Couple-Based Intervention to Improve HIV Care Engagement for Women and their Partners in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Outcomes of a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

We evaluated a couple-based intervention targeting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care needs of women, with the option to support HIV-related needs of male partners. Adult women with HIV adherence difficulties in a monogamous relationship with a male partner for ≥6 months were recruited in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Twenty couples were randomized (1:1) to either START Together, a five-session manualized behavioral intervention, or treatment as usual, adherence counseling referral.

Costs of home-delivered antiretroviral therapy refills for persons living with HIV: Evidence from a pilot randomized controlled trial in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is needed across the lifetime to maintain viral suppression for people living with HIV. In South Africa, obstacles to reliable access to ART persist and are magnified in rural areas, where HIV services are also typically costlier to deliver. A recent pilot randomized study (the Deliver Health Study) found that home-delivered ART refills, provided at a low user fee, effectively overcame logistical barriers to access and improved clinical outcomes in rural South Africa.

A Narrative-Gamified Mental Health App (Kuamsha) for Adolescents in Uganda: Mixed Methods Feasibility and Acceptability Study.

Background: Many adolescents in Uganda are affected by common mental disorders, but only a few affordable treatment options are available. Digital mental health interventions offer promising opportunities to reduce these large treatment gaps, but interventions specifically tailored for Ugandan adolescents are limited.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the feasibility and acceptability of the Kuamsha program, an intervention delivered through a gamified app with low-intensity telephonic guidance, as a way to promote mental health among adolescents from the general population in Uganda.

Relationships Among COVID-19-Related Service Uptake, HIV Status, Drug Use, and COVID-19 Antibody Status Among HIV Testing Intervention Participants in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

People living with HIV (PLWH) and people who use drugs are vulnerable populations who may face barriers to accessing health services and may have irregularities in immune function. People with undiagnosed HIV infection may be particularly likely to have compromised immune function. However, research about whether/how HIV status is related to COVID-19-related health outcomes has been equivocal, and research on the predictors of COVID-19-related health service access/uptake has been limited in Sub-Saharan African settings.

Eliminating malaria transmission requires targeting immature and mature gametocytes through lipoidal uptake of antimalarials.

Novel antimalarial compounds targeting both the pathogenic and transmissible stages of the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, would greatly benefit malaria elimination strategies. However, most compounds affecting asexual blood stage parasites show severely reduced activity against gametocytes. The impact of this activity loss on a compound's transmission-blocking activity is unclear.

Six type-I PKS classes and highly conserved melanin and elsinochrome gene clusters found in diverse Elsinoë species.

Elsinoë species are phytopathogenic fungi that cause serious scab diseases on economically important plants. The disease symptoms arise from the effects of a group of phytotoxins known as elsinochromes, produced via a type-I polyketide synthase (PKS) biosynthetic pathway. The elsinochrome gene cluster was first annotated in Elsinoë fawcettii where the main type-I PKS gene was characterized as EfPKS1.

Performance of patient-collected dried blood specimens for HIV-1 viral load testing in South Africa.

Objective: Evaluate the clinical utility of patient-collected dried blood spots (DBS) in measuring HIV-1 viral load (VL) for monitoring antiretroviral therapy (ART) compared to provider-collected DBS and blood plasma.

Design: In a randomized trial of community-based delivery of ART in South Africa, we assessed performance of: DBS specimens compared to plasma, and participant-collected vs. staff-collected DBS specimens, to measure HIV-1 VL.

The HIV prevention decision-making cascade: Integrating behavioural insights into HIV prevention efforts.

The syndemic of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and early pregnancy remain a key challenge to global public health. Decision-making around sexual and reproductive health (SRH) behaviours is critical to ensuring the uptake of biomedical technologies. Drawing from behavioural science theories, we propose a novel conceptual framework-the Decision Cascade-to describe the decision-making process that a user will go through as they navigate these decisions.

Evaluation of C-Reactive Protein and Computer-Aided Analysis of Chest X-rays as Tuberculosis Triage Tests at Health Facilities in Lesotho and South Africa.

Background: To improve tuberculosis case-finding, rapid, non-sputum triage tests need to be developed according to the World Health Organization target product profile (TPP) (>90% sensitivity, >70% specificity). We prospectively evaluated and compared artificial intelligence-based, computer-aided detection software, CAD4TBv7, and C-reactive protein assay (CRP) as triage tests at health facilities in Lesotho and South Africa.

Methods: Adults (≥18 years) presenting with ≥1 of the 4 cardinal tuberculosis symptoms were consecutively recruited between February 2021 and April 2022.

Low tuberculosis treatment initiation after positive tuberculosis lipoarabinomannan results.

https://bit.ly/3VGHekC.

Comparison of a novel expanded social network recruitment intervention with risk network recruitment to HIV testing: locating undiagnosed cases in South Africa.

Objective: To ascertain whether a novel expanded social network recruitment to HIV testing (E-SNRHT) intervention recruits men and individuals with previously undiagnosed HIV at higher rates than risk network recruitment.

Design: Initial "seed" participants were prospectively randomly assigned to the E-SNRHT intervention or to risk network recruitment. Their network members were included in the study arm of their recruiter.

Adapting and testing measures of organizational context in primary care clinics in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Background: Implementation science frameworks situate intervention implementation and sustainment within the context of the implementing organization and system. Aspects of organizational context such as leadership have been defined and measured largely within US health care settings characterized by decentralization and individual autonomy. The relevance of these constructs in other settings may be limited by differences like collectivist orientation, resource constraints, and hierarchical power structures.

