The Senate Finance Committee’s chair, Max Baucus (D-Mont.), and top Republican, Charles Grassley (Iowa), are working with colleagues in the House on legislation that would lower tariffs in an effort to help Haiti’s apparel industry and help the country recover from the major January earthquake, CQ Politics reports…
Recent gains in the global fight against HIV/AIDS could be reversed as the “global economic downturn pinches poor countries’ budgets and donors show signs of backing away from their promise to provide universal access to AIDS treatment,” the British government together with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday, Reuters AlertNet reports…
Women’s health experts are watching closely to see whether a recent grant to provide no-cost female condoms in Washington, D.C., will “really make a difference” in the area’s HIV/AIDS rate among women, Newsweek’s Kate Dailey writes. The goal of the program is to empower women to take control of their own health and safety…
WFP Agrees To Cooperate With Probe Of Its Operations In Somalia The World Food Program (WFP) “said Thursday it will cooperate with any independent probe into its food operations in Somalia, after a report found that up to half the food aid intended for the nation’s hungry people does not reach its destination,” the Associated Press reports…
AIDS 2010, the International AIDS Conference to be held July 18-23 in Vienna, Austria, will “highlight the situation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, regions experiencing fast growing [HIV/AIDS] epidemics largely through unsafe injecting drug use,” conference organizers announced Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reports…
Former President Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing “that U.S. investments in fighting [HIV/]AIDS, malaria and other diseases in underdeveloped nations save lives and play a vital role in improving America’s image abroad,” the Associated Press reports…
BMJ Group, publisher of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), has recognized University of British Columbia Clinical Associate Prof. Evan Wood with its first annual Junior Doctor of the Year honour…
Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science (MIPS) researchers, in collaboration with the biotechnology company Starpharma Holdings Ltd (ASX:SPL) have developed a new method to deliver medications that may benefit thousands of patients with particular types of cancer, HIV and lymphatic conditions world-wide…
HIV Hides Outs In Bone Marrow, Study Finds HIV “can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that could point the way toward better treatments for the disease,” the Associated Press reports (Schmid, 3/7)…
By 2015, mother-to-child HIV transmission will be virtually eliminated and deaths from malaria and tuberculosis will continue to decline if health investments for the diseases are maintained or scaled up, according to an annual results report published Monday by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Agence France-Presse/Africasia.com reports (3/8)…
In a Washington Post opinion piece on Sunday, freelance writer Jamie Rich examined the Cameroonian practice of breast ironing, in which women use heated plantain leaves or hot stones to “flatten adolescent girls’ developing breasts, intending to protect the girls from the dangers of sex, consensual or otherwise…
Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) infects nearly 100 percent of humans in early childhood, and the infection then lasts for the rest of a person’s life…
Washington, D.C., soon will become the first city in the U.S. to distribute female condoms at no charge, the Washington Post reports…
AIDS leaders gathering in London today face the daunting challenge of implementing new World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations for earlier treatment with better AIDS drug cocktails at a time when donors are backing away from the promise of “universal access,” said Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)…
Heating Device Effectively Treats Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, Study Says “A heating device that uses radio frequency energy to heat parasites and kill them could provide a new way to treat … cutaneous leishmaniasis in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, military researchers reported Monday,” the Los Angeles Times’ blog “Booster Shots” reports…
2010 To Be ‘Decisive Year’ For Global Health, Global Fund Director Says In a BusinessDay opinion piece, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Michel Kazatchkine reflects on the organization’s progress and impact on global health outcomes since its creation in 2002, as detailed in the organizations’ 2010 annual report…
During an appeal to government and private donors to pledge money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Monday, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe warned of the repercussions tightening budgets could play in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, the Associated Press reports…
UCSF prevention experts have released the Positive Prevention Toolkit, a collection of resources designed to enable HIV/AIDS caregivers to provide prevention messages when interacting with HIV-positive patients. The goal is to help patients modify their behavior to reduce risk and decrease the spread of HIV…
New findings from a Université de Montréal and the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida (VGTI) study, in collaboration with scientists from the NIH and the McGill University Hospital Center, may soon lead to an expansion of the drug arsenal used to fight HIV. The Canada-U.S…
Lancet Study Examines Childbirth Practices, Outcomes In Asian Countries A Lancet study examines childbirth practices and the relationship between these practices and maternal and perinatal outcomes in nine Asian countries, as assessed by a WHO global survey…
A new study of children in Ukraine has found that for the growing number of HIV-infected children, the quality of care and the relationship between children and their caregivers play an important role in their development…
GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX) (the “Company”), an Atlanta-based, biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents, provided an update on its vaccine trials progress…
An experimental vaccine was found to reduce the rate of tuberculosis infections in patients living with HIV, “the first time a shot has been shown to reduce cases of the most common AIDS-related cause of death in poor nations,” Bloomberg reports (Bennett, 1/29). Tuberculosis accounts for up to one-third of AIDS deaths worldwide, CBC News reports…
“The Obama administration is expected to propose in its fiscal 2011 budget Monday new funding to combat preventable and tropical diseases, malnutrition and other conditions afflicting the world’s poor, as part of a strategy to broaden its approach to global health,” the Wall Street Journal reports…
