Urgent action is needed to scale up needle and syringe programs around the world to curb the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, an international group of experts warns.
In a new study published in The Lancet Global Health, the authors say the programs are effective but remain widely underfunded due to policy barriers rooted in stigma and discrimination.
Women who experience recent intimate partner violence (IPV) are three times more likely to contract HIV, according to a new study led by McGill University researchers. In regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, women face an intersecting epidemic of intimate partner violence and HIV.
“Worldwide, more than one in four women experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime," says McGill University Professor Mathieu Maheu-Giroux, a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Modeling.
Twenty years’ worth of surveys suggest that nearly one in ten sexually active men in 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been clients of sex workers. These men are about 50 percent more likely to be living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), according to a team of international researchers, including Professor Mathieu Maheu-Giroux and Caroline Hodgins of McGill University.
Dr. Catherine Hankins, Professor at the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health and co-chair of Canada's COVID-19 Immunity Task Force is quoted by the Globe and Mail.
"…Dr. Catherine Hankins, a professor of public and population health at McGill University in Montreal, distinctly remembers reading the now-iconic MMWR report 40 years ago. "It was one of those 'where were you when…' moments," she said.
By Gillian Woodford
A type of fatty liver disease that commonly affects patients with HIV can be safely treated with vitamin E, a McGill-led study has found.
Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a severe form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and is characterized by liver inflammation and cell damage. It is a potentially dangerous condition that can progress to cirrhosis or liver cancer.
Despite improvements in HIV testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Africa, they are missing out on HIV treatment.
This is the finding of research, published in The Lancet HIV, led by Imperial College London, which analysed data from 75 independent studies involving 44,993 MSM across 28 African countries, between 2004 and 2018.
HIV self-testing strategies have been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2016, as they empower people to find out HIV their status at their convenience. However, home-based testing kits have yet to be approved for sale in Canada.
Reducing stigma may address cognitive impairment in this population
A new study has drawn a direct link between the amount of stigma men with HIV report experiencing and their scores on cognitive tests, measuring abilities such as memory and attention.
By Neuro Staff
When the general public thinks of HIV, they do not think of a neurological disease, yet people living with HIV infection know they need to worry about their brain health.
Untreated, HIV can cause severe dementia. Even with good control of the infection, a third or more of patients have problems with thinking or concentration, and many have mental health challenges. These issues are of particular concern in those over 50, a rapidly expanding group given the success of modern antiretroviral treatment.
While the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has largely dropped from news headlines since the 1990s, at the end of 2016 there were 36.7 million people living with the infection, and of those only 53 per cent had access to treatment. A new study underscores the neurological consequences of exposure to HIV without antiretroviral therapy.
Study tracks patients to better understand effects and possible treatments
December 1 is World AIDS Day, a time to raise awareness about a disease that has afflicted 70 million people worldwide, 35 million of whom have died as a result.
Reducing opportunistic infections such as TB in children with HIV could save both lives and money
By Tod Hoffman, Lady Davis Institute
Research reveals that even a tiny mutation can allow the HIV virus to become resistant to therapies using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing platform
A Canadian research team at the IRCM in Montréal, led by molecular virologist Éric A. Cohen, PhD, made a significant discovery on how HIV escapes the body’s antiviral responses. The team uncovered how an HIV viral protein known as Vpu tricks the immune system by using its own regulatory process to evade the host’s first line of defence. This breakthrough was published yesterday in the scientific journal PLoS Pathogens and will be presented at the upcoming IAS 2015 conference in Vancouver. The findings pave the way for future HIV prevention or cure strategies.
