A couple of sample dilemmas faced recently in the clinical programmes of the medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). “This HIV positive woman in her first trimester of pregnancy is currently on an efavirenz-based regimen, what should we do?” “The patient I just saw in clinic has HIV infection and is hepatitis C antibody […]
Tag: HIV
Anya Sarang and Tim Rhodes: “The last way” clinic: why tuberculosis remains an incurable disease in Russia
Yekaterinburg city tuberculosis (TB) clinic on Kamskaya Street specialises in the treatment of TB/HIV co-infection. We first visited in November 2009, as part of an ongoing qualitative study undertaken by the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and funded […]
Leslie Shanks: False positive HIV tests: the problem no one wants to talk about (and how to solve it)
“Finally, someone is talking about this.” I heard this refrain frequently at the recent International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after telling people about the satellite session hosted by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The difficult topic: false positive HIV tests. In resource limited settings, HIV diagnosis […]
Seye Abimbola: David Cameron, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa
“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer Last week, the Nigerian senate signed a bill to outlaw homosexual marriage, homosexual association, and support for homosexual people. Same-sex couples who marry face up to 14 years each in […]
Research highlights – 8 March 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. What is the efficacy and safety of bronchodilators and steroids in acute management of bronchiolitis? How effectively does co-trimoxazole prophylaxis protect […]
Richard Smith: Adding treatment of hypertension to HIV programmes in rural Kenya
The biggest problem with treating hypertension in rural Kenya is lack of drugs. Health workers are plentiful, and there is an impressive health system—but drugs are scarce. I learnt this when I visited the hospital in Eldoret, a small city in the West of Kenya, and a close by community clinic. My colleagues and I […]
Richard Feinmann on volunteering after retirement
What to do when you are a sexagenarian physician who has retired from hospital practice with 40 years in the NHS under your belt and golf/Sudoku not really appealing? Well, my health visitor wife and I applied to Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and I am writing this from a hospital in Kampala, Uganda, where I have […]
Siddharta Yadav on changing perceptions of HIV/AIDS
There is a famous proverb in Nepali which says we learn something either by reading about it or by facing it. I prefer the latter because of the everlasting impression that “facing something” leaves, in contrast to the hazy-sketchy memories of reading. I have been reading about HIV and AIDS since my first year in […]
Richard Smith on why diabetes envies cancer
Those who campaign on diabetes envy those who campaign on cancer because cancer gets so much more attention than diabetes. Indeed, the diabetes campaigners are very frustrated that diabetes is so consistently neglected. Around 250 million people globally have diabetes, and because of the pandemic sweeping the world that number will increase to 380 million […]
Michael Adler and colleagues on HIV today
It has been 25 years since HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was isolated. Since that time, 25 million people have died of HIV related illnesses. In 2007 there were an estimated 33 million people (CI 30-36) living with the virus and three quarters of all related deaths and two thirds of incident cases were […]