Infectious Diseases
FDA expands use of Prevnar 13 vaccine for people ages 50 and older
Prevnar 13, a pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate vaccine, was approved today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for people ages 50 years and older to prevent pneumonia and invasive disease caused by the bacterium, Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Pneumococcal pneumonia, caused when the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae infects the lungs, is the most common disease caused by this bacterium in adults. When the bacterium invades parts of the body that are normally free from germs, such as the blood or spinal fluid, the disease is considered “invasive.”
HIV Study Named 2011 Breakthrough of the Year By Science
NIH-funded treatment-as-prevention study heralded as a major advance
The journal Science has chosen the HPTN 052 clinical trial(http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Pages/HPTN052.aspx), an international HIV prevention trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, as the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year. The study found that if HIV-infected heterosexual individuals begin taking antiretroviral medicines when their immune systems are relatively healthy as opposed to delaying therapy until the disease has advanced, they are 96 percent less likely to transmit the virus to their uninfected partners. Findings from the trial, first announced in May, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August. The complete top 10 list of 2011 scientific breakthroughs appears in the Dec. 23, 2011 issue of Science.
Treating HIV-infected People with Antiretrovirals Protects Partners from Infection
Findings Result from NIH-funded International Study
Men and women infected with HIV reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners by taking oral antiretroviral medicines when their immune systems were relatively healthy, according to findings from a large-scale clinical study sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
NIH DISCONTINUES TENOFOVIR VAGINAL GEL In 'VOICE' HIV Prevention Study
Product Safe but No More Effective than Placebo
On Nov. 17, an independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) recommended that the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) (
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2009/Pages/VOICE.aspx) study evaluating daily use 1 percent tenofovir vaginal gel because there was no difference in effect demonstrated between the drug-containing gel and a placebo gel. The DSMB found a 6 percent HIV incidence rate among participants in the tenofovir gel group and the placebo gel group.
A large-scale clinical trial evaluating whether daily use of an antiretroviral-containing oral tablet or vaginal gel can prevent HIV infection in women is being modified because an interim review found that the gel, an investigational microbicide, was not effective among study participants.
