October 2006 Archives

The number of new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men in Switzerland has almost doubled over the past three years.

In a report published on Monday, the Federal Health Office said it was concerned by this trend and intended to focus greater efforts on its HIV/Aids prevention programmes.

In Switzerland three out of every 1,000 people are living with HIV/Aids. Over the years better prevention has reduced infection rates among drug users and immigrants, but since 2000 new HIV infection rates among gay and bisexual men have continued to rise.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- How close are the scientific and medical communities to marketing a vaccine for HIV and AIDS?

Over the past 25 years a number of vaccines have been researched, but only one candidate has gone through full testing, only to be ineffective, said Seth Berkley, president and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

Currently about 30 other trials are being conducted in 25 countries. One promising candidate, from Merck, consists of a common cold virus in which pieces of the virus have been replaced with HIV. Preliminary efficacy results are due in 2008, with final data in 2010.

A Russian court ordered a regional blood bank Monday to pay thousands of dollars to a young woman who contracted AIDS through a transfusion, the UPI news agency reported Tuesday.

The woman, who received a transfusion at a maternity hospital, could get 10 million rubles ($373,000), the Novosti news agency reports.

The blood bank served a network of hospitals in the Voronezh region southwest of Moscow. A regular donor who was HIV-positive allegedly gave blood eight times before the virus was detected.

While blood products with HIV may have gone to 200 recipients, only one case of AIDS has been detected so far.

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Fake condoms that look like they are made by the country's biggest supplier are putting youngsters at risk of unwanted pregnancy and HIV infection, it was revealed today.

Worried bosses at Durex have placed adverts in the national press warning that a batch of counterfeit "extra safe" condoms has been sold in the UK.

The counterfeit condoms could put users in danger of catching Sexually Transmitted Infections, including HIV, as well as getting pregnant, a Government body warned.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a protein that enables viruses such as HIV to infect cells and spread through the body.

This discovery gives drug developers a target to discover new types of drugs to stop the virus from spreading.

The research, led by Nikunj Somia, Ph.D., assistant professor of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and will appear in a subsequent print edition of the journal.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Papua New Guinea has failed to stem abuse by police who beat, torture and rape children, undermining the fight against an escalating HIV-AIDS epidemic, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report on Monday.

In its second report in two years on police brutality in Papua New Guinea, the human rights group said a lack of prosecutions meant people feared the police as much as criminals in the South Pacific island nation.

"Police rapes and torture are crimes, not methods of crime control," said Zama Coursen-Neff, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division.

KATHMANDU, Oct. 28: Foreign employment has been a significant contributor to the present national economy of Nepal but it could also lead to increasing HIV infection if necessary interventions were not carried out at the earliest, warned experts here yesterday.

Speaking at a seminar on HIV and Migration organised jointly by the National Institute of Development Studies (NIDS) and Fredskorpet (FK), Sweden here today, they said the degree of vulnerability to HIV/AIDS was higher among the migrant workers in the destination as well as among their families back home.

The increasing number of youths in productive age heading abroad for employment has already led to a decline in the population growth rate, making labour migration a priority issue for policy makers and planners at the moment.

LILONGWE (AFP) - The United Nations' special envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa accused the world's wealthiest countries on Sunday of failing to deliver on promises to increase aid to the most impoverished continent.

"Where is the G8 money ? Where is the promise ... The world is running out of patience. Why has the G8 defaulted?" Stephen Lewis told reporters in Malawi.

The world's seven richest nations and Russia pledged at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July 2005 to provide universal access to treatment for AIDS sufferers in Africa until 2010.

The G8 nations had also promised to help support children orphaned by AIDS on the continent and double their donations to the Global Fund.

Thursday 26 October 2006, Suva – The response to HIV and other STIs in the Pacific is equal to none other in the world, except perhaps for the region’s cousin in the Atlantic, the Caribbean. In both regions, key partners in the fight against HIV and other STIs have come together in a joint effort to plan and align their activities towards the same shared goals: to reduce the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS while embracing people infected and affected by the virus in Pacific communities.

