Pneumocystis infection of HIV infected individuals in winter

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a major cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV infected individuals, is more likely to strike HIV-1 infected people in the cold winter months. The authors examined data from the Chelsea and Westminster HIV cohort—one of the largest in Europe—to identify all HIV patients who had received a diagnosis of PCP since 1985. The temperature and rainfall for every month was then obtained from the UK Meteorological Office. January saw the highest number of new cases but did not have the highest monthly rainfall, which occurred in April, (or the lowest monthly temperature) but did have the lowest average rainfall. Encouragingly, the introduction of two treatments—PCP prophylaxis in 1992 and highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in 1996—played an important part in decreasing the number of new cases. (

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Service improvement needed to stop syphilis

Improvements in genitourinary medicine (GUM) services are urgently required in Manchester, UK, if the area is to effectively control the return of syphilis. The authors created a form to record epidemiological data, which was sent to each of the 11 GUM clinics in Greater Manchester. There were 414 cases of syphilis reported in Greater Manchester …