Retroviruses

The Synergy Project is a five-year, performance-based contract that provides technical assistance and services to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to design, evaluate, and coordinate HIV/AIDS programs and identify and disseminate lessons learned from these programs. This website offers HIV/AIDS Technical and Programming resources including newsletter, links to HIV/AIDS focussed websites, publications and a calendar of events.

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Starting antiretroviral therapy earlier, before the development of symptoms, is the most likely way to reduce the high death rates after treatment initiation seen in people with HIV in resource-limited settings, two large cohort analyses show. The studies also show that the major disadvantage of starting treatment late an increased risk of death may persist for some years, burdening already overstretched health systems with illness that could be avoided by earlier treatment.

AIDS activists are hoping that the country's new administration will make good on promises to urgently improve access to affordable HIV/AIDS treatment and services at state hospitals. The country's three political parties - ZANU-PF and the two factions of the majority Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - signed a power-sharing deal on 15 September, ending one of the worst periods of inter-party political violence since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980. Despite scepticism that the three parties will be able to work together, the deal has brought hope to many ordinary Zimbabweans, particularly those living with HIV, who have been battling to cope in the current harsh economic and political environment. Of the estimated 320,000 people in need of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, only about 100,000 are accessing the medication at public health facilities. Besides the treatment gap, government hospitals are struggling to deliver services in the face of shortages of drugs, medical staff and foreign currency.

This is a fixed term position for an initial period of 2 years, renewable based on performance and availability of funds.

South Africas top researchers, policy makers, managers and providers have released the outcome of a roundtable discussion held last year, where they grappled with antiretroviral access and the health systems capacity to cope with the increasing demand.

Aggressive programmes to treat HIV-positive people using highly active antiretroviral therapy could reduce the number of new HIV cases by as much as 60 percent, according to a study published on Tuesday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Toronto's Globe and Mail reports.

South African AIDS patients in Durban are under siege from drug addicts who rob them of their antiretroviral treatment to get high, the provincial health department said Wednesday.