Washington DC is West Africa

This article should put us on high alert. Maybe this is how Michelle Obama could get involved with the family’s new city. HIV/AIDS Rate in D.C. Hits 3% Considered a ‘Severe’ Epidemic, Every Mode of Transmission Is Increasing, City Study Finds By Jose Antonio Vargas and Darryl Fears Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, March 15, […]

The most persuasive article on male circumcision

A January 2008 article in a new journal Future HIV Therapy makes the most persuasive case for male circumcision being rolled out on a much, much wider scale in sub-Saharan Africa. We have blogged about the importance of male circumcision before (see here, here, and here). This new piece is by Jeffrey D Klausner, Richard […]

AIDS numbers inflated

I am sure this will become a big item of discussion, but Craig Timberg, who has written critical news articles about AIDS estimates before has written another article in the Washington Post detailing forthcoming new estimates, using improved sampling methodologies. The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Tuesday, put the number of annual new […]

Cost-Benefit, Oster, and AIDS

Picking up the theme Ben mentioned earlier, economist Emily Oster suggests (see our prior blog post here) that exports helped determine the rate of diffusion of AIDS in Uganda. As prices of Ugandan coffee exports declined, men had less pocket money which made it harder for them to have more sexual partners. This view actually […]

Money for nothin and chicks for free?

This story ran in the Washington Post on July 13th [“In Zimbabwe, Fewer Affairs and Less HIV“], but it recently came up in conversation and I realized I hadn’t posted it… doing so now. It follows neatly on Epstein’s concurrency thesis. CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe — It’s not only the prices of bread and eggs that are […]

Scientists Discover ‘Natural Barrier’ to HIV

‘Natural Barrier’ to HIVMarch 5, 2007 By E.J. Mundell Researchers have discovered that cells in the mucosal lining of human genitalia produce a protein that “eats up” invading HIV — possibly keeping the spread of the AIDS more contained than it might otherwise be. Even more important, enhancing the activity of this protein, called Langerin, […]

More comments on male circumcision trials

I posted this on the Princeton AIDS blog, but thought I’d reference the post here. Yesterday, the NIH announced that it was suspending male circumcision trials. Because the trials were so successful, the NIH determined it was unethical to continue with additional rounds of treatment and control groups. The trial in Kisumu, Kenya, of 2,784 […]

E. African Male Circumcision Trials Halted for Ethical Reasons

Today from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases “Trials in Kenya and Uganda Stopped Early” The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced an early end to two clinical trials of adult male circumcision because an interim review of trial data revealed that […]

Local practices lead to global HIV?

Behavior change campaigns for years in the African region have targeted high-risk sexual behaviors in attempts to prevent HIV infection. The discourse at times has veered into culturally naive assumptions of sexual exceptionalism. Yet, as some researchers have observed, some fundamental measures human sexual behaviors appear consistent across cultures and geographies -i.e. average lifetime number […]

Exclusive Breastfeeding Protective against HIV Infection

AllAfrica.com reports an interesting breastfeeding study, suggesting another nutritional factor that can increase risk of HIV acquisition. Several weeks ago in Nairobi, I met a U of Washington researcher who is investigating the potential links between intestinal de-worming and ARV treatment success. It appears that HIV is found in the gastointestinal (GI) tract in high […]