Clinical education should teach a broader understanding of respectful clinical care for racialised women living with HIV from low-income backgrounds, an American study finds. While respecting patient autonomy is important, a singular focus on it may result in providers neglecting other ways that respect can be shown and may have a particular impact on how racialised women receive care within HIV clinics, say Dr Sofia Fernandez of Florida International University and colleagues.

The proportion of people with HIV who remain engaged with HIV care has declined over the years since HIV treatment began to be recommended for all people living with HIV, according to a retrospective cohort study published recently in PLOS Medicine. The study also shows that even after the national adoption of ‘Treat All’ guidelines in 25 countries in the last decade, there were glaring gaps in monitoring long-term HIV care outcomes.

A study designed to find out whether it is necessary or even desirable to test and treat gay and bisexual male and trans-female PrEP users for the bacterial STIs chlamydia or gonorrhoea every three months has produced an inconclusive result. The researchers’ hypothesis was that treating asymptomatic STIs found during quarterly STI testing in PrEP users may have little clinical benefit, over-uses antibiotics with consequences for bacterial resistance, and may inflate the importance of the two STIs as a health problem. 

While Chinese gay and bisexual men living with HIV experienced the negative impacts of their intersecting identities – especially when it came to stigma – they also described how their identities enabled them to thrive in ways they hadn’t expected, according to a recent qualitative study.

It’s rare in any branch of medicine that a trial of a new drug can report 100% efficacy, and a first in HIV science.

A clinical trial has found that medically-tailored meals and groceries, combined with nutritional education, can reduce hospitalisations and improve mental and physical health in people with HIV. However, the intervention did not yield any improvement in terms of unsuppressed viral load, according to the report in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Metabolic disorders – including excess weight, obesity and diabetes – are significant causes of liver disease among people with HIV in lower and middle-income countries, while hepatitis B and C play a minimal role, a study published in the Journal of the International AIDS Society has revealed. As liver disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in people living with HIV, these results raise concerns.

After identifying significant knowledge gaps about ‘Undetectable = Untransmitable’ (U=U), scepticism about its effectiveness, and hesitancy to endorse it, researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa consulted with health workers who stressed the need for a simple and standardised presentation of U=U for their clients. In response, the researchers collaborated with people living with HIV, clinicians, and scientific experts to develop an easy-to-use web-based app to support HIV counselling in primary healthcare settings in South Africa.

Male medical circumcision reduced the risk of HIV acquisition by 91% in gay and bisexual men who predominantly took the insertive role in anal intercourse, a randomised study carried out in China has reported.

Muscle wasting coupled with abdominal obesity was present in around one in ten men under 50, with low bone mineral density also being common, a study of Italian men living with HIV has found. The study, published in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation, also found that low muscle mass and low bone mineral density were associated with low levels of the sex hormones testosterone and estradiol.

Recommended medications were only available in 52% and 64% of Kenyan and Ugandan health facilities, according to a recent survey which assessed the availability of paediatric antiretroviral formulations across health facilities in the two countries. In the previous year, there had been stock outs of preferred children’s formulations in 40% of Kenyan facilities and 75% of Ugandan facilities.  

When deciding how to feed their children after birth, women living with HIV in the UK face complex decisions due to contradicting guidelines from healthcare organisations. These women are more likely to be first- or second-generation immigrants, often from Black communities and 45% live below the poverty line. These women face stigma and discrimination due to HIV, compounded by their race and socioeconomic background, making engaging with healthcare challenging.

Despite four decades of effort, traditional vaccine approaches have been unable to prevent HIV acquisition. Because the virus mutates rapidly and hides from the immune system, most experts think more sophisticated vaccine strategies will be necessary and that the research and development process will probably take years.

Assisted partner services, which contact partners of people with HIV and invite them for testing, are highly effective in diagnosing people unaware of their HIV status and offer a promising model for reaching the partners of people who inject drugs, a study carried out in Kenya has found. The study findings are published in the May edition of Lancet Global Health.