Delivering integrated care after sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, ongoing armed conflict increases the incidence of gender-based violence (GBV) and presents a distinct and major barrier to care delivery for all survivors of GBV. A specific challenge is providing emergency contraception, HIV prophylaxis and treatment for sexually transmitted infections to all survivors within 72 hours of violence. To address the multiple barriers to providing this time-sensitive medical care, Global Strategies and Panzi Hospital implemented the Prevention Pack Program.

Low-cost HIV-1 diagnosis and quantification in dried blood spots by real time PCR.

Background: Rapid and cost-effective methods for HIV-1 diagnosis and viral load monitoring would greatly enhance the clinical management of HIV-1 infected adults and children in limited-resource settings. Recent recommendations to treat perinatally infected infants within the first year of life are feasible only if early diagnosis is routinely available. Dried blood spots (DBS) on filter paper are an easy and convenient way to collect and transport blood samples.

Is the "3 by 5" initiative the best approach to tackling the HIV pandemic?

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners aim to treat 3 million people infected with HIV in poor and middle income countries with antiretroviral treatment by the end of 2005. The ambitious "3 by 5" initiative has had its supporters and its critics since its announcement in 2002.

Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in a developing country: the Dominican Republic experience.

Transmission of HIV in the Dominican Republic occurs primarily through heterosexual contact. As part of a continuing strategy to prevent and contain the spread of HIV infection, the Ministry of Health of the Dominican Republic established an integrated package of interventions to reduce HIV mother-to-child transmission that was initiated on May 15, 2000. The program was designed to be implemented in 3 phases.

Association between maternal and infant class I and II HLA alleles and of their concordance with the risk of perinatal HIV type 1 transmission.

We aimed to investigate the influence of class I and class II HLA specificities and of the concordance between maternal and infant HLA on vertical HIV-1 transmission. HLA typing of samples from mothers and infants enrolled in the Ariel study, a perinatal HIV-1 transmission cohort including 203 mother-infant pairs, was performed by serological and molecular methods. HLA effects were evaluated alone and by multivariate modeling considering also other known predictors of perinatal HIV-1 transmission (maternal viral load, antiretroviral therapy, duration of rupture of membranes, and histological chorioamnionitis).