Early cART for HIV-infected people with TB; 5 psychotropic medicines in emergencies
In this week's PLoS Medicine, Molly Franke and Megan Murray of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA and colleagues report that early antiretroviral therapy reduces mortality among HIV-infected adults with tuberculosis and improves retention in care, regardless of CD4 count.
Funding: No direct funding was received for this study. Data collection was paid for with funding from the Harvard School of Public Health. MF received support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Pre-Doctoral Training Program in the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases and Biodefense (T32 AI007535). LC received support from grant R01-AI073127. JR, JM, FK, and MM were personally salaried by their institutions during the period of writing though no specific salary was set aside or given for the writing of this paper. JF was a volunteer for Partners In Health. No funding bodies had any role in the study design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: Megan Murray is a PLoS Medicine Editorial Board member. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Franke MF, Robins JM, Mugabo J, Kaigamba F, Cain LE, et al. (2011) Effectiveness of Early Antiretroviral Therapy Initiation to Improve Survival among HIV-Infected Adults with Tuberculosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study. PLoS Med 8(5): e1001029. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001029
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001029
CONTACT:
Megan Murray
Harvard School of Public Health
Epidemiology
677 Huntington Ave
SPH3 822A
Boston
MA
2115
+1 617 432 2781
FROM THE PLoS MEDICINE MAGAZINE
The addition of psychotropic medicines to the Interagency Emergency Health Kit
In this week's PLoS Medicine, Mark van Ommeren from the World Health Organization, Geneva, and colleagues describe how they chose five psychotropic medicines to add to the Interagency Emergency Health Kit, which is a box with medicines and medical supplies designed to help people in major humanitarian emergencies. The addition of these five psychotropic medicines ensures that the availability of medicines for people with severe mental and neurological disorders will be on a par with that for other medical disorders in emergencies, thus addressing a fundamental inequity.
The authors say that: "Including one medicine of each of 5 classes of psychotropic medicines in the IEHK […] has been a major step towards the agreed goal of providing minimum care for people with severe mental and neurological disorders in emergencies."
Funding: No funding was received for this article.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the institutions that they serve.
Citation: van Ommeren M, Barbui C, de Jong K, Dua T, Jones L, et al. (2011) If You Could Only Choose Five Psychotropic Medicines: Updating the Interagency Emergency Health Kit. PLoS Med 8(5): e1001030. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001030
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001030
CONTACT:
Mark Van Ommeren
World Health Organization
Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Avenue Appia
Geneva
Switzerland
Provided by Public Library of Science
