Antiretroviral treatment for HIV reduces food insecurity, reports AIDS Journal

By increasing work ability, anti-HIV drugs may reduce hunger as well as improve health

Philadelphia, Pa. (December 4, 2012) – Can treatment with modern anti-HIV drugs help fight hunger for HIV-infected patients in Africa? Starting antiretroviral therapy for HIV reduces "food insecurity" among patients in Uganda, suggests a study published online by the journal AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society.AIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health.

Treatment including antiretroviral therapy (ART) may lead to a "positive feedback loop" whereby improved functioning and productivity lead to increased ability to work—and thus to decreased food insecurity, according to the study by Kartika Palar, PhD and colleagues of University of California Los Angeles and RAND Corporation. The article is available on the AIDS journal homepage and in the November 28 print edition.

Extended interview with Dr. James Chin, former Chief of Global HIV Surveillance for the World Healt

James (Jim) Chin has been at the forefront of public health epidemiology for decades. He works in public health surveillance and prevention of communicable diseases. He has studied the AIDS pandemic from the early 1980s in California – where he was responsible for surveillance and control of communicable diseases – to the late 1980s at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was responsible for developing the methods and guidelines for global and regional HIV/AIDS surveillance. During his public health career, he has held leadership positions at state, national, and International organizations and received recognition for his work as an infectious disease epidemiologist. Since his resignation from the WHO Global Programme on AIDS in 1992, he has worked as an independent consultant for different international agencies to evaluate the patterns and prevalence of HIV in developing countries – primarily in Africa and Asia. Dr. Chin’s book The AIDS Pandemic: The Collision of Epidemiology with Political Correctness (2006), takes a critical look at HIV/AIDS estimates and the international response to AIDS.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012