New PhD research on how to battle the disease burden in the slums of Kenya Data suggest that it is only a matter of time before cardiovascular diseases will be the number one cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, very little research has been done...
Male views on female condom use. Female condoms are under-utilized throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Programs have traditionally presented female condoms as a means of women’s empowerment. However, prevailing gender norms in sub-Saharan Africa assign sexual decision-making to men, suggesting that male acceptance is imperative for increased use....
Improving maternal care through a state-wide health insurance program: a cost and cost-effectiveness study in rural Nigeria. The Nigerian government has made progress towards the Millennium Development Goals but further investments are needed to achieve the targets of post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, including Universal Health Coverage....
Disturbance in the microorganism environment of the vagina (‘dysbiosis’) is associated with increased HIV acquisition. However, the mechanisms remain largely unknown. To investigate the association between the vaginal microbiome and the mucosal immune response, we compared cervicovaginal human proteins of 50 Rwandan female sex workers who...
Viral suppression is the cornerstone of success in long-term HIV treatment. The World Health Organization commissioned us to systematically review the scientific literature on HIV treatment outcomes. We focused on the viral loads of adults on first-line antiretroviral therapy for HIV-1 in low- and middle-income...
With the progressive scale-up of antiretroviral therapy in Africa, pre-treatment drug resistance is increasing. People who have never been on treatment are found to harbour drug resistant HIV even before they start first-line antiretroviral therapy. In the PanAfrican Studies to Evaluate Resistance (PASER) cohort, a...
Antiretroviral drugs are proven to prevent people from acquiring HIV. The effectiveness of this pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in clinical trials now is being put to the test in real world settings, with excellent results presented at the recent AIDS 2015 conference in Vancouver. This paper...
Symposium report Research in action: from AIDS to global health to impact. A symposium in recognition of the scientific contributions of Professor Joep Lange On Tuesday 14 October 2014, 850 family members, friends, colleagues, prominent scientists and dignitaries from all over the world gathered in Amsterdam to...
The global scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has reduced AIDS deaths and HIV incidence, but drug resistance is threatening these advances. This meta-analysis combined data from 50,870 patients in 287 studies between 2000 and 2013. It found that the average overall prevalence of transmitted drug...
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Treatment for high blood pressure and diabetes greatly reduces the risk of stroke and heart attacks. However, high quality CVD prevention care is neither available nor affordable for most people in SSA....