One-fourth of individuals at high risk for contracting HIV report planning to be tested for the virus in the next year, but fewer appear to follow through on that intention than individuals who are at lower risk, according to a report in the October 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

People with medium levels of HIV in their blood are likely to contribute most to the spread of the virus, according to new research published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Interventions to reduce HIV transmission from mother to child during and after birth is found to have similar success rates in Aboriginal pregnancies and non-indigenous people according to the Wiley-Blackwell journal – Australian & New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.

Virological evidence cannot prove transmission in HIV criminal cases, warn experts in this week’s BMJ.

New findings that one in 20 North Carolina men who have sex with men (MSM) reported using crystal methamphetamine during the previous month suggests increased risk for spreading HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD), according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.

Current research demonstrates that the tonsils may possess the necessary factors to act as a transmission site for the spread of HIV. The related report by Moutsopoulos et al, “Tonsil Epithelial Factors May Influence Oropharyngeal Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission,” appears in the August issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

Carnegie Mellon University scientists have made an important discovery that aids the understanding of why HIV enters immune cells with ease. The researchers found that after HIV docks onto a host cell, it dramatically lowers the energy required for a cell membrane to bend, making it easier for the virus to infect immune cells.

Discrimination and lack of medical support have led to alarming rise of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men in developing countries, a leading American AIDS research group said Tuesday.

Three clinical trials in Africa found that adult male circumcision reduced the risk of men acquiring HIV infection from heterosexual sex by 51-60%. While adult male circumcision may also have a role to play in preventing HIV transmission in the US, say scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in a paper in PLoS Medicine, "the extent of this role on a population basis is unknown."

A clinical trial involving 5,045 women in South Africa and Zimbabwe found no statistical difference in the rate of new HIV infections in the two study arms: those who received a diaphragm plus lubricant along with male condoms for their partners and those who only received male condoms.

454 Life Sciences, a member of the Roche group, and a Yale School of Medicine researcher announced that they have used the company's Genome Sequencerâ„¢ system to identify previously undetectable rare drug resistant HIV variants in samples from an earlier performed clinical trial.

New research conducted at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) suggests that it may be possible to develop a vaccine that protects against the myriad strains of the HIV virus. HIV is extremely variable, so an effective vaccine may need to stimulate the body to produce cross-reactive antibodies that will neutralize multiple viral strains.