Epidemiology of syphilis in Australia: moving toward elimination of infectious syphilis from remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?

Objective: To describe the epidemiology of infectious syphilis among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) people in Australia.

Design And Setting: We assessed trends in national infectious syphilis notification rates from 2005 to 2009 using Poisson regression, with a focus on geographic and demographic differences by Indigenous status. We compared Indigenous and non-Indigenous rate ratios over the study period and summarised the annual changes (summary rate ratio).

HIV immune escape at an immunodominant epitope in HLA-B*27-positive individuals predicts viral load outcome.

The CTL response in HLA-B*27(+) HIV-infected individuals is characterized by an immunodominant response to a conserved epitope in gag p24 (aa 263-272, KRWIILGLNK; KK10). Mutations resulting in substitution of the arginine (R264) at position 2 of this epitope have been identified as escape mutations. Nineteen HLA-B*27(+) long-term nonprogressors were identified from an Australian cohort with an average follow-up of 16 y following infection.

Continuing declines in some but not all HIV-associated cancers in Australia after widespread use of antiretroviral therapy.

Objective: To describe changes in cancer incidence in people with HIV in Australia since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

Design: Population-based, retrospective cohort study of people with HIV (n = 20 232) using data linkage between national registers of HIV/AIDS and cancer in 1982-2004.

Methods: Age-adjusted and sex-adjusted incidence rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated to compare site-specific cancer incidence during the early (1996-1999) and late (2000-2004) HAART periods with that prior to HAART (1982-1995).

Could sexually transmissible infections be contributing to the increase in HIV infections among men who have sex with men in Australia?

Background: To review existing data on sexually transmissible infections (STI) in men who have sex with men in Australia in order to determine the possible contribution of STI to diverging trends in HIV notifications in different states.

Methods: We reviewed data from multiple sources, including routine national surveillance data, laboratory surveillance data, self-reported information on STI testing in men who have sex with men and ad hoc reports of STI prevalence.

Results: We found increasing rates of gonorrhoea and infectious syphilis notifications in urban men in Australia between 1997 and 2006, and increasing rates of chlamydia notifications in men aged 30-49 years.