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The global response to AIDS is "under threat" because of an unprecedented backlash against human rights that is stigmatizing the groups most at risk of HIV infection, the head of the United Nations AIDS programme has warned. Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said countries where there are laws against LGBTQ people, or which criminalise sex work or personal drug use, are largely the places seeing a rise or plateau in new infections. (Rigby, 11/28)

Kevin Robert Frost, the chief executive officer of the Foundation for AIDS Research (Amfar), one of the world’s leading AIDS research, treatment, and prevention non-profits, said: “Funding to treat and prevent this disease has become a political football in Washington.” ... Frost pointed to this year’s fight to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a bipartisan, international program first authorized by president George W Bush in 2003. The program is widely acknowledged as having saved millions of lives across the world in the two decades since its inception by providing people in developing countries with free access to effective HIV/Aids treatment drugs. Earlier this year, the reauthorization of PEPFAR was caught up in the national debates about abortion – despite US laws preventing any money under PEPFAR from going toward abortions. (Neus and Albertario, 12/1)

A drug which stops HIV infecting the body has proved to be a highly effective "real-world" preventative treatment, a study has confirmed. The results of the research on 24,000 people taking it across England, have been described as "reassuring". Thousands of people are already taking PrEP through sexual health clinics. (Foster, 11/30)

A South African company will make vaginal rings that protect against HIV, which AIDS experts say should eventually make them cheaper and more readily available. The Population Council announced Thursday that Kiara Health of Johannesburg will start making the silicone rings in the next few years, estimating that 1 million could be produced annually. The devices release a drug that helps prevent HIV infections and are authorized by nearly a dozen countries and the World Health Organization. (Cheng, 11/29)

New York City's Hart Island -- the burial site of more than 1 million people who were unclaimed, unidentified or unable to be buried elsewhere -- is opening to visitors after decades of being shrouded in mystery and stigma. For Elsie Soto, whose father died of AIDS complications in the '90s, the public tours being held on the island signal a step in the right direction toward shedding light on the stories of marginalized groups in New York City. Her father, Norberto, is one of potentially thousands of AIDS patients buried on Hart Island. (Alfonseca, 12/1)