More than 20 key people from a wide range of international and regional agencies and NGOs gathered this week in Fiji to draft the joint annual work plan for 2007 within the framework of the 2004–2008 Pacific Regional HIV/AIDS Strategy Implementation Plan (PRSIP).

The South African Government is seeking to shake off years of international denunciation for its handling of the AIDS epidemic - including a fixation on the supposed protective powers of beets and lemons - while expanding treatment, testing and prevention programs.

Over the past six weeks, the Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, has emphasised that the Government now believes unequivocally that HIV causes AIDS, a link that the President, Thabo Mbeki, once publicly questioned. She has also said antiretroviral drugs must be the centrepiece of the Government's response while playing down the dietary recommendations long cited by the Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, as central to fighting AIDS.

"The beetroot and all that lemon stuff is out the window," an adviser involved in recasting the Government's policy said. "These guys are now serious about getting it right."

DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Argos Therapeutics today announced that it has been awarded a $21 million National Institutes of Health contract to develop novel HIV immunotherapy candidates. Argos is developing personalized, RNA-loaded dendritic cell immunotherapy products designed to train the patient’s immune system to recognize, target, and destroy unique features of their disease.

“This substantial NIH award provides important validation of Argos’ pioneering approach to personalized immunotherapy, which may have strong applications not only for HIV, but also for cancer and other infectious diseases,” commented Dr. Charles Nicolette, Vice President of Research and Development at Argos and Principle Investigator for the contract. “Our unique technology utilizes patient-specific HIV antigens, allowing immune targeting of all private mutations that differ from patient to patient. This product candidate should induce immune responses perfectly matched to each individual’s unique viral profile.”

Twenty-five years of AIDS: Where are we now? The 16th International Conference on AIDS highlighted enormous progress that has been observed since the first cases were reported 25 years ago in MMWR.

Our greatest successes in the management of HIV infection are now 10 years old. Highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, has transformed HIV infection into a chronic, manageable condition in the affluent countries in which these drugs are widely available. In contrast, over 20 million HIV-infected individuals in Africa alone will die unless they obtain access to these lifesaving medications.^[1]

Most potent antiretroviral drugs (e.g., HIV-1 protease inhibitors) poorly penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Brain distribution can be limited by the efflux transporter, P-glycoprotein (P-gp).

The ability of a novel drug delivery system (block co-polymer P85) that inhibits P-gp, to increase the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs in brain was examined using a severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mouse model of HIV-1 encephalitis (HIVE).

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa's cabinet on Thursday endorsed a revised version of its national blueprint to fight HIV/AIDS, which has come under increasing criticism as the epidemic cuts an ever deeper swathe through the population.

Sub-Saharan Africa's most powerful economy, South Africa faces a public health crisis as it battles to contain burgeoning HIV infection rates amid an outbreak of extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis, which could prove particularly deadly for HIV positive people.

South Africa already has an estimated 5 million people infected with HIV and 500,000 more are infected annually.

PARIS (AFP) - India is making perilous mistakes in its fight against AIDS by assuming the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is being spread overwhelmingly by sex and especially by prostitutes, a study warns.

India is considered by many specialists to be an easy target for AIDS, despite the health authorities' insistence that they are making headway against the disease.

In May, the Geneva-based agency UNAIDS said India had 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS -- the highest figure in the world, ahead of South Africa where the figure stands at 5.5 million. The government says the tally is 5.2 million.

Kochi, Oct 26: The Indian Armed Forces have introduced pre-induction HIV/Aids screening test for those joining the services, a top official of the Forces' Medical Services Wing said today.

"From now onwards the screening test would become mandatory for those entering the Armed forces", Surgeon Vice Admiral V K Singh, Director General Armed Forces Medical Services (DGAFMS) said.

The Indian Armed Forces' HIV programme was considered the best in the world and the US was taking a cue from India, Singh, who is also the senior colonel commandant of the Army Medical Corps (AMC), told a press meet after inaugurating the Orthopaedic Centre of the Naval Hospital INHS Sanjivini here.

