Virginia Schad, PharmD

Needle and syringe programs are a highly effective, low-cost intervention to reduce HCV transmission.

Researchers found that to achieve the WHO goal for worldwide elimination of HBV, patients at risk for spontaneous HBsAg loss should be included in trials for treatments that are outside of current treatment criteria.

Treatment of HCV with grazoprevir plus elbasvir is effective in the acute phase of infection and therefore should be used in patients at high risk for HCV transmission.

Researchers found dose-related reductions in serum HBV DNA, RNA, and anti-HBV levels were achieved with the combined use of NVR 3-77 and pegIFN.

Patients with chronic HCV and renal dysfunction may be a difficult-to-treat population when considering ribavirin combination regimens.

Periodic monitoring of viral load in children with HIV will allow early identification of virologic failures and regimen change, thus avoiding accumulation of resistant strains and treatment failures.

Community-level interventions targeting food distress may improve the health of people living with HIV and reduce the risk for forward transmission.

Viral control is more prevalent in infected partners in HIV-serodiscordant couples compared with PLWHIV who are not in a similar relationship.

Interferon alfa may decrease chronic HCV, but high-quality randomized trials are needed.

Researchers demonstrated for the first time that the rs3077-T allele is associated with spontaneous hepatitis B virus seroclearance in a Caucasian population, a finding that has previously only been made in Asian populations.