California, U.S.A. – A new grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will support the development of a topical microbicide gel for drug delivery. The innovative gel formulation will be a combination therapy against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infections in women.

Every day, more than 3,000 women around the world are newly infected with HIV, and it is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 33.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS across the world, 22.5 million are in Africa. HSV-2 is a global epidemic and affects up to 80 percent of the female population in Africa.

As part of the grant, SRI International researchers will develop and test a prototype bioadhesive formulation for sustained delivery of the antiviral drugs tenofovir and acyclovir to the vaginal surface. Because chronic HSV-2 infections have been shown to speed the progression of immunodeficiency disease, researchers are focused on developing a microbicide that prevents both HIV and HSV-2 infections.

“The inexpensive and easy-to-use combination therapy in development could help contain the spread of HIV and HSV, and possibly other sexually transmitted diseases,” said Gita Shankar, Ph.D., director of Formulations R&D, SRI Biosciences. “One of the strongest benefits of a topical gel formula is that it can offer protection when options such as condoms are unavailable or unacceptable.”

The awarded grant is for two years with a possible extension of three additional years. Development work will focus on creating a combination therapy that will limit the risk of drug resistance, while providing women with safe and sustained drug delivery. The novel product will be based on a patented bioadhesive polymeric platform developed at SRI.

SRI’s Biosciences division carries out basic research, drug discovery, and drug development, and provides contract (CRO) services. SRI has all of the resources necessary to take R&D from “Idea to IND” — from initial discovery to the start of human clinical trials—and specializes in cancer, immunology and inflammation, infectious disease, and neuroscience.

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Earlier this week a Duke university study concluded that one in four HIV patients were sexually abused as children. Over 600 patients, aged 20-71, were involved in the two-year long study.

The majority of the patients in the study, titled the Coping with HIV/AIDS in the Southeast (Chase), had at one point in their lifetimes been victims of sexual or physical abuse. In addition, fifty percent of the patients were found to have suffered three of more traumatic life experiences, such as sexual or physical abuse, and also domestic violence, the loss of a child, or a loved one’s suicide attempt or completion.

These traumatic experiences, particularly ones in childhood, were also linked to worse health overall among the patients.

By checking and following up on the patients intermittently for a two year period, researchers were able to find links between traumatic experiences, HIV-related behaviors and poorer health conditions.

More traumatic experiences were also linked to patients engaging in unprotected sex, missing proper, antiretroviral medications, trips to the emergency room and hospitalizations. Patients who had been victims of trauma were much more likely to have their health decline or to pass away during the two-year period.

“For whatever outcome we looked at, psychological trauma ended up being a predictor of worse medical outcomes and poorer health-related behaviors,” said lead author Brian Pence, a Duke associate professor of community and family medicine and global health.

Pence went on to say these findings stress the significance of judging a patient’s trauma history when being given HIV care. The results, Pence hopes, can help HIV programs be structured into an environment that advocates safer sex practices, stricter adherence to medicine and better health results for patients receiving aid.

The most surprising part of the study was that the effects of past trauma on recent behavior and health was unable to be explained by normal factors.

“We would expect people with a history of exposure to trauma to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or other mental health concerns, like drug abuse or poor coping skills, and that these things in turn would more fully explain why they had lower adherence to their medications and worse health,” Pence said.

“But, we found that trauma history was still associated with bad health outcomes independent of mental health status, drug use or coping styles. So we have more to learn about exactly how past traumatic experiences exert influence on behaviors and health outcomes years down the road.”

The study is set to appear in the April 1 edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (which can be found online here), with a supplementary editorial. The National Institute of Mental Health helped support the study.

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Women for Positive Action has launched a practical and educational tool to empower women living with HIV to deal with the challenges of stigma and discrimination as a way to mark International Women’s Day (IWD) to be celebrated March 8, 2012.

According to research, more than 3,000 women and girls contract HIV each day and the latest global estimate of women living with HIV (WLWH) in 2009 was approximately 17 million. Women make up about 50% of HIV cases and a higher proportion of new diagnoses compared with men. The share of HIV infection among women is increasing in several countries. For instance, young women — aged 15-24years — in sub-Saharan Africa are eight times more likely than men to be diagnosed with HIV.

By developing this tool, Women for Positive Action hopes to enable women access the right support and care to achieve better outcomes for themselves and their families. Designed for use in both the community and clinical settings, the tool will provide examples of the ways in which women living with HIV can be supported to combat stigma and discrimination. Additionally, the tool will discuss disclosure of HIV status and suggest ways to support women who wish to take this step. The tool is available for download at their website.

According to Annette Piech — a member of the German Therapy Activists Network DCAB HIV and the European AIDS Treatment Group — disclosure of HIV status can have positive benefits for an individual, their family and the community by reducing depression and anxiety and encouraging access to HIV support and care services.

“Disclosure is not a decision which should be taken lightly. It is a process which should only be undertaken when the woman feels fully supported and when it becomes appropriate at the various stages of life,” explains Annette Piech.

Each year around the world, International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. The theme for the 2012 International Women’s Day is ‘Connecting Girls, and Inspiring Futures’.

