I ache. And not in that oft occurring post-workout self-righteous way or that occasional occurring post-coitus mixture of satisfaction, shame and regret. No, it’s PEP that has made me ache.

Most people haven’t heard of it but PEP (or post exposure prophylaxis) is a month-long treatment if you have been exposed to HIV to, hopefully, prevent you getting the virus. It’s not for the faint hearted.

And my experience of it over the last week has made me question sensible Susan status of continuing the course of drugs.

The first man believed to be ‘cured’ of HIV gives hope for the future as he addresses the International AIDS Conference in the US.

Announcing the formation of a new AIDS foundation in his name yesterday (24 July), Timothy Ray Brown told media at the event in Washington that doctors have told him he’s ‘cured of AIDS and will remain cured.’

The so-called ‘Berlin patient’ was apparently cured of the virus after receiving a bone marrow transplant for leukemia while in Germany in 2007.

The numbers are appalling. Appalling.

Elton John is feeling reflective these days.

He has written a memoir, Love is the Cure: On Life, Loss and the End of AIDS, in which he details his drug use during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

The Australian state of Queensland has delivered on its threat to set up a Ministerial Advisory Committee to direct where money to combat the spread of HIV should go after it defunded the state’s only LGBT community health organization, and has now announced the composition of the committee.

Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg will now direct $2.6 million in funding it previously gave to the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities (QAHC) to the advisory committee to distribute, though its supporters are continuing to campaign against the decision.

On the day that the US military's anti-gay Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy officially ended last fall, Airman Randy Phillips decided to come out to his father - live on YouTube.

Their conversation went viral and has been viewed by nearly 6 million people. Phillip's father took it well and assured his nervous son that he would always love him and that he was 'very proud' of him. (See second video below)

Clinics should use gay dating sites and apps to tell HIV positive patients’ partners to come in and get tested.

That’s one of the recommendations from Britain’s National AIDS Trust (NAT) which believes steps like that could help cut the number of people who contract HIV.

The NAT’s new report, out today (31 May), looks at ‘partner notification’ and says that when the previous lovers of someone who has tested positive for HIV are invited to get tested themselves, up to 37% of them were diagnosed positive too.

Can theatre actually change how we see the world around us and perhaps ultimately open our hearts? As a working playwright I often tell myself that it's possible but with the challenges of being a freelancer it can be fairly rare that I ever have an opportunity to write about something I feel genuinely passionate about.

All that changed for me though about two years ago, when my sister Rosalind Andrews-Worthy, who founded her own HIV and AIDS charity, Gospel Against AIDS, approached me about writing something about the pandemic.

A requirement to register real names for HIV tests in China, currently only imposed in certain provinces, has received official backing to go nationwide.

Officials in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south of China proposed the regulation, and Wang Yu the director of the national Centre for Disease control and Prevention (CDC) said that this policy would help testing centres locate HIV carriers.

Hope is on the horizon in the fight against HIV after Canadian researchers have finally been given the go ahead to begin human trials on a new vaccine.

Trails will begin in January and will involve both HIV positive volunteers and people from high risk groups being injected with the vaccine.

It has taken researchers at the University of Western Ontario 10 years to develop the SAV001 vaccine and has cost around $10million (Canadian) ($10million €7.5million).