Public Health, Science »

DART Study: Saving money on lab tests can help providing ART

The largest clinical trial of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people with HIV infection ever run in Africa has found that regular laboratory tests offer little additional clinical benefit to populations when compared to careful clinical monitoring.
The DART study was a controversial one that saw mislead and misleading activists trying to stop a study which outcome could contribute to save many lives.
The study published in The Lancet today concluded that “ART can be delivered safely without routine laboratory monitoring for toxic eff ects, but diff erences in disease progression suggest a …

Media, Public Health, Technology »

Condoms: Can technology succeed where education has failed?

Mates® is now manufacturing and merchandising a new type of condom, “thinner, softer and much more flexible”. The objective is to make wearing condom as if wearing nothing. Made with Sensoprene (aka polyisoprene), Mates® claims that using their Skyn™ condoms will make sex feel better.
The advert is rather interesting with its antithetic approach to condom promotion.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

Culture, Society »

INTERMEZZO: a short guide to HIV/AIDS slang

IRIN/PlusNews has compiled a short list of the ways people refer to HIV/AIDS on the African continent.
Angola (Portuguese)
Pisar na mina – Contracting HIV is like having “stepped on a landmine”
Bichinho – “Little bug” (the virus)
Botswana (SeTswana)
Phamo kate – phamo “a quick snatch”, and kate “buried” (refers to AIDS)
Onale jwa radio – “He/she has the disease talked about on the radio” (radio is the primary method of disseminating HIV/AIDS knowledge)
Bolwestse jo booleng – “The illness that has befallen [us]” (euphemism for HIV and AIDS as a new illness)
Segajaja – meaning …

Society »

Belle de Jour comes out as beauty and brains

After years of mystery, the blogger behind the “Diary of a London Call Girl”, later adapted on TV as “The Secret Diary of a Call Girl” with Billie Piper in the title role, came out today as a young woman with a PhD in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science now working at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health.
Brooke Magnanti, her book and Billie Pipper
Then a PhD student trying to write up her PhD Brooke Magnanti decided to become a sex worker when her saving ran out:
“I don’t know …