Welcome to the July/September 2009 issue of HTB South. In this issue we include our first coverage from the IAS Conference held in Cape Town in July.

Probably the most important findings at this conference come from the Development of AntiRetroviral Therapy in Africa (DART) trial. We summarise the main results and pregnancy outcomes in this issue.

We also encourage readers to look at the many presentations that are posted to the study website.
http://www.ctu.mrc.ac.uk/dart

Other reports from this conference include maternal health, breastfeeding and prevention of mother to child transmission, and an overview of TB studies

We also include reports from the Clinical Pharmacology Workshop held earlier in the year, and articles from Richard Jeffery’s blog, which has the best coverage of basic science news.

We have had many questions about swine flu (H1N1) in people with HIV so we lead this issue with a summary from the i-Base Q&A, which may be useful to photocopy for patients and healthcare workers.

We also include a summary of key information and recommendations for management of swine flu and HIV from the South African National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD).

Our next issue of HIV South will have further reports from IAS including coverage of paediatric research presented at this conference and at the 1st International Workshop on HIV Paediatrics also held in Cape Town.