April 2005

Contents

Editorial

• Volume 6 Number 4 April 2005

Treatment alerts

• Drug-induced hepatitis in healthy volunteers receiving rifampicin 600mg daily in combination with ritonavir 100mg and saquinavir 1000mg twice daily (boosted saquinavir)

• New European recommendations regarding the co-administration of ddI (Videx) and tenofovir DF (Viread)

Conference reports

• 12th Conference on Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infections, 22-25 February, Boston, 2005

• Developments in nevirapine use in MTCT reduction

• Mashi study – late breakers on breastfeeding

• Maternal health and infant mortality

• Paediatric care in lower income settings

• Tenofovir not linked to bone toxicity in children followed for one year

• Gut memory CD4 T cells implicated in a central role for HIV disease pathology: dramatic impact prior to seroconversion

• Case of multi-drug resistant (MDR) rapid progressor

• Case report of antibody reversion and negative viral load four-years after treatment discontinuation

• 24-week efficacy of TMC114 in PI-experienced patients

• Maturation inhibitor shows anti-HIV activity in single dose pilot study

• New antiretrovirals at 12th CROI

• Absolute risk is modest, but cumulative cardiovascular risk of HAART over five years is similar to ‘ever smoked’: new data on gender and age

• Omega-3 supplement effective to reduce triglycerides

• Entecavir is effective against 3TC-resistant hepatitis B

• Switch to tenofovir from AZT or d4T improves fat loss and improves lipid parameters compared to abacavir

• Continued use of a thymidine analogue may limit benefit from rosiglitazone when used to treat lipoatrophy

• Tenofovir is non-inferior to adefovir for the treatment of hepatitis B in HBV-HIV co-infected patients

Antiretrovirals

• 500mg saquinavir (Invirase) approved in Europe

• Roche discontinue ddC and Fortovase

• Needle-free injections for T-20 in US

Treatment access

• Demand for two originator ARVs could soon exceed supply

• Indian patent bill is introduced with no change: the beginning of the end of generics?

• Patent mailbox opened in India

• GSK calls on UK to use G8 presidency to enforce patents

• India admitted into Bush aid programme in same week that Indian parliament dismantles hope of future generic ARVs

Hepatitis coinfection

• Pegasys approved for HIV/hepatitis C coinfection in Europe and US

• Pegasys approved in Europea for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B

On the web

• Untangling the web of price reductions: a pricing guide for the purchase of ARVs for developing countries

• HIV inSite – new online resources

• PRN Notebook – December 2004

• Bulletin of Experimental Treatments for AIDS

PDFs

• Volume 6 Number 4 April 2005 PDF