In this the second STI podcast of 2021, we focus on the HIV epidemic in Indonesia and how the country strives to meet the UNAIDS 90-90-90 UNAIDS sustainability goals for people living with HIV (PLWH). Episode Highlights: Indonesia is a densely populated country spread over 17,000 islands of stunning beauty. It has one of the […]
Category: health policy
COVID-19 and HIV: Calling attention to the importance of ensuring HIV status and testing is included in the management of COVID-19
As health care services worldwide undergo major reconfiguration to respond to the coronavirus crisis, there are simple and affordable ways to improve outcomes that relate to both HIV and COVID-19 care. The first step is to make sure that the HIV status is recorded on all hospital admissions relating to COVID-19. This in turn will […]
Pause for thought on the missing millions affected by hepatitis B: Are we doing enough? World Hepatitis Day – 28th July 2019
By 2040, the number of deaths from viral hepatitis will be higher than the combined mortality arising from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.1 There have been tremendous advances in fighting hepatitis C. Are we doing enough to lift the heavy burden of hepatitis B? Worldwide, an estimated 257 million people have chronic hepatitis […]
Anti-HIV strategies in limited resource settings set the pattern for combating other diseases
HIV-specific interventions in poor regions of the world like sub-Saharan Africa may have benefits for their health systems that exceed the initial aims of those interventions (How should HIV-specific charitable interventions like PEPFAR be evaluated? (STI/blog)). This is the encouraging message coming out of a recent evaluation of treatment of rheumatoid heart disease (RHD) in […]
Modelling the scale-down of HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa
Search BMJ STI archive, and you will find frequent references to ‘scaling up’, and few – if any – to ‘scaling back’ or ‘scaling down’ (other than Parker/STI). Who knows if all this may not be about to change, if the US government goes ahead with threats to cut current foreign aid budget ear-marked for […]
Revised UK NICE Guidelines for HIV testing: why local prevalence based targeting by GPs and hospitals makes sense
November 2016 saw the publication of revised UK NICE Guidelines for HIV testing (last updated 2011) – only a few weeks before the appearance of the annual Public Health England Report: HIV in the UK/2016. The latter highlights the estimated level of still undiagnosed HIV in the UK (which, at 13,500/101,000, places us 3% short […]
UNAIDS 2016 Report: How a ‘life-cycle’ approach can help the world ‘get on the fast track’ to HIV prevention
‘Get on the Fast Track: a Life-cycle Approach to HIV’ is the latest UNAIDS report, following on from the UN Assembly’s 2016 declaration of commitment to ‘Fast Track’ goals for ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The major theme of the ‘life-cycle’ appears to owe much to the findings of the South African CAPRISA study – above […]
Criminalizing HIV transmission: Is imprisonment ever the right response?
This month sees the publication of a ‘Consensual Statement’ by Australian medical professionals on ‘Sexual Transmission and the Law’. This draws on a similar Canadian ‘Consensus Statement’ issued in 2014. The involvement of the law in this area remains a highly controversial matter. It is easy to assume that UNAIDS policies underlining the public health […]
Where HPV vaccination loses the battle for public support: calculating the health implications for Japan
A recent brief contribution to The Lancet-Oncology (Tanaka & Ueda) uses predictions of the probable health outcomes of the suspension of the Japanese HPV vaccination programme to make the case for an urgent reassessment of the current policy. This intervention is very timely. The approved age for HPV vaccination for Japanese girls is a window of four years […]
Fresh WHO guidelines on gonorrhoea management + latest US surveillance data on gonorrhoea resistance
The emergence in various locations of resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng) is narrowing the therapeutic options. The recent (July 2016) WHO Guidelines, revised from 2003, reflect the concern both to treat effectively and steward our remaining defences against the infection in a globally coordinated manner. They recommend either dual therapy with either single dose […]