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A newly formed entity, The Business Leadership Council for a Generation Born HIV Free, met here January 9 with a delegation of six United States Senators, the US Ambassador to South Africa, a broad array of leading business executives, and South African Government leadership to highlight recent advances fighting AIDS and to pledge a collective determination to end mother-to-child transmission of HIV by the last day of 2015.

“We need the power of the private sector, working together with governments around the world, to get this done in 48 months,” said John Megrue, CEO of Apax Partners US, and Chairman of the Business Leadership Council, a newly-formed group of business leaders that will be launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos later this month. “It is unacceptable that 360,000 children were born with HIV last year around the world.”

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina led the congressional delegation, and was joined by Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Sen. Kay Hagen of North Carolina, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina.

In South Africa, the efforts are being led by the Government of South Africa with support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and from UNAIDS and from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world’s leading financing institution dedicated to supporting large-scale prevention, treatment and care for these three diseases, and other partners.

The Global Fund, which has already committed over US$22 billion worldwide, is a unique public-private partnership in global health that has proven highly effective. ”Thanks to strong government leadership, South Africa has made dramatic strides toward ending mother to child transmission of this virus,” said Mr. Megrue.

“In business, we take deadlines seriously, and work to ensure they are achieved,” said Natie Kirsh, CEO of Jetro. “This effort must be no different, and we as business leaders commit to bringing our expertise and resources to the table in this 48 month race.”

Mr. Kirsh was joined by several of South Africa’s most prominent figures and business leaders, including Executive Mayor Alderman Patricia de Lille, Deputy Minister of Health Gwendolyn Ramakgopa, former President F.W. De Klerk, singer-songwriter and HIV/AIDS-activist Annie Lennox, Bridgette Radebe, founder of Mmakau Mining, Andrea Kerzner, Founder of the Lalela Project, Brian Brink, Medical Director ofAnglo American and Christo Wiese, Chairman of Pepkor & Shoprite SA.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/khym54/

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It’s well known that yoga has a lot of curative properties and has physically and mentally helped a lot of people since its origin. With this in mind, a non-profit organization called Project Air thought that maybe this alternative medicine would be a very beneficial discipline to help more than 400 HIV positive women that survived the widespread rape that occurred during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

Due to its positive effects, what began with a temporary project four years ago, now is a basic activity that helps hundred of Rwanda women and their families in the city of Kigali every day.

Yoga instructor and author Deirdre Summerbell still remembers the faces of skepticism and confusion that women had at their first yoga lesson.  However, as she said to the Huffington Post, the positive results were huge and immediate.

“After the third lesson, a shy woman came up to me, took my hands and said that she had slept for the first time in the 14 years since the genocide,” Summerbell said. “She wasn’t alone. Women will tell you that before yoga, they were crippled with aches and pains; they felt old. Now they crave yoga because when they feel physically stronger, they feel more confident and optimistic.”

In 1994 an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days, and hundreds of women were raped, as the Hutu majority tribe tried to eliminate the Tutsi minority. Since then their minds were full of war and terrible memories, that made them feel older than they actually were and without any life hope.

As Summerbell said to the Huffington Post, at the end of her first class a 28-year old Rwandan woman told her that yoga was for younger people not for them. Regarding this issue Summberbell said Project Air yoga classes have allowed women who have felt stiff and elderly to experience dramatic and immediate emotional benefits, as they jump and play joyfully during the class.

According to the outlet media, when the non-profit Women’s Equity in Access to Care and Treatment told Summerbell about the project in 2007 she didn´t believe in it.

“I thought that it was silly and the last thing these women would probably need,” Summerbell said.

Their battlefield traumas, different culture and the fact that this type of physical activity is taboo in Rwanda, created obstacles to reaching great success from the very beginning. As Summerbell said, she saw her students’ symptoms, including disrupted sleep patterns and poor appetites, improve.

Despite the fact that not all the HIV cases were a consequence of the genocide in 2004, Amnesty International reported that that conflict contributed notably to the spread of the disease.  As this non-profit organization estimated more than 67 percent of the victims contracted HIV and AIDS at that time.

The U.K. based Survivors Fund reported that many of the infections were planned, and that HIV positive men were used deliberately as a weapon of the genocide.According to a study by the Rwandan Ministry of Health, around one out of three Rwandans suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the genocide.

Project Air started at 2004 as one aspect of the holistic treatment offered by the non-profit organization called WE-ACTx, with the intention of amending the physical symptoms of HIV and AIDS disease and the PTSD.  With the same purpose WE-ACTx integrates the mental health.

”Many of the women who have also attended [Project Air] yoga sessions say that the support they get from doing this with other women as well as the strength they gain from the physical exercise of the manipulation of yoga allow them to feel like they are able to move on and move forward from their PTSD,”  said Dr. Mardge Cohen, the medical director of WE-ACTx

So far this is the first yoga initiative certified by the United Nations and is the only yoga project to be partnered with UNICEF. The organizers’ main goal is to expand the yoga program to other warring and post-conflict countries.

“The lucky ones eat every day, the unlucky every other day, and you can’t ask people with a low caloric intake to do yoga. So we feed them,” Summerbell said. “They couldn’t afford underwear, so we quickly regrouped and provided trousers.”

Project Air does not participate with only the yoga program. Since Rwanda is a very expensive country, coupled with a high poverty level, Project Air also feed people and provides them with clothing.

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