Does circumcision have any impact on sex life? And 3 other questions about this practice
By Felipe Llambías. Historians believe that circumcision existed as early as 15,000 years ago in Egyptian society and has continued to the present day, with approximately one in three men worldwide circumcised. The majority of these circumcised men are Muslim, as it is practiced in Islam as a rite of passage for newborns…
Will your smartphone be the next doctor's office?
The use of smartphones as diagnostic tools is a work in progress, experts say. By Hannah Norman and Kaiser Health News. The same devices used to take selfies and write tweets are being repurposed and marketed to quickly access the information needed to monitor a patient's health. The tip of a…
WHO: COVID-19 pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern
lawebdelasalud.com The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that he agrees with the advice offered by the Emergency Committee of the International Health Regulations (2005) regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, and in this regard, "determines that the event continues to constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)." Dr. Tedros Adhanom…
The FDA will ease restrictions on blood donations from gay men.
The agency is moving to individual risk assessments to expand blood donor eligibility. The FDA plans to relax rules that for decades have prohibited gay and bisexual men from donating blood due to concerns about HIV transmission. The draft guidelines (opens in a new tab or window) were published…
The FDA panel supports the plan to use only COVID vaccines containing Omicron.
Advisors also weigh in on agency's push for annual COVID boosters similar to the flu vaccine By Ingrid Hein FDA vaccine advisors unanimously endorsed the agency's proposal to harmonize primary and booster COVID-19 vaccines to contain a single bivalent composition…
The CDC and FDA detect an early stroke risk signal with the bivalent COVID vaccine
A surveillance system detects a possible link in older people, but many others show none. By Ian Ingram. An early sign of stroke risk was detected in older adults who received the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, the FDA announced in a joint statement late Friday. However, the agencies did not…
The happiness of doctors has not recovered as the pandemic continues
Christine Lehmann, MA. Doctors don't seem to be recovering from the early days of the pandemic: their happiness at work and outside of it remains significantly lower than before the pandemic. Doctors also reported similar levels of unhappiness last year. Nearly half of the doctors said they were somewhat or very unhappy…
How can long-acting PrEP injections reduce new HIV cases?
A group of researchers is evaluating the potential of the first long-acting HIV treatment as a tool for controlling new HIV infections in high-risk groups. Ángel Luis Jiménez. Over the last few years, significant progress has been made in the fight against HIV. From a treatment perspective,…
Sunlenca twice a year works well for initial HIV treatment
Sunlenca twice a year works well for initial HIV treatment. The new injectable antiretroviral keeps HIV under control, but it still needs a similarly long-acting partner. • By Liz Highleyman. Sunlenca (lenacapavir), a long-acting injectable drug recently approved for people with multidrug-resistant HIV who have already received treatment, also works well for…
Pre-exposure prophylaxis yields good results in Latin America
By Clarinha Glock. Same-day initiation of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is feasible in Latin America, with few early losses during follow-up, high adherence, and long-term commitment. However, issues related to the social and structural determinants of vulnerability…
Another HIV vaccine fails in a large trial
Researchers halt Mosaic trial after experimental vaccine found to be safe but ineffective against HIV. By Liz Highleyman. Another large trial has been paused after Johnson & Johnson's experimental HIV vaccine, which uses the same technology as the company's COVID-19 vaccine, proved to be…
After the PANORAMIC Study — Where is Molnupiravir headed?
By Paul Sax We turn to discuss one of the controversial articles published in late 2022 on COVID-19, namely the PANORAMIC study of molnupiravir versus usual care in outpatients with the disease. This is controversial not because the study was poorly conducted or unimportant, but because molnupiravir has been, from the outset,…
A timeline of treatment: HIV treatment has improved a lot in the last 36 years.
By Liz Highleyman 1980s: The First Antiretroviral The first medical report on AIDS was published in June 1981, and researchers discovered that HIV was the cause of AIDS in 1983. It would be four more years before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first antiretroviral drug, nucleoside transcriptase…
Syndemic: The threat to healthcare in 2023 according to the Davos Forum
This refers to a set of mutually reinforcing health problems that affect the overall health of a population. The World Economic Forum—also known as the Davos Forum—defines a syndemic as "a set of simultaneous, mutually reinforcing health problems that affect the overall health of a population." A situation…
Criminalizing gay men is the strongest predictor of HIV
This is demonstrated by ten years of work in 10 countries, 25 study sites, dozens of collaborators and more than 8000 participants. Associations between punitive policies and legal barriers to consensual same-sex sexual acts and HIV among gay men and other men who have sex with men in sub-Saharan Africa:…
Early detection of anal cancer in people living with HIV was linked to a better prognosis.
Although anal cancer is rare in the general population, its incidence is unacceptably high in people living with HIV. Among people over 45 years of age living with HIV, incidence rates are 100 per 100,000 person-years in men who have sex with men (MSM), 37 per 100,000…