Disease Intervention Specialist-Delivered Interventions and Other Partner Services for HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections: A Systematic Review.

Introduction: Disease intervention specialists (DIS) are critical for delivering partner services programs that provide partner notification, counseling, referral, and other services for HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and other infections. This systematic review of partner services and other DIS-delivered interventions for HIV and STIs was conducted to summarize the effectiveness of these programs and identify evidence gaps.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted with a narrative synthesis.

The Characteristics and HIV-Related Outcomes of People Living with Co-occurring HIV and Mental Health Conditions in the United States: A Systematic Review of Literature from 2016 to 2021.

Considering advances in HIV prevention and treatment, jurisdictional efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and reduced stigma towards people living with HIV infection and mental health conditions, the authors systematically reviewed studies published between 2016 and 2021 and identified 45 studies that met the eligibility criteria. The review found that stigma towards mental health conditions still acts as a barrier to accessing HIV treatment, which impacts treatment outcomes. Additionally, social determinants of health, such as housing instability and poverty, appear to impact mental health and, therefore, HIV-related outcomes.

HIV policy legacies, pandemic preparedness and policy effort to address COVID-19.

That the world was unprepared for a major infectious disease outbreak is now readily apparent to all credible observers. However, some countries were more prepared than others and we have seen a variety of responses to COVID-19 emerge across nations. While recognizing that the sources of variation in country responses to COVID-19 are many and varied, in this study we seek to examine how policy legacies from national responses to HIV have influenced countries' responses to COVID-19.

Barriers to accessing pre-exposure prophylaxis among women experiencing intimate partner violence in the United States: a systematic literature review.

Women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) are at increased risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection but have limited uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). We systematically reviewed the existing evidence for the association between IPV and PrEP use, and barriers to accessing PrEP among women with a history of IPV in the United States. A keyword search of PubMed, CINAHL, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science for relevant articles within the United States from 2012 to 2022 yielded 133 articles, of which 15 were ultimately included in the analysis.

Is the male disadvantage real? Cross-national variations in sex gaps in COVID-19 incidence and mortality.

Although the excess male mortality from COVID-19 is well-known, the variations in sex gaps in incidence and mortality across countries and the sources of such variations are not well understood. This study explored the patterns and the sources of variation in the sex gap in COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates across 100 countries where sex-disaggregated cases and deaths were available as of September 2020. Our results show that there is generally a male disadvantage in both incidence and mortality; however, COVID-19 incidence exhibited a lower male disadvantage (1.

Trp17 and Glu20 residues in conserved WMN(D/E)PN motif are essential for Aspergillus ficuum endoinulinase (EC 3.2.1.7) activity.

The importance of the WMN(D/E)PN motif, which is well conserved among beta-fructofuranosidases grouped in the glycosylhydrolase family 32, in Aspergillus ficuum endoinulinase was accessed. Each mutant enzyme generated by site-directed mutagenesis of Trp17 in the conserved motif to Gln, Leu, Ser, Pro, Thr, or Met had an activity of less than 1% of the wild type. Another mutant enzyme obtained by mutation of Glu20 in the motif to Ser, Leu, Thr, Gln, Ala, or Val had an enzyme activity of less than 1% of the wild type.

Expression of the mnpA gene that encodes the mannoprotein of Aspergillus nidulans is dependent on fadA and flbA as well as veA.

The single copy mnpA gene that encodes a mannoprotein of Aspergillus nidulans and its cDNA were isolated from the genomic and cDNA libraries, respectively. The determined nucleotide sequences of the genomic DNA and its cDNA revealed that the gene has an open-reading frame of 261 amino acids without introns. The deduced amino acid sequence showed a 60% identity to that of Aspegillus fumigatus galactomannoprotein MP1.