HIV AIDS News

New research raises questions about one drug featured in many ART recipes: tenofovir alafenamide, also known as TAF.

A preliminary trial suggests a vaginal ring that slowly releases an antiviral medication could protect women against HIV for up to three months.

This could give some adult patients the option of receiving an injection once a month instead of taking a daily pill.

The daily drug regimen known as PrEP is a nearly foolproof way to prevent HIV infection. But a new study suggests that many high-risk Americans may be giving the medication a pass because of cost.

A single injection of the experimental drug, called lenacapavir, was able to lower blood levels of HIV in a small group of patients. And it was capable of maintaining active levels in the blood for more than six months.

HIV may not be the death sentence it was 20 or 30 years ago, but people who are HIV-positive still face much shorter lives than other adults -- even if they're treated with medications that make the virus undetectable.

HIV can reside in brain cells and spread the AIDS-causing virus to the body, a new study in mice indicates.

Kramer struggled with illness for much of his adult life, including infection with the AIDS-causing HIV virus. He also had a liver disease and required a liver transplant.

Researchers have reformulated an HIV medication into a version they hope can eventually be taken as infrequently as once a year.

The study authors said that their analysis found that an expensive new branded formulation of PrEP -- touted as being safer by the company that makes  it -- would in reality be no better than cheaper generics.

Adam Castillejo was known until recently only as the "London patient." Now, after surviving years of grueling treatments, he says he sees himself as an "ambassador of hope" for others.

Compared to those without the AIDS-causing virus, people with HIV had a 34% higher rate of COPD and were diagnosed with the lung disease about 12 years earlier -- average age 50 versus 62, the investigators found.

Close to 15% of HIV infections in the United States are undiagnosed, but the undiagnosed rate is more than 3.5 times higher (51%) among 13- to 24-year-olds, according to the study authors.

The announcement that the HIV vaccine clinical trial has been stopped is a "deep disappointment," said a news release from the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a group formed to spur efforts to develop an HIV vaccine, CNN reported.

Even with new generic options, initial treatments now top $36,000 per patient per year, according to the study.

However only about 18% of the 1.2 million Americans who might benefit from the medications got a prescription last year, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

The new strain is a part of the same family of virus subtypes that have fueled the global HIV pandemic, according to Abbott Laboratories, which conducted the research with the University of Missouri.

Treatment advances are keeping people with the virus alive longer, and those who adhere to therapy are expected to live into their mid-70s or longer.

Chinese researchers used the tool to give a patient blood cells that were altered to resist the AIDS-causing virus, the Associated Press reported.

Less than 40% of Americans have ever had an HIV test.

Best known as the two-drug combo pill Truvada, PrEP prevents HIV from establishing a permanent infection in people exposed through sex or injection drug use, the CDC says.

The study of nearly 2,000 HIV-positive women in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago and San Francisco who have been followed since 1994 found that many have been able to control their HIV levels, off and on.

The study provides conclusive evidence that the risk of transmission through sex is zero when virus levels are undetectable because antiretroviral therapy, or ART.

The treatment became popular after Kim Kardashian underwent the procedure on camera for her show Kim and Kourtney Take Miami in 2013.

The researchers called for more effective depression screening and integration of depression treatment into HIV primary care.