The South African prevention of mother to child transmission programme has made excellent progress in reducing vertical HIV transmission, and paediatric antiretroviral therapy programmes have demonstrated good outcomes with increasing treatment initiation in younger children and infants. However, both in South Africa and across sub-Saharan African, lack of boosted peri-partum prophylaxis for hi...

Surface plasmons (SPs) can be generated at the interface between two materials having opposite signs of dielectric susceptibility. [ 1 ] This principle has recently been exploited in many applications, ranging from enhanced optical transmission (EOT), [ 2 ] which can be used for enhanced photodetection, [ 3 ] biosensing, [ 4 ] optical trapping of small particles [ 5 ] and bacteria, [ 6 ] and ev...

An expanding body of evidence challenges the conventional hypothesis that sexual transmission is responsible for more than 90% of adult HIV infections in Africa. Differences in epidemic trajectories across Africa do not correspond to differences in sexual behaviour. Studies among African couples find low rates of heterosexual transmission, as in developed countries. Many studies report HIV infe...

BACKGROUND The Tingathe program utilizes community health workers to improve prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) service delivery. We evaluated the impact of antiretroviral (ARV) regimen and maternal CD4+ count on HIV transmission within the Tingathe program in Lilongwe, Malawi. METHODS We reviewed clinical records of 1088 mother-infant pairs enrolled from March 2009 to March 2...

OBJECTIVE To learn about the experience of caregivers/mothers providing care to infants exposed to HIV through vertical transmission. METHODS This qualitative study used Symbolic Interactionism as the theoretical framework. A total of 39 caregivers of children exposed to HIV in follow-up at a specialized service were interviewed. Data were analyzed through inductive content analysis. RESULT...

Syphilis remains widespread worldwide, with increasing rates among men who have sex with men. This paper reviews available evidence regarding syphilis transmission, including data on: sexual transmission (transmission probability per sexual partnership), vertical transmission, transmission via blood products and organ donation, and other rare modes of transmission. In addition, host susceptibil...

OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to describe the incidence of human immunodeficiency virus infection and to assess the cost/benefit ratio of universal antenatal human immunodeficiency virus screening. STUDY DESIGN Medical records of women in this urban obstetrics population, from the years 1988 to 1993, were examined. The incidence of known human immunodeficiency virus seropositivity at delivery was...

Many articles have summarized the changing epidemiology of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) in humans, but the emerging presence of C. difficile in foods and animals and possible measures to reduce human exposure to this important pathogen have been infrequently addressed. CDIs have traditionally been assumed to be restricted to health-care settings. However, recent molecular studies indi...

ISSUES The recently launched "Global Plan towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive" sets forth ambitious targets that will require more widespread implementation of comprehensive prevention of vertical HIV transmission (PMTCT) programmes. As PMTCT policymakers and implementers work toward these new goals, increased attention must be pa...

Social learning mechanisms are usually assumed to explain both the spread and the persistence of cultural behavior. In a recent article, we showed that the fidelity of social learning commonly found in transmission chain experiments is not high enough to explain cultural stability. Here we want to both enrich and qualify this conclusion by looking at the case of song transmission in song birds,...