HIV/AIDS infections are ten times the national average in the Washington-Metropolitan district, according to a report released today, with a staggering climb in black residents testing positive for the disease

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa is decimating populations, depressing economies, deepening poverty and destabilizing traditional social orders. Various programs to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS have been developed, but few have demonstrated the capacity to make an on-going difference to a large number of affected individuals, their families and their communities.

Brazil’s strategy of negotiating AIDS drug prices with multinational pharmaceutical companies and producing generic AIDS drugs locally saved that country’s AIDS program approximately 1 billion US dollars between 2001 and 2005, according to research published in PLoS Medicine.

AIDS continues to be a staggering global public health problem. The World Health Organization estimates that two million people in developing countries receive treatment known as HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy), more commonly known as “AIDS cocktails.” This number represents just 25% of those in need of treatment in these countries.

Despite the availability of life-saving antiretroviral treatment, people infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) continue to die and suffer from complications of AIDS, mainly due to delayed diagnosis and initiation of treatment.

Viral load—the amount of virus in the blood of an HIV-infected person—has long been viewed as the chief indicator of how quickly someone infected with HIV infection progresses to AIDS. New data published in Nature Immunology builds on previous work that suggests that several other factors in addition to viral load significantly contribute to disease progression rates.

Tiny pieces of genetic material called microRNA (miRNA), better known for its roles in cancer, could be a key to unlocking the secrets of how HIV, the AIDS virus, evades detection, hiding in the immune system.

Donors are meeting in Berlin this week to determine how much money to give to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Fund officials say about 50 delegations from donor countries, the private sector, ngos, civil society and UN organizations are attending the meeting.

A new study may help put to rest fears that pregnancy accelerates progression to full-blown AIDS in women with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy. The study, published in the October 1st issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases and now available online, revealed that pregnancy may, in fact, slow disease progression in these women.

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a growing threat in Asia. The United Nations says nearly a million Asians contract the virus each year. It is spreading fast in Indonesia, where prostitution is a major cause. Trish Anderton visited one organization in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, that is trying to slow the spread of HIV AIDS, and finds the work is slow and difficult.

Three related papers published in the Sept. 1 edition of The Journal of Immunology provide key new insights into the complexity of HIV/AIDS.

The media's message is clear: the AIDS epidemic will be the downfall of families in Africa. A new study by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher calls that an overstatement. Her study shows that AIDS compounds the issue of poverty in households where poverty is already a prevailing issue, especially when a household loses its primary income earner to AIDS.