AIDS/HIV
Bush claims progress against AIDS in Africa
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President George W. Bush claimed progress on Thursday in the battle against AIDS in Africa, saying U.S. efforts were helping 400,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa get treatment. Bush said the U.S.-backed Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief was helping provide medical treatment in Uganda, Kenya, Botswana and Namibia.
“These countries, and many others, are fighting for the lives of their citizens, and America is now their strongest partner in that fight,” he said at an event marking World AIDS Day.
Pope says abstinence helping beat AIDS in Africa
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Pope Benedict on Thursday said programmes based on promoting abstinence and marital fidelity were seeing success in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in several parts of Africa.
But for the second day running in comments about AIDS, the Pope avoided a specific mention of the Roman Catholic Church’s controversial ban on condoms.
In an address to the new ambassador from South Africa the Pope said the Catholic Church was well respected by African governments for its efforts to help address social problems.
AIDS expert reports progress toward HIV vaccine
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A scientist who helped to discover HIV said he has made progress toward producing an AIDS vaccine and hopes to launch a clinical trial in about a year.
Dr. Robert Gallo, the director of the University of Maryland’s Institute for Human Virology, said the results of animal studies are encouraging.
WHO says AIDS may infect 10 mln in China by 2010
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Some 10 million people in China may be infected with the AIDS virus by 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, as it called for stronger political will by Asian governments to stop the spread of the disease.
About 5 million people worldwide were infected last year, bringing to 45 million the number living with the virus despite measures designed to prevent AIDS from spreading, said Shigeru Omi, WHO director for the Western Pacific region.
China official HIV count rose 50 percent last year
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China’s confirmed cases of HIV infection rose more than 50 percent in the past year, but poor monitoring and official obstruction still obscure the real scale of the AIDS epidemic, the country’s top AIDS official said on Monday.
The number of Chinese diagnosed with HIV infection, which leads to AIDS, grew to 135,630 by the end of September, Wang Longde, director of the State Council AIDS Prevention and Treatment Work Committee, told a conference of Chinese health officials ahead of World AIDS Day on Thursday.
Tiny Placental Ruptures Send HIV From Mother to Child
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HIV is likely passed from mother to child through tiny tears in the placenta that occur during labor, researchers here reported.
So-called “microtransfusions” allow the mother’s HIV-laden blood to infect the infant, according to epidemiologist Steven Meshnick, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina.
World AIDS Day
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The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) joins organizations across the globe in recognizing December 1 as World AIDS Day, with its international theme of “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.” VA is keeping the promise by caring for veterans with HIV/AIDS and those at risk for the disease, carrying out research, and sharing its collective expertise with veterans, health care providers, and the public at large via a new VA HIV Web site, at http://www.hiv.va.gov.
VA is the nation’s largest single provider of health care to those infected with HIV, providing medical services to about 20,000 veteran HIV patients each year. VA investigators are involved in more than 300 HIV/AIDS-related research projects, from basic studies on how HIV affects the body to clinical trials and assessments of health services delivery. The new Web site http://www.hiv.va.gov, launched in collaboration with the Center for HIV Information at the University of California, San Francisco, provides comprehensive information on HIV/AIDS.
Record new HIV cases in 2005
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Almost 5 million people were infected by HIV globally in 2005—the highest jump since the first reported case in 1981—taking the number living with the virus to a record 40.3 million, the United Nations announced on Monday.
The 4.9 million new infections were fueled by the epidemic’s continuing rampage in sub-Saharan Africa and a spike in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and East Asia, the UNAIDS body said in its annual report.
Malaria may raise mother-child HIV infection rate
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Women who are HIV positive may be more likely to pass the virus to their children during pregnancy if they are also infected with malaria, scientists in Cameroon said on Friday.
Tests carried out in Yaounde showed that malaria, which kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds, boosts production of a substance that could increase HIV replication in the placenta and prevent it fully protecting the fetus from infections.
China to build special prisons for AIDS convicts
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China’s booming southern province of Guangdong is to build at least two prisons exclusively for HIV/AIDS-infected convicts to try to halt the disease’s spread, state media reported on Monday.
There were currently 20 AIDS sufferers and 518 HIV carriers serving jail terms in Guangdong, the China Daily said, adding that many provincial officials had urged the government to build the hospitals as soon as possible.
HIV-positive patients have shorter survival periods while awaiting liver transplants
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A new study on HIV-positive patients eligible for liver transplants found that their survival while waiting for a transplant is significantly shorter than patients who are HIV-negative. Other than infection, which caused many of the deaths, there appear to be no other factors that predict a poor outcome for these patients.
The results of this study appear in the November 2005 issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS). The journal is published on behalf of the societies by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and is available online via Wiley InterScience.
FDA Panel Ponders Home HIV Test
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The pros and cons of a simple home-use HIV test were the focus of 10 hours of testimony at an FDA advisory committee meeting yesterday. Now the company that makes the test is talking to the FDA about the next step.
The OraQuick ADVANCE Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test, developed by OraSure Technologies Inc, of Bethlehem, Pa., won FDA approval in March 2004—but not for home use.
Big SAfrican firms to help smaller ones fight AIDS
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An initiative to expand testing and treatment of HIV-infected workers in mid-sized companies in South Africa was launched on Friday, to help fight a disease affecting one in nine people in the country.
Big companies, which run successful in-house HIV/AIDS testing and treatment facilities and pay for their workers’ life-prolonging drugs, have teamed up with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to try to offer similar care to smaller businesses.
HIV program shows promise for low-income teens
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HIV prevention programs that involve more of a teenager’s everyday world may have a particularly strong influence over behavior down the road, researchers have found.
Their study, of 12- to 17-year-olds living in low-income housing developments, found that a “community-level” HIV prevention program was especially effective at keeping kids from having sex, as well as encouraging condom use among those who did.
Children are “invisible face” of AIDS
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Every minute of every day a child dies of AIDS but only 5 percent of those infected have access to life-preserving drugs, UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Fund, said on Tuesday in launching a new campaign.
Appealing for more funds for children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, hoped the world would spend $33 billion over the next five years from existing commitments and additional funds.
