Table of Contents | October 2009

About This Image

Five years of access and activism.

In April 2009, PLoS Medicine announced a "refocusing of the journal's priorities." Going forward, said the editors, the journal would prioritize papers addressing those diseases with the greatest global burden. It would also aim to be as broad a journal as possible, publishing papers that explored not just biological causes of illness, but also social, environmental, and political determinants of health. In this month's Editorial, as the journal marks its official five year anniversary, the editors look back over the last six months to assess the impact of the refocused scope.

Image Credit: Adrian Boliston

Editorial

Five Years of Access and Activism

Essay

Molecular Genomic Approaches to Infectious Diseases in Resource-Limited Settings

Josefina Coloma, Eva Harris

Neglected Diseases

Packages of Care for Depression in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Vikram Patel, Gregory Simon, Neerja Chowdhary, Sylvia Kaaya, Ricardo Araya

Packages of Care for Epilepsy in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Caroline K. Mbuba, Charles R. Newton

Packages of Care for Alcohol Use Disorders in Low- And Middle-Income Countries

Vivek Benegal, Prabhat K. Chand, Isidore S. Obot

Packages of Care for Schizophrenia in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Jair de Jesus Mari, Denise Razzouk, Rangaswamy Thara, Julian Eaton, Graham Thornicroft

Perspectives

Lost but Not Forgotten—The Economics of Improving Patient Retention in AIDS Treatment Programs

Gregory P. Bisson, Jeffrey S. A. Stringer

Antiretroviral Strategies to Prevent Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV: Striking a Balance between Efficacy, Feasibility, and Resistance

Dara A. Lehman, Grace C. John-Stewart, Julie Overbaugh

Packages of Care for Mental, Neurological, and Substance Use Disorders in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: PLoS Medicine Series

Vikram Patel, Graham Thornicroft

Health in Action

The Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium: Using Spontaneously Occurring Cancers in Dogs to Inform the Cancer Drug Development Pathway

Ira Gordon, Melissa Paoloni, Christina Mazcko, Chand Khanna

Research Articles

Task Shifting for Scale-up of HIV Care: Evaluation of Nurse-Centered Antiretroviral Treatment at Rural Health Centers in Rwanda

Fabienne Shumbusho, Johan van Griensven, David Lowrance, Innocent Turate, Mark A. Weaver, Jessica Price, Agnes Binagwaho

Cost-Effectiveness of Preventing Loss to Follow-up in HIV Treatment Programs: A Côte d'Ivoire Appraisal

Elena Losina, Hapsatou Touré, Lauren M. Uhler, Xavier Anglaret, A. David Paltiel, Eric Balestre, Rochelle P. Walensky, Eugène Messou, Milton C. Weinstein, François Dabis, Kenneth A. Freedberg

Efficacy of Short-Course AZT Plus 3TC to Reduce Nevirapine Resistance in the Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission: A Randomized Clinical Trial

James A. McIntyre, Mark Hopley, Daya Moodley, Marie Eklund, Glenda E. Gray, David B. Hall, Patrick Robinson, Douglas Mayers, Neil A. Martinson

Medico-Legal Findings, Legal Case Progression, and Outcomes in South African Rape Cases: Retrospective Review

Rachel Jewkes, Nicola Christofides, Lisa Vetten, Ruxana Jina, Romi Sigsworth, Lizle Loots

A Prospective Nested Case-Control Study of Dengue in Infants: Rethinking and Refining the Antibody-Dependent Enhancement Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever Model

Daniel H. Libraty, Luz P. Acosta, Veronica Tallo, Edelwisa Segubre-Mercado, Analisa Bautista, James A. Potts, Richard G. Jarman, In-Kyu Yoon, Robert V. Gibbons, Job D. Brion, Rosario Z. Capeding

Potential Role of Decoy B7-H4 in the Pathogenesis of Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Mouse Model Informed by Clinical Data

Takeshi Azuma, Gefeng Zhu, Haiying Xu, A. Cecilia Rietz, Charles G. Drake, Eric L. Matteson, Lieping Chen

Facilitating the Recruitment of Minority Ethnic People into Research: Qualitative Case Study of South Asians and Asthma

Aziz Sheikh, Laila Halani, Raj Bhopal, Gopalakrishnan Netuveli, Martyn R. Partridge, Josip Car, Chris Griffiths, Mark Levy