HIV & AIDS

In a community-created consensus statement released today, AIDS United provides critical guidance for clinical providers, funders and social service providers to strengthen their understanding of how best to engage and support transgender communities. The statement provides concrete and measurable steps organizations can take to improve their approach to HIV work in transgender communities and was drafted by 12 transgender leaders at a think tank convened by AIDS United and generously supported by Janssen Therapeutics, Division of Janssen Products, LP. The transgender community is critically affected by HIV and faces unique challenges accessing HIV care. A landmark 2013 study estimates that […]

  HIVE (hiveonline.org) and Project Inform (projectinform.org) are pleased to announce the hiring of three key positions for supporting PrEP services within California and nationally through expanded navigation services at PleasePrEPMe.org (PPM). The launch date of these free new services is being planned for early April. “HIVE launched PleasePrEPMe.org in 2015 to provide consumers a search engine to find PrEP-friendly clinicians within California,” stated Shannon Weber, Director at HIVE. “This year, with a grant from the state department of health, we’re excited to be expanding the original site to include an online chat function as well as provide navigation assistance […]

  The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation announced the selection of ten outstanding, young leaders for the second year of its fellowship program focused on elevating the work of young people on the front lines of the HIV and AIDS epidemic. The HRC Foundation’s HIV 360° Fellowship Program, made possible with the generous support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF), provides individualized training and support to innovative young professionals and nonprofit leaders as they tackle the challenges facing communities hit hardest by HIV, including Black and Latino gay and bisexual men, transgender women of color, and LGBTQ people living […]

Today, NASTAD (National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors), a leading non-partisan non-profit association that represents public health officials who administer HIV and hepatitis programs in the U.S. and around the world, published a new statement affirming that durably virally suppressed people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) do not sexually transmit the virus. The statement accelerates NASTAD’s longstanding work to end HIV and promote policies and public health practice grounded in science. ”The science is clear that people living with HIV with a sustained undetectable viral load do not transmit the virus to others. What’s also clear is […]

The first large-scale clinical trial of a long-acting injectable drug for HIV prevention began today. The study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, will examine whether a long-acting form of the investigational anti-HIV drug cabotegravir injected once every 8 weeks can safely protect men and transgender women from HIV infection at least as well as the anti-HIV medication Truvada taken daily as an oral tablet. If injectable cabotegravir is found to be effective for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP, it may be easier for some people to adhere to than daily oral Truvada, the only licensed PrEP […]

The ultimate impediment to a cure for HIV infection is the presence of latent, HIV-infected cells, which can reawaken and produce new virus when antiretroviral drug therapy is stopped.  These latent, HIV-infected cells are untouched by antiretroviral therapy and are unseen by the immune system.  Moving medicine closer to a cure for HIV, scientists at Blood Systems Research Institute (BSRI), the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and the University of Hawaii have discovered that the human sugar-binding protein galectin-9 potently forces latent HIV out of hiding, and poisons the virus on its way out. Building off of their […]

A new study funded by amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research conducted by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) observes that pharmacological enhancement of the immune systems of HIV patients could help eliminate infected cells, providing an important step in the ongoing quest to find a lasting HIV cure. The study, titled “Stimulating the RIG-I Pathway to Kill Cells in the Latent HIV Reservoir Following Viral Reactivation,” addresses the persistence of latent HIV reservoirs in patients who are on antiretroviral therapy. Latent HIV reservoirs are established during the earliest stage of HIV infection, and they are infected […]