Pregnancy increases the risk of HIV transmission--for both men and women

It is well known that pregnant women are more likely than others to contract HIV during intercourse with an HIV-positive partner. Surprising new results, however, show that men are twice as likely to contract the virus when they have intercourse with a pregnant HIV-positive woman. The increased risk remains even after researchers accounted for behavioral and other factors that increase HIV risk, researchers reported Monday at a Pittsburgh conference on the use of microbicides to block HIV transmission.

HIV Vaccine Research a Field Apart From Classic Vaccinology

HIV vaccine research is diverging from classic vaccinology and its focus on the adaptive immune response, to a field of its own. There has been a shift from protecting against infection to changing the nature of the infection, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in Bethesda, Maryland, said in his keynote address here at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases 13th Annual Conference on Vaccine Research.