South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection. New research, led by Brown University professor Mark Lurie, shows that the movement of workers between urban and rural areas played a key role in the spread of the epidemic. Results are published in AIDS.

The number of individuals with Parkinson's disease in 15 of the world's largest nations will double over the next generation, according to a study published in the January 30 issue of the journal Neurology. The study highlights the significant challenge facing countries with rapidly growing economies, particularly in Asia, many of which are ill prepared to meet this impending public health threat.

Twenty years after its introduction, gene therapy still holds great promise as a way to harness the insidious power of viruses such as human immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV). But scientists have yet to solve a vexing problem: developing an efficient transport system that is capable of delivering therapeutic payloads to specific cells.

Delaying the use of nevirapine-containing antiretroviral therapy (ART) for at least six months after labor may improve treatment outcomes among HIV-infected women in developing countries who took nevirapine during labor to prevent their babies from becoming infected, suggests a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine.

While there is no cure for lingering viral infections such as HIV and herpes, a recent study at Princeton University suggests it may be possible to deactivate such viruses indefinitely with the flick of a genetic switch.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have developed a highly sensitive test for identifying which drug-resistant strains of HIV are harbored in a patient's bloodstream.

Upon entering a cell, a virus often becomes dormant, turning off its genes and laying low until awakened by som e trigger from its environment. When that trigger is pulled, the virus quickly ramps up production of proteins through built-in positive-feedback loops that turn up gene transcription. (

Specific protein targeted may be more important than breadth of CD8 response

Today's positive opinion by the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of Tibotec's boosted protease inhibitor darunavir is good news for HIV treatment-experienced patients facing drug resistance.

Exchanges among African countries of experiences on the two-year old Treatment Acceleration Project (TAP) was at the pinnacle of the World Bank's two-week long activities in observance of HIV and AIDS, which started on November 27 and will conclude tomorrow, December 7.