UNAIDS - August 10, 2007

This newly launched UNAIDS' blog offers up-to-date insight into scientific developments within the AIDS response as covered in specialist and general medicine journals. The blog includes accompanying editorial notes and also gives visitors the opportunity to make comments about the blog's issues and contents.

Created in 2006 as an internal e-newsletter for UNAIDS staff, HIV This Week is collated by the Chief Scientific Adviser to UNAIDS, Catherine Hankins, and her team.

"In the HIV field, and particularly for people on the ground in countries across the world, there can be an overload of information. What we aim to do is make people's lives easier by searching the literature and selecting key articles that they can access to easily keep abreast of the latest scientific discussions and developments," said Hankins.

"We've been putting together and circulating tables of contents from scientific journals internally since 2002 but decided to expand the service and make it more reader-friendly by selecting a few scientific abstracts each week," she explained.

"No one really knew the extent of the thirst out there for scientific information on HIV. Initially we sent this out to UNAIDS staff only but the feedback we got was incredible. People started spontaneously forwarding the e-newsletter outside to external colleagues and partners, and responding to us with comments. We realised the potential interest and decided that the interactive nature of a blog would fit perfectly for HIV This Week," Hankins said.

Now available online, the HIV This Week blog features select abstracts of key publications on HIV featured in leading scientific journals in the preceding weeks. From basic science to community resilience, TB/HIV to stigma, and male circumcision to gender issues - HIV This Week covers a wide range of thematic areas in every edition.

"We feature about ten different themes in each edition, providing the abstracts of relevant articles, and, we hope, some enlightening editorial comments. These analyse and help contextualize the findings within the context of the response to AIDS and underscore, where relevant, what UNAIDS is doing in the various fields," Hankins said.

Readers can click on keyword links to find all current and previous information on specific themes and issues covered in the blog. A search function also gives users an additional tool for browsing the site. Previous editions are available in the archive as pdf files, with the html files being uploaded now.

The blog also gives details of how to access journal articles depending on where you are. "We have included all the steps that people in different parts of the world need to follow to get access to articles, as our readers come from many different countries and contexts," Hankins explained.

And your opinion counts. With the interactive feedback feature, the team hopes to receive comments and questions from fellow bloggers. "We are excited to get people's reactions to the blog and its content - this way we can spark new dialogues. The picture we've used on the homepage of the blog shows people discussing and interacting - we want to get people talking about HIV!" Hankins said.

For anyone working in the HIV field, HIV This Week provides a mine of information that is easy to digest, simple to use and a critical tool to provide background on the latest scientific developments on AIDS. Log on to HIV This Week today!

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