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 …

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 …

Several clinical trials have demonstrated the benefit of circumcision in reducing the risk of HIV infection. One of the explanations put forward is that the foreskin is rich in a particular type of cell the HIV virus likes to infect. By getting rid of the foreskin, the risk of HIV infection is reduced.
If this is true then the size of the foreskin should matter too, with a higher risk of HIV infection for those with a larger foreskin than those with a smaller one. This is exactly what a new …

“Women now account for half of the 33 million people living with HIV around the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world’s people living with HIV, women are even harder hit, making up 60 percent of those infected. Not only are women biologically more susceptible than men to HIV, many behavioral and social factors play into women’s vulnerability.
If a young woman is uninfected with HIV at the time of her marriage, traditional wisdom says that she has avoided the disease altogether. More and more, however, research shows …

Documentary film maker Tim Samuels investigates the globalization of pornography and its connection to health issues in developing countries.
“In Ghana you see the most extraordinary impact of the mainstream western pornography which is predominantly made in Los Angeles and is predominantly condom free. That pornography somehow makes its way to even the most remote and obscure parts of Ghana in Africa.
There are villages which don’t even have electricity; where people live in mud huts; where generators get wheeled into the village and mud huts get turned into impromptu pornographic cinemas. …