Yearly Archives: 2014

More than three decades after the emergence of HIV and AIDS sparked a massive campaign to curb infection, public health officials in Chicago and across the country are worried by a recent uptick in diagnoses of HIV — the precursor to AIDS — among young gay and bisexual men.

While transmission of the virus via injectable drug use and heterosexual sex has declined dramatically since the peak of the epidemic in the mid-1980s, infection of men who have sex with men is a different story.

New HIV infections in that group plummeted from a peak of about 75,000 per year to less than 18,000 per year by the early 1990s, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the drop was short-lived, and infections currently hover around 30,000 per year. Experts say it’s younger men, especially young black men, who are driving that trend.

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Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center found that eHealth interventions are associated with reductions in risky sexual behaviors and increases in HIV testing among men who have sex with men.

Despite decades of outreach and education efforts that have stabilized human immunodeficiency (HIV) infection rates in the United States, the pace of new infections among men who have sex with men has been steadily increasing, particularly among young adults and racial and ethnic minorities.

“This is a population that is very used to technology, and there is built-in privacy and immediacy with digital communication that may be especially appealing to men who aren’t comfortable disclosing their sexual orientation or their HIV status in a face-to-face encounter,” said Rebecca Schnall, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Columbia Nursing. “If we want to reduce HIV infection rates, particularly among younger men, we need to explore the use of technology to meet them where they live – online and on their phones.”

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New federal guidelines urge gay men and others who have unprotected sex to take a daily dose of the drug Truvada, a regimen called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), to curb H.I.V. infections and AIDS.

Is promoting the use of the antiviral drug a good public health strategy, or will it encourage more to have unprotected sex?

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NIH has embarked on an ambitious HIV cure initiative.  While much of the current work is currently basic science-focused, the Institutes have noted the behavioral and social science implications of endeavor.  CHIPTS is excited to explore the behavioral research opportunities associated with an HIV cure and our role in achieving this goal.

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The New York Times published an article about four insurers accused of discriminating against people with H.I.V.  To view this article, click here.

Federal health officials recommended Wednesday that hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk for AIDS take a daily pill that has been shown to prevent infection with the virus that causes it.

If broadly followed, the advice could transform AIDS prevention in the United States — from reliance on condoms, which are effective but unpopular with many men, to a regimen that relies on an antiretroviral drug.

It would mean a 50-fold increase in the number of prescriptions for the drug, Truvada — to 500,000 a year from fewer than 10,000. The drug costs $13,000 a year, and most insurers already cover it.

The guidelines tell doctors to consider the drug regimen, called PrEP, for pre-exposure prophylaxis, for gay men who have sex without condoms; heterosexuals with high-risk partners such as drug injectors or male bisexuals who have unprotected sex; patients who regularly have sex with anyone they know is infected; and anyone who shares needles or injects drugs.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have long been frustrated that the number of H.I.V. infections in the United States has barely changed in a decade, stubbornly holding at 50,000 a year, despite 30 years of official advice to rely on condoms to block transmission.

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