HIV & AIDS

Testing for HIV is fast, confidential and freely available in many areas across the U.S. Yet an estimated 15% of people living with HIV—about 162,500 people—are living with HIV but have not received an HIV diagnosis. The CDC estimates that more than half of American adults have never been tested for HIV. What keeps people from finding out they are living with HIV, and what can we do to improve HIV testing rates everywhere? Research by Ananda Ganguly and Joshua Tasoff from Claremont McKenna College sheds light on one reason why people living with HIV may not get tested: some […]

The number of HIV infections happening in San Francisco continues to decline, with a record low number of HIV infections occurring in 2017 than ever before. The rate of decline, however, is slowing.  As new data from the 2017 HIV Epidemiology Annual Report reveals, homeless people, people of color, trans women and people who use injection drugs are particularly affected.   “San Francisco has made incredible progress over the last decade reducing the number of new HIV infections. More people know their HIV status than ever before, and a greater share of people living with HIV are virally suppressed,” said […]

Integrase inhibitors—potent antiretrovirals that quickly and powerfully suppress HIV—have allowed HIV researchers and clinicians to explore dosing regimens that involve fewer than three or four drugs. Proponents of dual therapy say that effective regimens involving fewer drugs will lower costs, decrease pill burden and reduce the potential for drug-drug interactions and side effects. But is it that simple? Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH “Two-drug regimens are exciting,” said Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, medical director of the Ward 86 HIV clinic at San Francisco General Hospital and associate division chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF. […]