My previous blog spoke of the recent PLoS-Medicine Collection on the progress of a UNAIDS initiative for a five-year scale-up of Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention in 14 high priority Eastern and Southern African countries. Among the papers, Ashengo & Njeuhmeli (A&N) and Macintyre & Bertrand (M&B) deal with what the authors […]
Category: Programme Science
The roll-out of UNAIDS voluntary medical male circumcision programmes in sub-Saharan Africa: Is it working?
Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) has been demonstrated to reduce HIV acquisition by 60% or more. WHO and UNAIDS have recommended that VMMC form a part of comprehensive HIV prevention programming in regions of high prevalence, such as sub-Saharan Africa. Mathematical modelling suggests that the achievement of 80% VMMC coverage within 5 years in 14 […]
Responding appropriately to differentials in HIV care outcomes – are local answers needed?
The recent discovery of the preventative potential of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) (STIs/blog/modelling ART impact) throws into sharp relief the challenge represented for the US by the very inadequate proportion of its 1.2 million HIV+ citizens (<30%) who are virally suppressed. Nunn & Mayer use new geographical mapping tools to bring home forcibly the epidemiological dimension […]
What can cost-effectiveness modelling tell us about the feasibility of eliminating congenital syphilis in sub-Saharan Africa?
The WHO global initiative for the elimination of congenital syphilis (2007) set the goal of expanding antenatal testing to >90% by 2015. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) recent estimates place the number of mothers infected with active syphilis at 535,000 p.a.. Adverse outcomes – stillbirths, neo-natal morbidity and congenital disease – affect 53%-82% of these pregnancies, […]