News briefs
Qld funding boost
The Queensland government has announced a $21.7 million, six-year HIV/AIDS strategy. Produced in response to an alarming jump in HIV diagnoses in the state in 2004, the strategy is designed to improve coordination between government departments and increase the capacity of the Queensland AIDS Council, which will receive a $100,000 a year funding boost. The strategy “will focus on education and prevention, early detection, treatment and management, research and the training of health professionals,” Queensland health minister Steven Robertson said.
Man jailed for spreading HIV
A man who infected two women with HIV was sentenced in the NSW District Court on 1 December to a maximum of twelve years jail. Stanislas Kanengele-Yondjo, 41, pleaded guilty to charges of maliciously causing grievous bodily harm after he had unprotected sex with two young female holidaymakers two years ago. The man falsely told the women he was HIV-negative. Delivering the sentence, the judge said the man’s actions as showed a poverty of spirit and a moral bankruptcy which beggars belief. —ABC
Chinese HIV count jumps
The official estimate of HIV cases in China has jumped more than 50 percent in a year. The country’s vice health minister, Wang Longde, announced that the official tally of people living with HIV infection had risen to 135,600 from about 89,000 a year ago. The government-run People’s Daily noted that the number is believed to represent only a fraction of the actual number of cases. The United Nations recently estimated the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in China to be 840,000.
Mother-to-child risk is less for boys
Italian researchers have found that the risk of a mother passing on HIV infection to her unborn child is significantly lower if the baby is a boy. The study examined over 4000 babies born to positive mothers and found that the risk of transmission was higher even when taking account of measures used to reduce the risk of transmission. Although currently recommended practices are highly effective in preventing mother-to-child transmission, the risk remains somewhat higher if the baby is a girl, possibly pointing to better understanding of the ways in which transmission occurs. —JAIDS 40.
Door-to-door HIV tests
The tiny African country of Lesotho has announced plans to test every person in the country for HIV. Even the country’s King is expected to be tested. Authorities in the mountainous landlocked kingdom, where 29 percent of people are thought to be HIV-positive, hope that the universal testing scheme will decrease the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and help with the rollout of treatment, but the plan has raised the concern of human rights advocates.
PLWHA conference cancelled
The 12th International Conference of People Living with HIV/AIDS, which was to have taken place in Lima, Peru in March 2006, has been cancelled due to lack of funding and low registrations. The conference had already been postponed from the original date in 2005, however organisers announced the cancellation when it became clear that less than 25 percent of the required funding had been secured.
Treatments briefs
Supplement may reverse lipoatrophy
A dietary supplement extracted from sugar cane can reverse fat loss in the arms and legs of people with HIV-associated lipoatrophy, a small European study has found. The study enrolled 40 people who were taking either AZT or d4T-containing HAART regimens who were randomised to take either the uridine supplement or a placebo for 18 months. All participants maintained viral suppression, however those in the uridine group had increases in arm and leg fat of between 400 and 1500 grams while those taking the placebo saw no change. Despite the small size of the study, the results appear to confirm earlier finding showing this expensive supplement can block the mitochondrial damage caused by nucleoside analogues. _—NATAP_
Spontaneously undetectable
A small proportion of people living with HIV/AIDS are able to achieve undetectable viral load without treatment, and this is linked to better long term treatment outcomes, according to an international study. The CASCADE study involved over 2000 people in Australia, Europe and Canada, of which 7 percent had at least two consecutive undetectable viral loads without any treatment. After an average of about one year, all the patients eventually had rises in viral load, however the researchers hope that the study could help in future development of vaccines and anti-HIV therapies. _—AIDS 19:2001-2007, 2005._
Better hep C treatments?
A major international conference has heard the latest on three promising drugs in development for hepatitis C. Unlike the existing hep C treatments interferon and ribavirin, these new drugs are designed to block HCV replication in a similar way to anti-HIV treatments. At the AASLD Conference in San Francisco in November, results were presented from a phase 2 trial of valopicitabine, a nucleoside analogue hep C polymerase inhibitor, and separate phase 1 trials of SCH503034 and VX-950, both of which are hep C protease inhibitors. The early results for all three were encouraging, and further trials are planned. _—Aidsmap_
Herb blocks HIV – but there’s a catch
A protein found in the herb St John’s wort can inhibit HIV replication in the test tube, according to American research, however the researchers have warned against people using the herb. While the p27SJ protein showed considerable promise in the test-tube study, the researchers say they don’t know yet whether St John’s wort supplements will allow the HIV-blocking protein to reach infected cells, or what the effect would be. St John’s wort, widely used as an antidepressant, can drastically reduce blood levels of some protease inhibitors, potentially leading to treatments failure and viral resistance. _—Gene Therapy 12._
TMC-125 ‘safe and effective’
A pair of studies examining a promising new non-nucleoside, TMC-125, have shown that it is effective in people with resistance to other non-nukes or to protease inhibitors. Study TMC125-C223, presented at the European AIDS Conference in Dublin, enrolled 199 people who were failing on their existing treatments who were resistant to existing non-nucleosides and had at least three protease inhibitor resistance mutations. After 24 weeks, average viral load reductions of over 1.04 logs were recorded, compared with 0.19 logs in those taking the placebo. Participants taking TMC-125 also had significant increases in their CD4 count. Further studies are planned. —Tenth European AIDS Conference/European AIDS Clinical Society, Dublin, abstracts LBPS3/7B and LBPS3/7A, 2005.
