Image Credit: Flickr Horia Varlan
PLOS Medicine published three articles this week, spanning research topics from life expectancy on ART in South Africa to the shingles vaccine for US seniors.
Leigh Johnson and colleagues estimated the life expectancies of HIV positive South African adults who are taking antiretroviral therapy by using information from 6 programmes between 2001 and 2010. Their findings suggest that in South Africa, patients starting ART have life expectancies around 80% of normal life expectancy, provided that they start treatment before their CD4 count drops below 200 cells/µl.
Sinead Marie Langan and colleagues studied a cohort of more than 750,000 individuals aged 65 years or more to assess whether herpes zoster vaccine is effective against incident zoster and post-herpetic neuralgia in an older population. Their findings highlight the need to increase shingles vaccination among elderly individuals in the US and could inform policy makers in countries that are currently considering the introduction of routine shingles vaccination.
Elaine Beller and colleagues from the PRISMA for Abstracts group provided reporting guidelines for abstracts of systematic reviews in journals and at conferences. Other PLOS Medicine articles on PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) are also highlighted on the Medicine homepage.
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