13 October 2002

Contents

Antiretrovirals

• US HIV community hold productive meeting with Schering-Plough on new anti-HIV entry inhibitors SCH-C and SCH-D

• Notes on Schering-Plough/HIV community meeting held August 28 2002

• US FDA announces important changes in amprenavir product labelling

• Much lower dose of lamivudine needed for HIV-positive patients on dialysis

• Patients discontinuing HAART must be carefully monitored

Treatment access

• Excitement over anticipated approval of T-20 is balanced by fears that it will be the most expensive HIV drug yet

• GlaxoSmithKline cuts drug prices to 63 countries

Paediatric care

• Antiretrovirals have neurologic benefits in children

• Early data highlight ribavirin’s anti-adenovirus potential

PK and drug interactions

• St John’s Wort interferes with chemotherapy, study shows

Guidelines

• Updated recommendations for use of antiretroviral drugs in pregnant HIV-1-infected women for maternal health and interventions to reduce perinatal HIV-1 transmission in the United States

Resistance

• M184V is associated with decreased development of TAMs

Other news

• Integrase inhibitors enter trials in human volunteers

• Antiretrovirals could stop HIV epidemic – optimism or realism?

• Dutch researchers theorise chimpanzees may have survived AIDS epidemic two million years ago

• Majority of HIV patients in San Francisco study use alternative medicines

• Early data find HIV patients do well with organ transplants

• Thai charity ditches V-1 Immunitor

On the web

• ABC of psychological medicine: fatigue

• Initial antiretroviral therapy: further insights on when to start and what to use

• Antiretroviral therapy in treatment-experienced patients

• Update on lipodystrophy…or is it just lipoatrophy?

• Opportunistic infections and coinfections: focus on fungi and hepatitis

• XI International HIV Drug Resistance Workshop: basic principles and clinical implications; Seville, Spain July 2-5, 2002

• Time for T

• CD4 cell depletion in AIDS: models for novel therapies

• FRAM study and lipodystrophy: lipodystrophy study presented at Barcelona and an interview with the study author Carl Grunfeld