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Activists in eastern India battling to curb  HIV/AIDS infections in one of Asia's biggest red light districts have recruited an unusual group of people to help fight the deadly virus -- the customers of prostitutes.

Kolkata's notorious red light area, Sonagachhi, is home to about 10,000 prostitutes, who live in brothels lining the narrow lanes in the north of the city, catering for the needs of more than 25,000 clients every day.

While most customers are either unaware of AIDS or not interested in safe sex, anti-AIDS activists say they have enlisted almost 200 regular clients to Sonagachhi to teach fellow visitors about using condoms and having frequent blood tests.

SHYMKENT: The guilty of the HIV cases among children in South Kazakhstan must be punished. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, has stated this during his official visit to South Kazakhstan region, the presidential press service told Kazakhstan Today.

"It is necessary to rectify the situation in the region. We should take urgent measures to make the regional healthcare system healthier. The course of investigation of the HIV cases among the children must be brought to the end. Each guilty person must be punished," - he has said.

NEW DELHI, Oct 26 (Bernama) -- In order to create awareness among people living with HIV/AIDS, the government has planned a series of ad campaigns, starting with information on providing free of cost Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) drugs in more than 95 state-run hospitals, a state-media reported.

The ART drugs is being provided for free of cost to 45,000 people.

Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Director General of India's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) Sujatha Rao said many people are still ignorant of this fact and NACO wants to create awareness among them.

A prestigious British science journal has spoken out about a trial in Libya involving six foreign medical workers.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor are accused of deliberately injecting more than 400 children with HIV-infected blood in 1998.

Two years ago they were found guilty and sentenced to death, but that was overturned on appeal.

Now they are facing the death penalty once more. But experts say the evidence against them is hopelessly flawed.

Children with HIV and Aids in the developing world are half as likely as adults to get life-saving drugs. This means fewer than one in 10 of over two million children infected get anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs).

The BBC's Angus Crawford met three children living with the illness in Swaziland, which has the highest rate of infection in the world.

As an experimental project to study HIV and AIDS in the Twin Countiesenters its second year of operation, the activists involved say they're making progress.

Project GRACE was established in September 2005 as a program to explore high rates of HIV and AIDS in the Rocky Mount area using community-based participatory research – a relatively new method intended to involve the subject community in the research process.

Unlike traditional studies that bring in outside researchers, research for the project is undertaken by a consortium of community leaders and citizens directly affected by the problem.

Antiretroviral (ARV) treatment used to treat HIV may cause leprosy in a few people. Though only a dozen cases have been documented till now, international experts fear it may trigger a leprosy epidemic in countries such as India, with many cases of leprosy and a steadily growing number of people on ARVs.

Public health experts in India and the Asia-Pacific region, however, believe that the threat of ARVs uncovering hidden leprosy infection in stray cases is not cause for concern. "ARVs have been in use globally for almost two decades and I have been using them in India since 1990. Though almost 50 per cent people with HIV have a TB infection, I have not come across even one case of leprosy in people on ARVs in India or the Asia Pacific," says Dr Chinkholal Thangsing, Asia Pacific Bureau Chief, AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

FIJI - A 13-year-old girl who contracted HIV after being raped, is in fine health and likely to start school again next year, said former Ministry of Health AIDS project officer Dr Jiko Luveni.

Dr Luveni said the teenager had regained her health after initially being emaciated due to drug treatment.

She said the girl was undergoing counselling every month to help deal with the trauma.

She said authorities had so far been unable to determine when the girl contracted the disease.

by Edwin J. Bernard, Aidsmap, 24 Oct 2006

The first analysis of the impact of a pilot scheme of community-based rapid HIV antibody testing services in England has found them to be highly acceptable to users - many of whom had never previously tested - expanding choice and increasing capacity.

However, the study, presented to last week's British HIV Association (BHIVA) conference in London, also found that establishing community-based rapid testing sites is expensive; that they do not appear to diagnose people any earlier in their disease than standard sexual health clinics; and that more than one-in-eight test results were false-positives.

