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 […]
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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 […]
School-based sexuality programmes fail to demonstrate an influence on STI and pregnancy outcomes
The 2016 UNAIDS Report – Get on the Fast Track: a Life-Cycle Approach to STI Prevention/STI/blogs – underlines the particular vulnerability to infection of women at a relatively early phase of the life-cycle, especially in limited resource settings such as sub-Saharan Africa as a result of structural factors . These can seem intractable, but the authors […]
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 […]
Partner-delivered HIV self-testing through antenatal clinics: the way ahead for partner notification in low-resource settings?
A recently published, Kenya-based, randomized controlled study (Masters & Thirumurthy/STIs) (M&T) evaluates a novel intervention that appears to combine in a fresh way elements of various innovative interventions for HIV prevention. Recently published studies (e.g. Kissinger/STIs; Estcourt & Cassell/STIs) have explored the potential of ‘expedited’, or ‘accelerated’ partner therapy – where the partner of an […]
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 […]
Feasibility of infant circumcision as an HIV prevention tool
Recent trials have shown male circumcision (MC) to be associated with a reduced HIV incidence of up to 60%. For this reason UNAIDS has included ambitious goals for circumcision (20 millions MCs) as a major component of its HIV prevention strategies for 14 priority countries in sub-Saharan Africa (STI/blogs/Roll-out of UNAIDS voluntary male circumcision). The […]
Prevention of anogenital cancers in women may be an additional benefit of HPV vaccination
Cervical cancer is evidently the most important, but by no means the only, health risk that vaccination against HPV aims to avert. The potential impact of vaccination on other cancers (not to mention genital warts) may also be a factor in estimating the cost benefit of achieving higher vaccination coverage, as well as determining priorities […]
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 […]
Cochrane says: Chlamydia screening may have very limited impact, but more research is needed
There is a strong rationale for systematic Chlamydia screening, and it is widely recommended and practised. Yet there are harms associated with the screening process (Low(STIs)), and, of course, serious concerns about its cost-effectiveness (De Wit & Kretzschmar (STIs)). This lends urgency to the question of whether Chlamydia screening works – addressed in a recently […]