BACKGROUND There is a paucity of data on the national population-level effectiveness of preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes in high-HIV-prevalence, resource-limited settings. We assessed national PMTCT impact in South Africa (SA), 2010. METHODS A facility-based survey was conducted using a stratified multistage, cluster sampling design. A nationally representative sampl...

BACKGROUND Financial incentives have been shown to improve antiretroviral (ARV) adherence for people living with HIV, but scholars argued that this commodifies treatment and debated the ethics of doing so. This article summarizes research on ethical processes factors involved in an intervention successfully improved ARV among socially vulnerable HIV. METHODS Thirty qualitative interviews were c...

Antiretroviral therapy success is highly dependent on the ability of the patient to fully adhere to the prescribed treatment regimen. We present the results of a cross-sectional study that evaluates the predictive value of a self-administered questionnaire of adherence to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Study participants were interviewed using a 36-item Patient Medication Adherence Questionnaire...

Scaling up of antiretroviral treatment (ART) for children in countries like Thailand will require decentralization and management by non-specialist doctors. We describe (a) the formulation of a standardized drug dosage table to facilitate antiretroviral drug (ARV) prescriptions for children, (b) the acceptability of such a table among doctors and (c) the safety and efficacy of drug doses in the...

Purpose of the study Since the use of more tolerable and less toxic combined antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, most drug-naïve HIV patients achieve viral suppression and immunologic recovery, combined with less AIDS related events. Nevertheless, drug switches are still frequent both as a mean of adherence and toxicity management and as a response to virologic or immunologic failure. The aim of the ...

In 2003, the Chinese Government initiated a free antiretroviral therapy (ART) program focusing on adult AIDS patients. Pediatric antiretroviral (ARV) formulations were yet unavailable. It was not until July 2005, with the initiation of a two-stage program implemented by the Chinese Ministry of Health, that pediatric formulations became accessible in China. Initially, the pediatric ART program w...

Great progress has been made in achieving universal access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, for successful viral suppression, patients must adhere to rigid and complex treatment regimens. With three quarters of antiretroviral (ARV) users in Africa adhering successfully, African countries have achieved extraordinary levels of adherence given the levels of poverty in which many ARV users...

BACKGROUND Several studies have revealed the frequency of antiretroviral (ARV) drug prescription errors. We analyzed highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) prescribing practices for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients undergoing hemodialysis in France. METHODS Prescribed ARV drug doses in our cohort (consisting of all HIV-infected patients who underwent hemodialysis fro...

The aim of the present study was to analyse the effect of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy and single antiretroviral drugs on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) HIV-RNA burden in HIV-infected patients affected by neurological disorders enrolled in a multicentric Italian cohort. ARVs were considered "neuroactive" from literature reports. Three hundred sixty-three HIV-positive patients with available data fro...

BACKGROUND Brazil became the first developing country to guarantee free and universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, with antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) being delivered to nearly 190,000 patients. The analysis of ARV price evolution and market dynamics in Brazil can help anticipate issues soon to afflict other developing countries, as the 2010 revision of the World Health Organization guidelines sh...