April 2001

Contents

Conference reports

• 8th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections

• Paediatric treatment issues at the 8th CROI

Antiretrovirals

• Roche and Trimeris announce US sites and investigators for T-20 phase III study; activists want wider access to drug for sickest AIDS patients

• European marketing approval granted for lopinavir/r (Kaletra)

• HIV-1 strains using the CXCR4 co-receptor are suppressed with potent therapy

• Efavirenz use in HIV-positive children

Treatment strategies

• Interleukin-2 improves CD4+ cell counts in patients with poor immune response to HAART

• Use of cytokines in HIV: colony-stimulating factors, erythropoietin, and interleukin-2

Treatment access

• South African court battle damages drug industry’s image

• Red Cross slams drug firms over pricing policies

• Medecins Sans Frontieres urges drugs giants to drop South Africa suit

• Second Indian firm offers cut-price HIV drugs

• Yale pressed to help cut drug costs in Africa

• GlaxoSmithKline offers 90% discount on HIV drugs to Africa

• HIV drug prices cut for poorer countries

• Bristol-Myers Squibb offers to sell AIDS drugs in Africa at below cost

• European activists demand greater access to T-20

Paediatric care

• Steatorrhea prevalent in HIV-positive children; clinical significance unclear

Side effects

• Risk of lipodystrophy in HIV-positive treated with PIs: a prospective cohort study

Coinfections and complications

• Roche’s valganciclovir for AIDS-related eye infections backed by FDA panel

• Topical docosanol may be beneficial in treating HIV-related Kaposi’s sarcoma

Basic science and immunology

• Despite differences in viral load, men and women develop AIDS at the same rate

• Thymic output of CD4+ cells contributes to CD4+ cell and viral load dissociation

• CTLs decrease with combination antiretroviral therapy but precursor cells remain

Drug resistance

• HIV evolves independently in blood and CSF

Other news

• AIDS-related abdominal disease does not increase surgery risk in AIDS patients

• Protease inhibitor use not linked to atherosclerosis in middle-aged HIV patients

• Pain common among HIV-positive individuals

• Manifestations of syphilis similar in HIV positive and HIV negative subjects

• HAART improves subcortical functioning in cognitively impaired HIV patients

• Link documented between problem drinking, noncompliance with HIV treatment

• Stress, anger bad for HIV patients’ immune system

• Grief counselling may lower HIV viral load

PDFs

• Volume 2 Number 3 April 2001 PDF