SISTA South Africa: The Adaptation of an Efficacious HIV Prevention Trial Conducted with African-American Women for isiXhosa-speaking South African Women

Although new HIV treatments continue to offer hope for individuals living with HIV; behavioural interventions shown to reduce HIV risk behaviour remain one of the most powerful tools in curbing the HIV epidemic. Unfortu- nately; the development of evidencebased HIV interventions is a resource-intensive process that has not progressed as quickly as the epidemiology of the disease. As the epidemic continues to evolve; there is a need to expedite the development of evidence-based HIV interventions for populations that are often disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS. One mechanism of accelerating the development process is to adapt evidence-based HIV interventions for vulnerable populations. The aim of this paper was to describe the adaptation process of a HIV intervention for African-American women for black South African Xhosa women. For African-American women the intervention was effective in increasing consistent condom use; sexual self-control; sexual communication; sexual assertiveness and partner adoption of norms supporting consistent condom use

Antiretroviral resistance and genetic diversity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates from the Federal District, Central Brazil

In the context of universal access to antiretroviral therapy, the surveillance of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) genetic diversity and resistance becomes pivotal. In this work our purpose was to describe the genetic variability; prevalence of drug-resistance mutations; and genotypic resistance profiles in HIV-1 infected individuals under antiretroviral treatment, from the Federal District, Brasília, Central Brazil. The entire viral protease and codons 19 to 234 of the reverse transcriptase gene from 45 HIV-1 isolates were amplified and sequenced for subtyping and genotyping. By phylogenetic analysis, 96 percent of the samples clustered with subtype B and the remaining 4 percent with HIV-1 subtype F sequences. One major protease inhibitor resistance-associated mutation, I50V, was detected in 38 percent of the samples. Minor mutations were also found at the protease gene: L10I/V (7 percent), K20M (2 percent), M36I (11 percent), L63P (20 percent), A71T (2 percent), and V77I (7 percent). Many mutations associated with reduced susceptibility to nucleoside or non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors were detected: M41L (11 percent), E44D (4 percent), D67N (11 percent), T69D (2 percent), K70R (11 percent), L74V (2 percent), L100I (4 percent), K103N (18 percent), V118I (9 percent), Y181C (11 percent), M184V (18 percent), G190A (4 percent), T215Y (4 percent), and K219E (4 percent). This study has shown that 84 percent of the studied population from the Federal District, showing evidences of therapy failure, presented viral genomic mutations associated with drug resistance. The main antiretrovirals to which this population showed resistance were the PI amprenavir (38 percent), the NNRTIs delavirdine, nevirapine (31 percent), and efavirenz (24 percent), and the NRTIs lamivudine (18 percent), abacavir, and zidovudine (13 percent).

Isolamento de Corynebacterium diphtheriae de líquido espermático / Isolation of Corynebacterium diphtheriae from sperm

Descrevemos o isolamento de Corynebacterium diphtheriae toxígeno de espermocultura. O microrganismo foi identificado pelo teste de fluorescência sob luz ultravioleta, pesquisa da enzima pirazina-carboxilamidase (Pyz), testes de virulência in vitro e in vivo (imunodifusäo radial simples, cultura de células e teste intradérmico em cobaio). A amostra foi inicialmente considerada atoxígena pelo teste de imunodifusäo radial simples, mas sua virulência foi observada posteriormente quando os testes acima foram aplicados. Sem adecuada especificaçäo, a amostra poderia ter sido considerada como um "difteróide"