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Article Archive: General Reports and Articles

Antibodies Protect Human Cells from Most HIV Strains
NIH Research Matters
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters
19 July 2010
Link to Article

: Scientists have isolated 2 potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90% of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory. The finding may help researchers design more effective HIV vaccines. It may also help advance other strategies for preventing or treating HIV infection.

Most vaccines work by triggering the immune system to produce antibodies that help beat back infections. This strategy hasn't been successful in defeating HIV. Proteins on the surface of HIV mutate rapidly and change shape continuously, preventing most antibodies from latching onto and neutralizing the virus.

Researchers have recently found antibodies that can neutralize multiple strains of HIV-1, the virus responsible for the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These antibodies bind to a specific, virtually unchanging region on HIV’s surface spikes—the structures that help the virus attach to and infect immune cells. Much attention has focused on a surface spike protein called gp120, which fastens onto the CD4 binding site on the surface of immune cells.

General Reports and Articles
HIV/AIDS, NIH, Report, Vaccine
From the Front Lines of the Global AIDS Fight
Alan Whiteside DEcon MA, Peter Navario PhD MPH
Global Health Magazine
1 July 2010

The picture of the current state of AIDS in South Africa is ambivalent. There are some notable successes in preventing mother-to-child transmission and access to antiretroviral treatment (ART), but a worrisome lack of progress in preventing new adult infections. Prospects for resourcing and financing over the next five years are equivocal at best.

Earlier this year a group of South Africa's leading HIV experts, the authors among them, gathered to reflect on progress, identify challenges, and recommend strategies and tactics for surmounting obstacles in the fight against HIV and AIDS. The Special Report on the State of HIV/AIDS in South Africa summarizes the analysis and recommendations that emerged from that meeting.

One theme was transcendent - winning the AIDS fight requires a paradigm shift on the part of all South Africans. Two strategic objectives were mooted again and again as essential to galvanize this shift: 1) The South African department of health must change the way it does business; and 2) Reversing the trend of new infections requires a mass social movement. At a glance, these objectives appear as inchoate as they do intractable, though they reflect several fundamental truths about the current state of AIDS. With five infections for every two people started on ART, HIV incidence remains too high. Extant public sector health staff, including doctors, pharmacists and laboratory technicians, cannot cope with the 3 million plus people needing ART by 2015. Finally, there is not enough money in the AIDS budget to treat everyone needing ART.

General Reports and Articles
HIV/AIDS, Report, South Africa
Reproductive health strategy – to accelerate progress towards the attainment of international development goals and targets
Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization
http://www.who.int
1 July 2010
Link to Article

The report summarizes issues related to the WHO Global Reproductive Health Strategy and its implementation of operationalization. It is not meant to provide a quantitative assessment of the status of sexual and reproductive health in all countries.

General Reports and Articles