NEW DELHI - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged 23 million US dollars to India to help halt the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

The money will be used to train government health workers in HIV and AIDS prevention programs and to fund groups that work with high risk segments of the population, such as prostitutes and intravenous drug users.

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Howard University Hospital Monday became the first in the nation to offer routine HIV testing for all patients, employees and students.

The Washington hospital will begin posting HIV screening liaisons in each department to administer free, voluntary HIV tests. The staff will use Food and Drug Administration-approved OraQuick Advance, a saliva-based test that determines a person`s HIV status within 20 minutes.

By Nwabisa Nofemele, The Herald Online, 23 Oct 2006

AUTOMOTIVE giants in the Eastern Cape have a received a thumbs-up from the National Union of Metalworkers of SA for their effective HIV/Aids wellness programmes.

However, at a strategy workshop hosted by the SA Business Coalition against HIV/Aids, most businesses conceded that there were companies which did not implement HIV/Aids wellness programmes because they did not understand the long-term negative impact of ignoring the disease.

The workshop in Port Elizabeth gave companies in the province the opportunity to exchange ideas on how to improve their health and wellness programmes.

ROME, October 23 (Itar-Tass) -- There are about 4.2 million orphans whose parents died of AIDS in Central and West Africa, says a UNICEF press release received by Itar-Tass on Sunday.

The number of HIV/AIDS orphans is growing year to year, the press release runs.

Central and West Africa has over 20 million orphans, including 4.2 million whose parents died of AIDS, said speakers at a recent conference on the assistance to HIV-infected children.

China has made progress in curbing the spread of HIV by promoting methadone therapy and providing clean needles for drug addicts, experts said.

By July 1, 2006, 101 methadone clinics had been set up with 204 more due to open by the end of the year, said Wu Zunyou, director of the National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention.

Wu said a total of 15,678 people have received methadone treatment since 2004 when the first clinic was established in Gejiu, in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

BUKAVU, 22 October (IRIN) - In 2004 the United Nation's World Health Organisation estimated there were 25,000 survivors of sexual violence in South Kivu, the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern province, but those working to rebuild shattered lives consider this a fraction of the real number.

"I have no doubt that over 100,000 women have been raped in this province," said Christine Schuler-Deschryver, of the German Technical Corporation (GTZ), who remained in Bukavu, the provincial capital, during the war, and registered more than 14,000 rape survivors.

The story of HIV/AIDS is an oft written story yet there are more and more ways of writing it. It is a living story, ever developing for good and bad. As a reward for the Thomson Foundation EU-India Media Initiative Award for excellence on reporting on HIV/AIDS issues in India, six journalists – two each from print, television and radio – were at London for a week-long study tour.

During the week, the journalist team visited different organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, in a bid to get a clearer picture of the problems, dynamics and manifestations of the most challenging health issue of our times - HIV/AIDS.

A visit to the Department of Health, a department of State, responsible for carrying out the decisions of the democratically elected members of the Parliament, provided the much-needed introduction to HIV/AIDS in the UK, particularly London.

FIJI - It will take more than a year to see the establishment of a Voluntary Counselling Confidential Testing unit for HIV/AIDS in the military become reality.

Military spokesman Major Neumi Leweni said they welcomed the idea and there was a need to educate the military on the issue.

He said this was the reason they took the initiative to try and formulate an HIV policy guideline.

YICHANG, Hubei Province, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- The HIV infection rate among gay men in China is climbing at an alarming rate largely due to a lack of awareness about the disease, according to an expert on homosexual studies.

The HIV infection rate is nearing 1.5 percent among sexually active homosexual men, Zhang Beichuan, a professor with Qingdao University's Medical School, told an anti-AIDS forum in Yichang.

"The health authorities have to do something to curb the rising infection rate among gay men, who account for two to four percent of the sexually active adult male population," Zhang said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said on Friday that U.S. regulators approved a single-capsule form of its Reyataz HIV drug to be taken as part of combination drug therapy.

Taken once a day, the 300 milligram Reyataz can replace two 150 mg capsules of the drug and will be available within a week, the company said.

