The news headlines about the search for a vaccine to protect against HIV-AIDS have been unrelentingly negative in recent years, but that is no reason to give up hope, an international conference heard yesterday.

Kaisernetwork.org is the official webcaster of the conference. Their news service will provide news roundups of events and scientific papers released at AIDS 2008 as well as live webcasts and podcasts of significant presentations.

Researchers in Melbourne believe their discovery could be a major breakthrough in the fight against the disease.

An ounce of prevention in community health programs could save states hundreds of millions in health-care costs, a new study has found.

The Clinton Foundation announced Thursday that it had brokered an agreement among several drug makers that it hoped would ensure a steady supply of a crucial malaria medicine at reasonable prices for the world?s poor.

If an influenza pandemic hits the United States, acute care hospitals are likely to be overwhelmed. Nursing homes may then be expected to assist with the patient overflow, but a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that many are not prepared for such a task.

In the history of infectious diseases, coincidence plays an extraordinary role.

HIV is being spread because doctors overlook symptoms which could reveal the infection, a charity claims.

HIV prevention activities in the UK need to prioritise men under the age of 30 so that interventions reach men before they are infected, say the authors of this year's report on the Gay Men's Sex Survey, an annual survey that was completed by more than 12,000 men in 2006.

Strict conditions on international loans have been blamed for thousands of extra tuberculosis deaths in eastern Europe, and former Soviet republics.

Young sexually active people should get themselves tested annually for the infection chlamydia and again every time they change partner, the Health Protection Agency said on Tuesday.

Shame ? the word is a frequently used South Africanism. It can be employed without irony as a genuine expression of sorrow or it can be laced with the stuff, as in the ubiquitous "Ag, shame man!"

In business, Bill Gates ruthlessly crushed his opponents. Now, he's taking the same approach to saving lives.

Researchers launching a pilot project in the Nunavik region in northern Quebec hope a "do-it-yourself" test for the human papillomavirus, or HPV, might help reduce the rates of cervical cancer in Canada's North.

In 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Orphan Drug Act, one of the most significant pieces of drug legislation ever.

People who self-medicate with leftover antibiotics are helping to spread drug-resistant superbugs, according to a survey that found widespread ignorance about antibiotic use among Canadians.

VANCOUVER?Immigrants with HIV account for a large portion of new infections of the disease in Canada and they're slipping between the health-care cracks, a report warns.

THE WISDOM OF WHORES By Elizabeth Pisani Viking Canada, 372 pages, $35 This is an utterly fascinating book. I must admit that it's been growing on me since I read it, the arguments and language reverberating in my mind.

Researchers who have managed to freeze the Ebola virus and make images of the spike it uses to infect cells said on Wednesday they hope their work may lead to a treatment or vaccine for the deadly microbe.

Weak HIV viruses piggyback onto stronger ones, raising the possibility that the human body may harbor many more HIV viruses capable of replicating and contributing to the development of AIDS than previously thought, according to research published in BioMed Central's open access journal, Retrovirology.

The ability of antiretroviral therapy to reduce sexual infectiousness has not been enough to compensate for increases in risky sex among gay men in the Netherlands, according to a recently published study in the journal AIDS. The investigators, who used mathemetical modelling to explain recent increases in HIV diagnoses, conclude that...

Predicting a child's future is a near impossible task - today's straight-A student may not become tomorrow's doctor, and the school-yard bully may actually grow up to become a member of the Peace Corps.

The influenza vaccine failed this winter. Steven Salzberg suggests that future success relies on sharing data more widely and making the virus strain selection process more transparent

Scientists have identified around 100 genes that the H5N1 bird flu virus needs in a host in order to replicate, and this finding may help in the hunt for ways to block its proliferation.

Committing to a vaccine stockpile is just the beginning. Tadataka Yamada, Alice Dautry and Mark Walport offer a roadmap for heading off a global avian influenza catastrophe.