HTB May/June 2010 now online

It includes over 25 reports from recent conferences including the recent BHIVA /BASHH conference in Manchester, summaries from the PK workshop in Italy (thanks to the Liverpool drug interaction report) and final reports from CROI held earlier in the year.

We also include news that the large international START study is now open and on the reliance on prompt enrollment into the pilot phase of the trial.

Other news coverage connects the global economic problems with the implications for HIV treatment and prevention programmes.

We include articles about Uganda and Malawi that have both be widely covered in mainstream press, for the discrimination based on sexuality, specifically agsinst gay men, lesbians and transgender people.

Protecting these human rights and refusing to be complicit in this discrimination is inextricably connected with global programmes to provide great equality in access to medical treatment. Where HIV programmes have the opportunity to challenge this, they should use it.

It is timely that, as this issue of HTB went to press, the two men in Malawi had their prison sentences overturned. A concerted campaign will need to insist on similar prinicpals in the future if this single act of compassion is to impact on widespread legislation that continues to maintains broader discrimination.