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While this article is related to fighting against TB, the described method can be also used in creat anti-AIDS drugs.

The scientists believe their research will also be of interest to those developing new drugs to combat HIV, which work by inhibiting the CCR5 receptor, which plays an important role in HIV-infection. The new research suggests that such drugs could impair the ability to fight off TB in HIV-infected patients receiving CCR5 receptor antagonists. TB is a big problem for individuals with HIV, as their weakened immune system renders them highly susceptible to this disease.

Gap Inc commits half of sales of its RED-branded product line to the Global Fund, exemplifying this new business model for generating sustainable funds for addressing the AIDS pandemic.

SocialFunds.com -- The business community response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been largely philanthropic, or individual companies such as Coca-Cola (ticker: KO) or Ford (F) addressing the issue as it affects their own operations. Now comes the (PRODUCT) RED campaign, the brainchild of U2 singer and activist Bono and Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa Chair Bobby Shriver, which applies a strong business model to help solve HIV/AIDS with a focus on Africa. Six companies--including Gap, Motorola, Apple, and American Express - have signed on to create RED-branded products with significant portions of profits going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Kolkata, INDIA: EVERY year, nearly a dozen thalassaemia patients are infected with the dreaded HIV virus at State-run blood banks in the city. This shocking revelation came to light following a survey conducted by the Nilratan Sarkar Medical College Hospital blood bank last year.

The study was undertaken by the Thalassaemia Children Day Care Centre attached to the NRS hospital blood bank. A total of 195 children suffering from thalassaemia, who received periodic blood transfusions at the medical college blood bank, were monitored. At the end of the year, during which the children got 909 units of blood, 12 of them — about six per cent — were found to have been infected with HIV.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- MedMira said Thursday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared its Reveal G3 rapid HIV test, which delivers results in less than three minutes.

MedMira said the Reveal G3 test is the fastest rapid test approved in the United States. Previous versions of the Reveal test were approved by the FDA in 2003 and 2004.

HIV prevalence in Botswana is 17.1%, lower than figures previously reported by UNAIDS, Botswana President Festus Mogae said Monday, Xinhua/People's Daily reports.

"The figures that used to be used by the U.N. were based on sample surveys on expectant women, which were not adequately represented," Mogae said (Xinhua/People's Daily, 10/18). The country's Ministry of Health has said that about 38.5% of the adult population is HIV-positive, while a 2006 UNAIDS report said the country's adult HIV prevalence is about 24%.

by Regina McEnery, Plain Dealer, 19 Oct 2006

On the heels of a national push to make HIV tests as routine as a physical, Cleveland rolled out a citywide campaign this week aimed at one of the groups most heavily affected by the virus -- black women.

With black women accounting for two out of every three new female cases of HIV/AIDS, billboards, buses and radio spots will promote the message: You know him. But you can't know everything. Get a free HIV test.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is financing the $750,000 campaign -- and a similar one in Philadelphia -- to cut down on the number of women contracting HIV through unprotected sex.

ASTANA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - A seventh child has died in Kazakhstan after receiving blood suspected of containing HIV in a transfusion, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

Health officials have tested thousands of children for the virus near the southern city of Shymkent since the outbreak started earlier this year. The number of reported cases has been growing steadily over the past weeks.

by Michael Addo, Ghananian Chronicle, 18 Oct 2006

OUT OF the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world today, 2.5 million people infected are children under the age of 15.

And most of these live in developing countries where access to anti-retroviral medication, which has been prolonging the lives of people with HIV/AIDS in the developing world, is not accessible.

Similar to malaria, HIV is preventable provided that people are empowered with the knowledge and skills about the true nature of the infection and the effective means for its prevention.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A Malaysian woman who said she was ostracized after being wrongly diagnosed with HIV while she was pregnant has won permission to sue her doctor and the government, a report said.

Malaysia's Court of Appeal said 31-year-old Norizan Aspungi can proceed with a 1.0 million ringgit (272,000 dollars) suit, more than two years after the High Court dismissed the case.