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Infectious Diseases
18th Nov, 2025
The Lancet
Oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a mix of medications that is taken for HIV prevention, is the focus of Morten Skovdal's book Paradoxes of PrEP for HIV Prevention. Focusing on the lived experiences of PrEP users, the author offers insight into the dynamics between social context within the PrEP community, as well as individual insights on the medication and how it can affect a person in their day-to-day life. The book encompasses the common considerations that PrEP users must face within six contradictory paradoxes: free, yet costly; eligible, yet ineligible; responsible, yet irresponsible; healthy, yet a patient; safe, yet unsafe; and liberating, yet constraining.
In her book Risk, Stigma, Agency: Life Histories of Women Involved in Sex Work in Kolkata, India, Sunny Sinha explores the complex social, cultural, and political dimensions of sex work in India and emphasises the voices and agency of female sex workers through the life stories of three women: Trupti, Geetanjali, and Srishti. At its core, this body of work critiques dominant risk discourses that focus narrowly on health issues like HIV/AIDS but typically ignore the broader social dangers stemming from systemic inequalities and moral judgments that silence women's perspectives.
Hailing from a small town in the middle of Colombia, Lyda Osorio's interest in science was sparked during a high-school project on Gregor Mendel's plant experiments. Her teachers saw she loved genetics and encouraged her to learn more. “I couldn’t get enough of genetics”, she tells The Lancet Infectious Diseases. “I then discovered Darwin and was absorbing anything else I could find.” Although her family was poor, Lyda ended up with a high score in the national exams, which qualified her to study medicine at a public university, Universidad de Caldas, some 8 h drive from her home.
Elimination of vertical HIV transmission is the cornerstone of achieving the goal to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.1 Globally, annual vertical HIV transmissions declined by 50% between 2010 and 2021, reflecting substantial progress.1 India, which is home to the world's second-largest HIV epidemic, with 2·6 million adults and children living with HIV in 2024, is pivotal to the global HIV response.1,2 India's coordinated efforts in the prevention of vertical transmission have substantially reduced paediatric HIV in the country, with the vertical transmission rate falling from over 40% in 2010 to 11·75% in 2022–23.
In a double-blind randomised trial, researchers in Uganda investigated whether treating cloth wraps with permethrin insect repellent every 4 weeks would protect infants from malaria compared with placebo treatment. 200 mothers with a child aged 6–18 months were randomly assigned to permethrin wraps and 200 to placebo. After 24 weeks, the incidence of clinical malaria in children in the permethrin group was significantly lower than in the placebo group, with 34 cases in the permethrin group versus 94 in the placebo group.
As of Oct 1, 2025, an estimated 714 cases of West Nile virus infection and 49 deaths had been reported in Italy this year. The worst affected provinces are Latina with 210 cases and Napoli with 73 cases. Most cases are among males aged 65 years and older, and the hospitalisation rate is currently around 91%. Public health authorities have responded by implementing an awareness campaign relating to personal protective behaviour and community participation in mosquito control. Additionally, health-care professionals have been given training to improve clinical suspicion, diagnostic accuracy, and prompt case reporting.
Howard A, Reza N, Green PL et al. Artificial intelligence and infectious diseases: tackling antimicrobial resistance, from personalised care to antibiotic discovery. Lancet Infect Dis 2025; published online Sept 16. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(25)00313-5—In this Series paper, the Acknowledgments have been updated to clarify the funders of CARB-X. This correction has been made to the online version as of Sept 30, 2025, and will be made to the printed version.
Ismail N, Moultrie H, Mwansa-Kambafwile J, et al. Effects of conditional cash transfers and pre-test and post-test tuberculosis counselling on patient outcomes and loss to follow-up across the continuum of care in South Africa: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet Infect Dis 2025; 25: 764–74—In this Article, Molebogeng X Rangaka should have been included as an author. This correction has been made to the online version as of Sept 26, 2025.
Wagner L, Obersriebnig M, Kadlecek V, et al. Immunogenicity and safety of different immunisation schedules of the VLA15 Lyme borreliosis vaccine candidate in adults, adolescents, and children: a randomised, observer-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial. Lancet Infect Dis 2025; 25: 986–99—In this Article, figure 1 has been updated to fix indenting errors in the top-right box. This correction has been made to the online version as of Sept 22, 2025.
Cholera has been endemic in Nepal for more than a century, with outbreaks recorded as early as 1885.1 Far from being an episodic crisis, it reappears almost every monsoon season, fuelled by fragile infrastructure and climate variability. The 2009 outbreak in Jajarkot highlighted systemic weaknesses in the response to outbreaks, and the 2010 Haiti epidemic was molecularly linked to Nepalese strains.2 These episodes give a clear warning: failures in local control can trigger global health emergencies.
We read with interest the Comment by Shamez N Ladhani and colleagues on the UK's gonorrhoea vaccination initiative.1 However, we wish to clarify that Galicia, Spain, became the first jurisdiction in the world to implement a structured public health programme to prevent gonorrhoea through vaccination, starting June 2, 2025.2 This regional policy predates the UK national rollout and offers a broader and more inclusive approach.
The ongoing monkeypox virus clade IIb outbreak in Sierra Leone has caused over 4800 confirmed cases in the first half of 2025, 5% of which are in children.1 Although the infection in most patients is not severe, mpox is often debilitating and life-threatening for those with advanced HIV disease. Caring for these patients is medically challenging and heartbreaking in equal measure.
We thank Thomas M Lietman and colleagues for the opportunity to clarify the robustness of our methodological approach and aspects of pneumococcal transmission and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) biology not considered in their assessment. WHO conditionally recommends azithromycin mass drug administration (MDA) as a potentially life-saving intervention in vulnerable populations, provided that AMR is closely monitored.1
Azithromycin mass drug administration (MDA) reduces childhood mortality, but benefits should be balanced against risks of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).1,2 In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Akuzike Kalizang'oma and colleagues reported on the 3·5 years of follow-up after an earlier trial of twice-yearly azithromycin (around 20 mg/kg) intervention versus placebo for 2 years (MORDOR).3 Nasopharyngeal pneumococcus was isolated from swabs obtained from children aged 1–9 years and antibiotic resistance genes were identified with short-read whole-genome sequencing.
Gonorrhoea, the disease caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae, is a bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI) that remains a major public health concern globally, with rising incidence and increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to multiple classes of antibiotics. In 2020, WHO estimated there were more than 82 million cases of gonorrhoea among people aged 15–49 years worldwide, with a global incidence of 19 (1·9%) per 1000 women and 23 (2·3%) per 1000 men. Given the growing international concern, WHO set targets to reduce annual gonorrhoea incidence by 90% by 2030.
Medical News
15th Jan, 2026
phys.org
Medical Journal
Wiley
