This is a discussion-based interactive seminar on the two major issues that affect Sub-Saharan Africa: HIV/AIDS and Poverty. AIDS and Poverty, seemingly different concepts, are more inter-related to each other in Africa than in any other continent. As MIT students, we feel it is important to engage ourselves in a dynamic discussion on the relation between the two - how to fight one and how to solve the other.

This module is intended to introduce students to one of the greatest social problems to face this planet, the global epidemic of HIV/AIDS and to increase their computer and research skills within sociology.

This patient education program explains Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and how that turns into AIDS. It stresses risk factors, screening, and prevention. This is a MedlinePlus Interactive Health Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine, designed and developed by the Patient Education Institute.

CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs) perform a critical role in the immune control of viral infections, including those caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV). As a result, genetic variation at CTL epitopes is strongly influenced by host-specific selection for either escape from the immune response, or reversion due to the replicative costs of escape mutations in the absence of CTL recognition. Under strong CTL-mediated selection, codon positions within epitopes may immediately “toggle” in response to each host, such that genetic variation in the circulating virus population is shaped by rapid adaptation to immune variation in the host population. However, this hypothesis neglects the substantial genetic variation that accumulates in virus populations within hosts. Here, we evaluate this quantity for a large number of HIV-1– (n ≥ 3,000) and HCV-infected patients (n ≥ 2,600) by screening bulk RT-PCR sequences for sequencing “mixtures” (i.e., ambiguous nucleotides), which act as site-specific markers of genetic variation within each host. We find that nonsynonymous mixtures are abundant and significantly associated with codon positions under host-specific CTL selection, which should deplete within-host variation by driving the fixation of the favored variant. Using a simple model, we demonstrate that this apparently contradictory outcome can be explained by the transmission of unfavorable variants to new hosts before they are removed by selection, which occurs more frequently when selection and transmission occur on similar time scales. Consequently, the circulating virus population is shaped by the transmission rate and the disparity in selection intensities for escape or reversion as much as it is shaped by the immune diversity of the host population, with potentially serious implications for vaccine design.

This activity from our family magazine series provides a fun way for kids to learn about how early microbe discoveries led to later ones. The online activity begins with a page of directions for how to play this "hidden picture" challenge. Kids meet the people behind six key discoveries: Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, Jonas Salk, Luc Montagnier, and Robert Gallo. To uncover each portion of the hidden picture (an animated microscope) and move to the next discovery, kids must correctly answer a multiple-choice question about what they just learned.

Why has it been easier to develop a vaccine to eliminate polio than to control influenza or AIDS? Has there been natural selection for a 'language gene'? Why are there no animals with wheels? When does 'maximizing fitness' lead to evolutionary extinction? How are sex and parasites related? Why don't snakes eat grass? Why don't we have eyes in the back of our heads? How does modern genomics illustrate and challenge the field? This course analyzes evolution from a computational, modeling, and engineering perspective. The course has extensive hands-on laboratory exercises in model-building and analyzing evolutionary data.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This resource is comprised of two companion components, the guide and the toolkit. The guide is intended to assist school leadership and management to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to be just a how to manual of tips. Yet the resource as a whole is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the school management team. Therefore, included in the toolkit component are realistic exemplars, check lists, and a set of information management tools that demonstrate approaches and methods for recording, planning, managing and monitoring implementation of a range of care and support interventions.

This list of contacts, services and resources is by no means exhaustive, but merely illustrative of the kinds of government and non government programmes and services that are available to schools. It is intended as a stimulus to get each school management team to develop their own data base or list of contacts and resources.

D-Lab is a design studio course in which students work on international development projects for under served communities. The class is focused on a participatory, iterative prototyping design process, with particular attention on the constraints faced when designing for developing communities. Students work in multidisciplinary teams on term-long projects in collaboration with community partners, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields. Students will learn about their partner communities through the collaborative design process and be exposed to many hands-on fabrication and prototyping skills relevant to development at MIT and manufacturing in their partner community. The course will consist of hands-on labs, guest speakers, and a guided design process with review by experts and professionals in development and design.

Je luistert naar een reportage over de impact van aids op het onderwijs in Zambia. Nadien beantwoord je er een aantal vragen over, je legt een link tussen het audiofragment en een informatieve tekst en je plaatst een aantal statements in de juiste volgorde.

This multidisciplinary seminar addresses fundamental issues in global health faced by community-based healthcare programs in developing countries. Students will broadly explore topics with expert lecturers and guided readings. Topics will be further illuminated with case studies from healthcare programs in urban centers of Zambia. Multidisciplinary teams will be formed to develop feasible solutions to specific health challenges posed in the case studies and encouraged to pursue their ideas beyond the seminar. Possible global health topics include community-based AIDS/HIV management, maternity care, health diagnostics, and information technology in patient management and tracking. Students from Medicine, Public Health, Engineering, Management, and Social Sciences are encouraged to enroll. No specific background experience is expected, but students should have some relevant skills or experiences.

Introduces the basic methods for infectious disease epidemiology and case studies of important disease syndromes and entities. Methods include definitions and nomenclature, outbreak investigations, disease surveillance, case-control studies, cohort studies, laboratory diagnosis, molecular epidemiology, dynamics of transmission, and assessment of vaccine field effectiveness. Case-studies focus on acute respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, hepatitis, HIV, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, malaria, and other vector-borne diseases.

Background
Both food insufficiency and HIV infection are major public health problems in sub-Saharan Africa, yet the impact of food insufficiency on HIV risk behavior has not been systematically investigated. We tested the hypothesis that food insufficiency is associated with HIV transmission behavior.

Methods and Findings
We studied the association between food insufficiency (not having enough food to eat over the previous 12 months) and inconsistent condom use, sex exchange, and other measures of risky sex in a cross-sectional population-based study of 1,255 adults in Botswana and 796 adults in Swaziland using a stratified two-stage probability design. Associations were examined using multivariable logistic regression analyses, clustered by country and stratified by gender. Food insufficiency was reported by 32% of women and 22% of men over the previous 12 months. Among 1,050 women in both countries, after controlling for respondent characteristics including income and education, HIV knowledge, and alcohol use, food insufficiency was associated with inconsistent condom use with a nonprimary partner (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.73, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.27–2.36), sex exchange (AOR 1.84, 95% CI 1.74–1.93), intergenerational sexual relationships (AOR 1.46, 95% CI 1.03–2.08), and lack of control in sexual relationships (AOR 1.68, 95% CI 1.24–2.28). Associations between food insufficiency and risky sex were much attenuated among men.

Conclusions
Food insufficiency is an important risk factor for increased sexual risk-taking among women in Botswana and Swaziland. Targeted food assistance and income generation programs in conjunction with efforts to enhance women's legal and social rights may play an important role in decreasing HIV transmission risk for women.