hiv risk

(MedPage Today) -- Americans appear to be taking fewer chances with HIV, according to the CDC.

(MedPage Today) -- "The Pill" and other hormonal methods of contraception are associated with an increased risk of acquiring HIV for both men and women, researchers reported.

(MedPage Today) -- Poverty, joblessness, and limited education may play an important role in HIV risk among heterosexuals, the CDC reported.

(Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions) Young black men who have sex with men (MSM) get infected with HIV nearly five times more often than MSM from other races, even though they don't have more unprotected sex.

(NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Giving breastfeeding infants of HIV-infected mothers a daily dose of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine for six months halved the risk of HIV transmission to the infants at age 6 months compared with giving infants the drug daily for six weeks, according to preliminary clinical trial data presented today at the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston.

Doctors are advising football fans who went to the World Cup in South Africa to check their HIV status if they had unprotected sex on their trip.

Having a male partner who is violent increases the risk of acquiring HIV for women in rural South Africa, researchers reported.

(Microbicide Trials Network) Hopeful that some of the same antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV can also prevent it, researchers have enrolled the first participants into a new, large-scale clinical trial testing two approaches of the strategy in women.

The VOICE Study will help determine whether applying a vaginal microbicide gel containing an ARV or taking an ARV pill once a day can reduce a woman's HIV risk.

About 5,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa will take part.

CAPE TOWN (MedPage Today) -- Men infected with human papillomavirus have an 80% increase in the risk of getting HIV, a researcher said here.

CAPE TOWN (MedPage Today) -- Antiretroviral therapy starting in the third trimester of pregnancy continuing through six months of breastfeeding sharply reduces the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission, a researcher said here.