HIV and ID Observations

July 25th, 2024

Lenacapavir PrEP Trial Brings Down the House at the International AIDS Conference

Yesterday, at the 2024 AIDS Conference in Munich, we experienced one of those thrilling moments you always hope for when attending a scientific conference. Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, speaking on behalf of the study investigators, presented the data on the PURPOSE-1 study of HIV prevention using twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir; results were simultaneously published in the New England […]

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November 10th, 2020

Promising COVID-19 Vaccine Results and Progress on HIV Prevention — All in One Great Day

Monday, November 9, in the bedeviled year 2020, was an astounding day for research on prevention of infectious diseases — really unprecedented. First — we awoke to hear that the Pfizer-BioNTech experimental COVID-19 vaccine was “90% effective” in preventing the disease after the second (of two) doses. This was a planned interim analysis, taking place after 94 […]

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May 25th, 2020

A Major Advance in Non-COVID-19 ID Research You Might Have Missed

One thing about the COVID-19 pandemic — other important non-COVID ID news gets crowded out. As a prime example, take HPTN 083, a major clinical trial in HIV prevention. The results are a big deal, and should have garnered more attention when they were released last week. This randomized, double-blind pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) study compared long-acting injectable […]

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February 25th, 2018

Is Self-Administered Postexposure Prophylaxis Another Viable Option for HIV Prevention?

Most of the pivotal trials of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) have used daily therapy. The lone exception is the IPERGAY study. Men at high risk for acquiring HIV took two tablets of tenofovir DF/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC, Truvada) before sex, and one tablet the next 2 days. The strategy was highly effective in preventing HIV acquisition, and intermittent PrEP is endorsed […]

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June 4th, 2017

Can’t HIV Serodiscordant Couples Now Just Have Children the Regular Way?

MMWR just published a paper entitled, Strategies for Preventing HIV Infection Among HIV-Uninfected Women Attempting Conception with HIV-Infected Men — United States, and it’s both a welcome and a very strange document indeed. It’s welcome because it acknowledges that serodiscordant couples may wish to have children without the use of an HIV-negative sperm donor. Advances in HIV prevention […]

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February 5th, 2017

Case Report of PrEP Failure: What Can We Learn From It?

The New England Journal of Medicine has published the first well-documented case of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) failure despite good medication adherence. We heard lots of this information at CROI last year, and again I’m impressed at the extraordinary degree of virologic investigation done on a case from clinical practice. To refresh your memory, here are the critical details from the […]

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January 1st, 2017

Top Stories in HIV Medicine for 2016

A lot of these “Best of …” or “Top Stories in …” lists have already been published, as they seem to be appearing earlier and earlier each year. Pretty soon we’ll start reading them around the same time they sell Halloween Candy — and that’s just too early, sorry. Now this list, however, appears just as 2016 is in […]

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March 28th, 2015

Quick Question: Should HIV-Negative People in Serodiscordant Relationships All Get PrEP?

From a very thoughtful and experienced primary care provider came this query: Hey Paul, quick question — One of my patients, an HIV-negative gay man, is in a long-term relationship with one of your HIV-positive patients — my patient says his partner has been on successful HIV treatment for years. Obviously I can’t check his partner’s […]

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December 14th, 2014

2014 Top Stories in HIV Medicine

Boy do we love end-of-year “Best of …” and “Top Stories of …” lists! Love them! They never gets old! Until January, that is. My own particular favorites are the Best Movies of the Year lists, since for whatever reason it always seems like some masterpiece slips by. Missed it! So we leave it up to the […]

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December 6th, 2014

Holiday Season 2014 ID/HIV Link-O-Rama

A little spin around the internet brings us these ID/HIV tidbits, all of them designed to go well with holiday music, egg nog, and potato pancakes, plus a can’t-miss video clip: Flu vaccine match with circulating virus doesn’t look so great. This could mean it’s going to be a tough flu season, but estimates of flu […]

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