A survey of adult South African men published in this week's PLOS Medicine, shows that while overlapping sexual relationships with women appear to be common, roughly one in 20 men reported consensual sexual contact with a man, approximately one in ten reported being sexually assaulted by another man, and around 3% reported perpetrating such an assault...

Rape is shockingly common in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, where as many as one in four adolescent girls are raped each year. But a short self-defense course can dramatically reduce the girls' vulnerability to sexual assault, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and an organization called No Means No Worldwide...

Spanish and US scientists have successfully identified animal species that can transmit more diseases to humans by using mathematical tools similar to those applied to the study of social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Their research - recently published in the prestigious journal PNAS - describes how parasite-primate interactions transmit diseases like malaria, yellow fever or AIDS to humans...

Researchers have found that people who inject drugs could reduce their risk of HIV infection by nearly half if they take daily tablets of an antiretroviral drug called tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (tenofovir). This was the first trial to evaluate whether preventative treatment with HIV drugs could prevent HIV infection among people who inject drugs. Jonathan Mermin, M.D...

Biologists from Indiana University and Montana State University have discovered a striking connection between viruses such as HIV and Ebola and viruses that infect organisms called archaea that grow in volcanic hot springs...

A new study using a sophisticated statistical tool, has determined that providing universal HIV testing for India's billion-plus population every five years would prove to be a cost-effective approach to managing the epidemic, even with more intensive testing for high-risk groups...

Social and structural factors - such as poverty, marginalisation and stigma - and not just individual behaviours are shaping the HIV epidemic in Europe and central Asia. This is the main conclusion of a new report released by the World Bank Group, WHO/Europe and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine...

A new study from the US shows how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes infected immune cells to commit suicide. The researchers believe the finding is an important lead on how to preserve the immune systems of people infected with the virus that causes AIDS...

Food insecurity increases the risk of death among injection drug users living with HIV/AIDS even when they are receiving life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to a new study involving Simon Fraser University. The study, recently published in the peer-reviewed science journal, PLoS One, examines the impact of food insecurity and hunger on survival among injection drug users...

The first few hours to days following exposure to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be of critical importance in determining if infection occurs in a patient. But the low numbers of viruses and infected cells at this stage makes it very difficult to study these events in humans or animal models...