Glossary

X-ray – an abbreviation for x-radiation. An X-ray lung scan is a common way to look for evidence of TB infection. X-rays can also diagnose bone fractures.

point of care – referring to you doctors office (or wherever you access care)

TasP (Treatment as Prevention) – a term to emphasise the impact that HIV drugs (ART) has on dramatically reducing the chance of HIV transmission.

ART is firstly for the health of the HIV positive person. But having an undetectable viral load on ART makes it so difficult to transmit HIV that the risk gets so close to zero that it is effectively zero.

For example, in the PARTNER study, nearly 900 couples had sex more than 58,000 times without condoms, without any transmissions. Each couple included one person who was HIV positive with an undetectable viral load on ART and one person who was HIV negative. ZERO transmissions.

publication bias – the tendency for published results to be different to other trials. For example, trials that show a positive effect are more likely to be reported and published than trials that find no effect.

Compassionate use programmes enable people with life-threatening, long-lasting or seriously disabling illnesses to use drugs that have not yet been authorised. This is usually only for drugs that are near to drug approval, especially for people who would be excluded from research studies.

This is similar to, and sometimes called, a named-patient programme.

Information on compassionate access in the EU.