Fresh Conference News

posted: 25/02/2011

HIV Conferences come in different sizes and the biggest this year is CROI, in Boston, USA, which begins this Sunday. This conference is about understanding, preventing and treating HIV.
 

Among this year’s main attractions will be the latest about using antiretroviral drugs to prevent HIV infection, new drugs, and treatment when people also have hepatitis C.
 

Keeping Informed

NAM has writers who will report the news on their website. The CROI conference website has its own webcasts and summaries.

You can read NAM’s conference bulletins on their own web site.

You can also sign up for NAM’s email conference news bulletins here – at the bottom right of the page: a daily email news bulletin over the four days.

Conference Treatment

posted: 06/04/2010

i-Base, a UK HIV treatment information organisation, have produced a simple booklet of key findings from a recent global HIV conference. It tells you about some of the most interesting studies at the recent San Francisco, USA, CROI conference. You can read these comments online here or download their pdf booklet

Read about

• HIV treatment for prevention
• Treatment before and after exposure: PrEP, iPrEP and PEP
• Microbicides - gels to protect against infection
• New drugs and formulations
• Studies with current drugs
• Viral Loads above and below 50 copies/mL – intensification, blips and rebounds
• HIV and heart disease
• Bone Health
• HIV and the brain
• Co-infections: TB and Hepatitis C
• Any news of a cure?
   

HIV Microbicide Hope

posted: 10/02/2009

For the first time a study has shown that a microbicide gel can reduce the risk of male-to-female HIV transmission. Microbicide advocates are pleased, but the results of the larger PRO2000 microbicide study, due late this year, will be crucial in determining the next steps for microbicides.
 

Some reduction in HIV transmission to women

In this study, the PRO2000 microbicide was tested in a clinical trial involving over 3000 women.
Results showed that it reduced the risk of HIV transmission by 30%. This wasn’t quite a statistically significant result. HIV was found 2.7 times per 100 person years amongst women using PRO2000 compared with 4 per 100 person years for the women in other parts of the study.
 

But when the researchers repeated their analysis and took into account the time women weren’t using the gel, their results showed that use of PRO2000 resulted in a statistically significant 36% reduction in the risk of HIV transmission.
 

Other analysis showed that the more often women used the gel, the higher the level of protection it provided.
 

Used without condoms

The researchers also tried to see how effective PRO2000 was at preventing HIV infections in women who didn’t use condoms. They found new HIV infections in 1% of women who used only the microbicide for HIV prevention. It was 4% amongst women who were given the placebo gel. They therefore concluded that, amongst women who didn’t use condoms, over 75% of HIV infections appeared to be prevented by PRO2000.
 

How would PRO2000 be used? One of the study's researchers suggested that it, "may be a niche product for women with no other choices".

It is unlikely that any microbicide will achieve the protection level of condoms, but since many women have little or no control over whether condoms are used, some protection, even if it is imperfect, is better than no protection. That is the main niche for microbicides.

Conference Updates from Montreal

posted: 04/02/2009

CROI is one of the major scientific conferences of the year for HIV, and NAM will help you keep up with what is new in the very latest research presented in Montreal. You can sign up for conference updates from NAM.
 

Among the expected highlights of the conference will be:

• New information on how treatment reduces HIV transmission, with reports on its impact in Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia, as well as new data on viral shedding in people with undetectable viral loads 
• Can so-called 'intensification' approaches, using new drugs like raltegravir, reduce the amount of HIV-infected cells in the body?
• Prevention results from a large microbicide study, HPTN 035
• Large studies of long-term side-effects of antiretroviral treatment – what is the risk of heart attack in people taking antiretroviral drugs?
• Is HIV still causing brain problems such as memory loss, poor concentration and other cognitive difficulties in people taking long-term antiretroviral treatment?

NAM's conference news services

NAM will be reporting from the conference, publishing daily conference news stories on their their website aidsmap.com and you can sign up for a daily email bulletin that summarises of the key developments. The conference bulletin will also be available in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.
 

CROI 2009 - 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections :: 8-11 February 2009, Montreal