If men who have sex with men (MSM) have the option of using rapid HIV testing to screen potential sexual partners, will they do so?

Existing treatment and prevention techniques could prevent millions of new HIV infections and deaths from AIDS -- but only if Obama sustains funding. By Mark Harrington

WASHINGTON'€” A novel approach to discover the first new tuberculosis (TB) combination drug regimen cleared a major hurdle when Phase II clinical trial results found it could kill more than 99 percent of patients' TB bacteria within two weeks and could be more effective than existing treatments, according to a study published today in the Lancet. These results add to a growing body of evidence that the new regimen could reduce treatment by more than a year for some patients.

The young TB patients at Cape Town'€™s Brooklyn Chest Hospital will be able to cosy up this winter following donations of warm clothes, toys and baby food. By Kim Cloete.

A number of papers are carrying stories about the prospects for an HIV cure - this commentary in The Lancet explains what the Berlin patient has taught us.

Despite substantial progress in tackling the HIV epidemic worldwide in the past two decades, there is one population in which the epidemic continues to grow in countries of all incomes: men who have sex with men (MSM). A six-part Series by THE LANCET, explore the unique aspects of the HIV epidemic in MSM, showing that factors such as the biology of HIV transmission in anal sex and the characteristics of MSM networks, as well as known behavioural factors, are driving the epidemic in this population.

South African HIV Clinicians have welcomed an announcement that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States has approved the use of an antiretroviral by sexually active HIV-negative men and women as a method of reducing the risk HIV infection in adults.

People at high risk of HIV infection can reduce their risk of acquiring the disease by taking antiretroviral drugs, according to Cochrane researchers.

A new clinical trial in the area of HIV prevention for women is underway in South Africa. It is known as '€œThe Ring Study'€ and it will test the long-term safety and preventive efficacy of an antiretroviral drug, dapivirine, when this is contained in a vaginal ring that releases the drug into the vagina in a sustained manner.

AIDS activists and researchers are at loggerheads over the planned South African trial of a lower dose version of the controversial antiretroviral stavudine, which has in the past been responsible for debilitating side-effects in HIV patients.

The national health department has contracted additional pharmaceutical manufacturers to make up the critical shortage of the antiretroviral tenofovir across the country.