Integration of passive sensing technology to enhance delivery of psychological interventions for mothers with depression: the StandStrong study.

Psychological interventions delivered by non-specialist providers have shown mixed results for treating maternal depression. mHealth solutions hold the possibility for unobtrusive behavioural data collection to identify challenges and reinforce change in psychological interventions. We conducted a proof-of-concept study using passive sensing integrated into a depression intervention delivered by non-specialists to twenty-four adolescents and young mothers (30% 15-17 years old; 70% 18-25 years old) with infants (< 12 months old) in rural Nepal.

Preventing tuberculosis with community-based care in an HIV-endemic setting: a modelling analysis.

Introduction: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) and tuberculosis preventive treatment (TPT) both prevent tuberculosis (TB) disease and deaths among people living with HIV. Differentiated care models, including community-based care, can increase the uptake of ART and TPT to prevent TB in settings with a high burden of HIV-associated TB, particularly among men.

Methods: We developed a gender-stratified dynamic model of TB and HIV transmission and disease progression among 100,000 adults ages 15-59 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Simultaneous alleviation of verification and reference standard biases in a community-based tuberculosis screening study using Bayesian latent class analysis.

Background: Estimation of prevalence and diagnostic test accuracy in tuberculosis (TB) prevalence surveys suffer from reference standard and verification biases. The former is attributed to the imperfect reference test used to bacteriologically confirm TB disease. The latter occurs when only the participants screening positive for any TB-compatible symptom or chest X-ray abnormality are selected for bacteriological testing (verification).

Costs of home-delivered antiretroviral therapy refills for persons living with HIV: evidence from a pilot randomized controlled trial in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is needed across the lifetime to maintain viral suppression for people living with HIV. In South Africa, obstacles to reliable access to ART persist and are magnified in rural areas, where HIV services are also typically costlier to deliver. A recent pilot randomized study (the Deliver Health Study) found that home-delivered ART refills, provided at a low user fee, effectively overcame logistical barriers to access and improved clinical outcomes in rural South Africa.

Changes in Stigma and Social Support among Participants in a Randomized Trial of a Novel Expanded Social Network-based HIV Testing Intervention in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

HIV-related stigma is a well-documented barrier to HIV testing in South Africa, and may be particularly likely to create reluctance to test among South African men, who have reported feeling blamed for HIV by their partners and communities. The present study presents a novel expanded social network recruitment to HIV testing (E-SNRHT) intervention explicitly designed to reduce stigma as a barrier to testing by asking people to recruit anyone they know to testing, thus allowing them to avoid the potential for increased stigma and/or blame associated with direct risk partner recruitment, and helping to normalize openly discussing HIV among social networks. We examined baseline and 6-10-week follow-up data from a 2022-2023 randomized trial in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa that recruited 110 individuals who had been newly diagnosed with HIV and randomly assigned them to recruit people to HIV testing either via the E-SNRHT intervention or via risk network recruitment.

IMA Genome - F19 : A genome assembly and annotation guide to empower mycologists, including annotated draft genome sequences of Ceratocystis pirilliformis, Diaporthe australafricana, Fusarium ophioides, Paecilomyces lecythidis, and Sporothrix stenoceras.

The pace at which Next Generation Sequence data is being produced continues to accelerate as technology improves. As a result, such data are increasingly becoming accessible to biologists outside of the field of bioinformatics. In contrast, access to training in the methods of genome assembly and annotation are not growing at a similar rate.

Development and Empirical Test of the Research-Informed South African Relationship Functioning Assessment (SARFA).

Intimate partners play an important role in chronic diseases. Despite the chronic disease burden increase in sub-Saharan Africa, very few culturally-relevant quantitative measures of intimate relationship functioning are available. We conducted an empirical investigation evaluating the psychometric properties of the South African Relationship Functioning Assessment (SARFA) assessing healthy relationship functioning in = 150 community members (50% women; age = 27.

LAMP Assay to Detect , an Important Shoot and Leaf Pathogen.

Eucalyptus scab and shoot malformation caused by is an emerging disease and a serious threat to the global commercial forestry industry. The disease was first discovered in North Sumatra, Indonesia, and now requires a simple and effective method for early pathogen detection. In this study, a rapid and sensitive loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay was developed for .

A 5-Year Review of the Impact of Lottery Incentives on HIV-Related Services.

Purpose Of Review: Lottery incentives are an innovative approach to encouraging HIV prevention, treatment initiation, and adherence behaviours. This paper reviews the latest research on lottery incentives' impact on HIV-related services, and their effectiveness for motivating behaviours to improve HIV service engagement and HIV health outcomes.

Recent Findings: Our review of ten articles, related to lottery incentives, published between 2018 and 2023 (inclusive) shows that lottery incentives have promise for promoting HIV-related target behaviours.

Perceptions of Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention among men living with HIV in the context of reproductive goals in South Africa: a qualitative study.

Background: Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and Treatment as Prevention (TasP) are effective strategies to prevent HIV transmission within serodifferent couples. However, limited usage of PrEP, knowledge and interest has been amongst the barriers for men, alongside testing and treatment adherence. We explored the perceptions of PreP for HIV prevention with Men living with HIV (MWH) who have reproductive goals, to understand awareness and experiences related to PrEP use in the context of HIV prevention with their partners.