The causal pathway linking intimate partner violence (IPV) and health may be two-way. We are used to thinking of IPV as a determinant of STI; but sexual health also has an impact on IPV. This, at any rate, is the conclusion of a recently issued working-paper from the US National Bureau of Economic Research uniting […]
Latest articles
‘Scoping’ location: the role of ‘place’/’space’ as an influence on HIV outcomes amongst young MSM
Bauermeister & Stephenson (B&S) is a scoping review addressing the impact of location – ‘space’ and ‘place’ – on HIV prevention and care outcomes for young MSM (YMSM). It owes much to Diaz & Ayala and their concern to view human behaviour in terms of ‘social location’ ‘within a context of social oppressive factors’ rather […]
The PrEP ‘care continuum/cascade’: how would it look?
We take for granted the value of the care continuum (or ‘cascade’), now increasingly seen as the key measure of health system response to HIV (Cassell (STIs editorial)). The application of this model to HIV has provided a benchmark for evaluation in contexts as diverse as Moscow (Wirtz & Beyrer (STIs)), South Africa (Schwartz & […]
BASHH Centenary Vignette series: Culture of the gonococcus – some historical details
Culture of the gonococcus – some historical details The 43 year period between two BJVD articles1, 2 incubated improvements in the diagnosis of gonorrhoea by laboratory culture. The following 47 gave birth to alternative tests (NAATs), more simple to administer, but whose automation brought loss of personnel and possibly skills: perhaps in microscopy, perhaps in […]
HIV prevention through HAART: a victim of its own success?
A recent study (Kalichman & Allen (K&A)) involving a series of four cross-sectional surveys (1996-2016) at a Gay Pride event in US Atlanta Georgia adds to the mounting body of evidence that substantial changes have occurred in community-held beliefs about the safety of certain sexual behaviours in the era of HIV treatment as prevention. It […]
BASHH Centenary Vignette series: Then and Now
Then and Now As far as I know, Sir Humphry Davy Rolleston, Bart, GCVO, KCB, LLD, MD PRCP, has been the only President of the specialist society, the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases (MSSVD) to have also been the President of the Royal College of Physicians. He was the son of George […]
What is the future of cervical screening in the era of HPV vaccination?
With the introduction of HPV child vaccination programmes, there will have to be a shift from cytology to HPV testing as the main technology involved in primary cervical screening, say the contributors to an on-coming special issue of Preventive Medicine (Tota & Ratnam I) (T&R). Why? Well, first, because of the inevitable decline in the positive […]
A new kind of treatment for multi-resistant gonorrhoea?
Recent research at York University (Ward & Lynam (W&L)), UK, suggests the possible efficacity of carbon monoxide-releasing molecules as an antimicrobial against gonorrhoea. The work is at an early stage – but the urgency of our current situation lends it a heightened interest. Growing resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Ng) to the last-defence antibiotic treatments (Lewis/STIs) […]
Susceptibility of heterosexual sub-Saharan women to HIV could be the result of cervicovaginal microbiome characteristics
Could part of the explanation for the apparent susceptibility of sub-Saharan African heterosexual women to HIV infection (eight-fold that of males) lie in the bacterial flora of their female genital tract (FGT)? Studies published in STI journal have considered the relationship between a certain state of the FGT bacterial microbiome – especially the depletion of […]
Location of HIV-2 emergence determined by distribution of indigenous cultural practices of male circumcision
Sousa & Vandamme demonstrate a robust correlation between HIV-2 prevalence at the time of the 1980s surveys and the absence of indigenous practices of male circumcision earlier in the century. This is a complex and interdisciplinary study, involving some of the earliest large-scale, West African serological surveys of HIV-2 (1980s) and extensive ethnography of the […]