIV programme, Ugandan study shows

Blood pressure control using medication is feasible and highly effective in people with HIV taking antiretroviral treatment in Uganda, researchers from Makerere University report in the Journal of Human Hypertension.

Heavy drinking has greater impact on heart disease risk in people with HIV

Even when several risk factors for heart disease including cholesterol and diabetes are well controlled, people with HIV remain at higher risk of heart attacks, strokes or heart failure than people without HIV, a large study of people receiving medical care in California has found.

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Editors' picks from other sources

PEPFAR is rolling the clock back on meaningful civil society engagement | Health GAP (Global Access Project)

"It felt like the usual PEPFAR meetings, in which they invite you, you express yourselves, they act like they are listening, and then everything ends there,” said one activist.

Colombia takes significant next step to expand people’s access to affordable HIV treatment, and moves forward with compulsory licence for HIV medicine dolutegravir | Médecins Sans Frontières

It’s a momentous achievement that Colombia is inviting manufacturers and suppliers to provide generic versions of dolutegravir for people who need this key HIV medicine through a compulsory licence, as this is a first-of-its-kind step taken towards a compulsory licence by the Colombian government.

On National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we must resist surveillance technology like molecular HIV surveillance | Prism

Surveillance technology is not neutral in a racist society; we must resist and dismantle these technologies that profile, criminalise, and punish us.

UK: Deborah Gold to step down as Chief Executive of National AIDS Trust | National AIDS Trust

Deborah Gold has announced that she will be leaving National AIDS Trust this summer after nearly ten years as Chief Executive.  

Thirty years of rural health research: South Africa’s Agincourt studies offer unique insights | The Conversation

Agincourt, the University of the Witwatersrand’s rural research centre 500km from Johannesburg, has documented the lives of 120,000 people over decades.

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