It is with great sadness that we hear of the early passing of Professor Charles Boucher, one of our Editorial Panel members, whose outstanding scientific career has spanned several decades since the early days of the HIV epidemic. Our sincere condoleances go to his family, friends and colleagues. He will be greatly missed by all of us.
Since our last editorial we have now a glimpse of hope with the very encouraging results from several prophylactic trials against SARS-CoV-2. We have to celebrate the extraordinary speed at which scientists, vaccine developers and volunteers have worked and produced in a very short period of time effective vaccines thereby challenging the usual timing of vaccine development. One can hope that such an example will help the vaccine field for other infectious diseases.
In this issue we have mostly concentrated on HIV, antiretroviral therapy, the issues about cure trials with treatment interruption and the Covid pandemic which has questioned the possibility of continuing the cure research agenda. We are most grateful to Barber T et al. for summarizing the salient points of the Glasgow HIV Conference on HIV Drug Therapy 2020 which took place 5-8th October 2020 and also encompasses Covid clinical features and treatment. Aebi-Pop K et al. highlight in their article on pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV the gaps and achievements in terms of reaching women in the European area.
Waters L et al. review the evidence for using tenofovir disoproxil fumarate plus lamivudine as a nucleoside analogue backbone for the treatment of HIV, considering its potential impact on many aspects of HIV treatment.
The issues around HIV cure studies are discussed in four articles. Fidler S et al. and Lau J et al. present a detailed analysis and proposal for the running of cure trials during the Covid-19 pandemic with an emphasis of finding ways to continue with the research agenda. De Scheerder MA et al. and Kyei GB et al. address important questions for potential participants in these trials such as the motivations for taking part and the unwillingness of patients in Ghana to interrupt antiretroviral therapy in HIV cure research, respectively.
The paper by Peng X et al. illustrate how chronic inflammation in the gastro-intestinal tract impacts on the persistence of HIV reservoirs in a patient with colitis and should influence some of the strategies for HIV cure.
Finally, Mbichila T et al. highlight the thriving state of research in Africa, particularly in the field of emerging infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
The editors thank all the authors, reviewers and our collaborators at Elsevier for their continuing efforts to make the Journal a success.