South Africa can be proud of the progress it has made in treating HIV and reducing Aids-related deaths. But its continued failure to prevent new HIV infections among young people is threatening to reverse strides achieved in the past few years, warns a report by the Joint UN Programme on HIV and Aids.

Resistance testing is unlikely to improve the effectiveness of second-line HIV treatment in resource-limited settings and the introduction of routine HIV drug resistance testing is not a high priority, investigators in a large international study have concluded.

Carrying out a point-of-care CD4 count immediately after a person was diagnosed with HIV by home-based testing doubled the rate of linkage to HIV care in a resource-limited setting, a randomised study in Kenya has shown.

A US study investigated why HIV-positive pregnant women in Malawi and Uganda might drop out of a treatment programme that would protect their infants and possibly save their lives. For many, the answer was fear.

In what has been hailed as a world first, the South African National Aids Council (SANAC) launched a national lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or intersex (LGBTI) HIV plan on the penultimate day of the 8th South African AIDS Conference, says an IoL report.