A latest study shows that the majority of U.S. states prevent the doctors from testing their patients for HIV on a regular basis. It seems like these states are not in a hurry to change things. So, they are clearly violating a Federal health warning for HIV. The new testing guidelines were issued last year by the Center for Disease Control or the CDC. Almost a year later, things are pretty much the same and the states don’t seem to take the CDC warning seriously. Although, about half a dozen states have simplified the laws regarding HIV testing. For other states like California, the legislation is still pending. The U.S. health agency recommends that adults under the age 65 be tested for HIV. Roughly, about 250,000 Americans don’t yet know for sure that they are HIV positive. The latest study published in the PLoS gives the readers an idea of the legal barriers. 33 states require informed consent for HIV testing, and 24 others need disclosure of information and disease. The problem seems to be lying mostly in the U.S. legislation system. Personally, I feel that the clash between the U.S. state and federal legislatures is what has created this mess. Had there been no state laws, things would have been simple. Hopefully, the states will pay more attention to HIV testing and heed to the CDC warning. Image Credit: Friendtofriend
Cameroon offers free treatment for AIDS patients
The health department of Cameroon has pledged free treatment to all patients suffering from AIDS. The drugs will be funded by the government and other NGOs like Clinton Foundation and Global Fund. The program is expected to cost about $11.9 million to the government to treat about forty seven thousand AIDS patients. Earlier the Cameroon government had given free treatments and AIDS screening tests to vulnerable groups like prisoners, TB patients, pregnant women and children. It is estimated that Cameroon has AIDS rate of 5.5% and a monthly treatment of $14 for an AIDS patient is considered quite steep where majority of the population are poor farmers. The government of the Republic of Cameroon has decided today that there will be free treatment with antiretroviral (drugs) for all people living with HIV/AIDS eligible for this type of treatment says Minister Urbain Olanguena Awono While countries like Brazil, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia have already started offering free AIDS treatment in their countries, Nigeria and Congo are expected to follow according to WHO. Image Source
Natural blood molecule blocks HIV
A natural component of human blood has been found to block the HIV virus from infecting cells. It may lead to the development of another class of antiretroviral drugs to fight HIV/AIDS. The newly identified compound prevents the virus from attaching a molecular anchor to the cell it is invading. No existing drugs affect this stage of infection, so the German team hopes the compound could be modified to form a new class of similar drugs. Nearly 40 million people living with HIV worldwide and 3m deaths last year, new approaches are urgently needed. The scientists discovered the compound called Virus-Inhibitory Peptide or VIRIP by screening hundreds of proteins from human blood. A number of studies have suggested that VIRIP in the human blood are able to inhibit HIV-1 and control it. The researchers also found that VIRIP and its derivatives were effective against drug-resistant strains of HIV. There are at present around 20 different HIV drugs categorized into four different classes; a number of HIV strains are now becoming drug resistant, and HIV resistance to one drug can lead to resistance to other drugs in the same class. Prof Kirchoff said: You want a lot of drug classes, because multi-drug resistant viruses are starting to show up more and more. In at least some industrialized countries, it is already a severe problem. The team at Ulm University Hospital in Germany published their findings in the US journal Cell. Image Source
The wild HIV virus has a weak mutant
The highly aggressive human immunodeficiency virus or (HIV) that is responsible for destroying the body’s immune system has a less aggressive mutant. Researchers at South Africa’s Centre for the AIDS Program of Research discovered the variant of the common HIV virus that is less potent when transmitted to other humans. The HIV virus works in the body by invading a cell and using it to replicate itself. The Class I Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) is the most important gene that when inflicted by the HIV determines the rate of progression of AIDS in the body. However, genetic composition of certain variants of the HLA, HLA-B*57 or B*5801 alleles has the ability to force mutation of HIV virus damaging its reproductive ability and weakening its progression. This mutant of HIV virus that escapes being targeted by cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs) are weaker that the wild-type virus and when transmitted even to individuals without the beneficial HLA gene considerably slows down the progression of AIDS in the body. Source: Yahoo
Doctors’ ignorance led to 2,000 deaths with HIV stigma
Doctors are normally looked upon as the saviors of ailing people but how would you define them if they push you into the gorge of death. Similar incident happened, in England as nearly 2,000 haemophilia sufferers were exposed to HIV and/or hepatitis c-contaminated blood products. This unfortunate incident has been described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of National Health Service, also called NHS. This is not for the first time when such unfortunate incident has come to the fore, but in the past too several such happenings has occurred, giving jerk to the faith that people repose in doctors, for instance: • In Japan HIV infection through blood transfusion confirmed • Transmission of HIV through blood transfusion in the Eastern Mediterranean Region • Medical Workers Guilty of Infecting Children with HIV Actually, such incidents uncover doctors’ careless attitude towards the patients, which is quite a terrible issue because such carelessness often imperils a patient’s life. In a study, conducted by Healthgrades, it was found that an average of 195,000 hospital deaths in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 in the US were due to potentially preventable medical errors. I strongly believe that such negligence should be checked earnestly as it may pose a serious threat to many lives. And when it comes to transmittable diseases like HIV/AIDS, hepatitis c, etc. then the threat seems to be much greater because such medical malpractice may imperil our ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS. Via: Daily Mail
Gambian president’s AIDS remedy nothing but a sham
Herbal remedy of Gambian president is nothing, but a sham that HIV-infected patients are being provided with. Proving this further, AIDS experts accused Gambian president Yahya Jammeh of publicizing false data, proving his herbal remedy very effective against HIV/AIDS. This shows that how Gambian officials came out with false testing results, in order to dub so-called herbal remedy of Gambian president quite effective against HIV/AIDS. Throwing more light on this conspiracy, which is in fact against slowly dying HIV/AIDS patients, Professor Souleymane Mboup of the University of Dakar, Senegal unveiled: The interpretation by the Gambian authorities of the results of HIV antibody and viral load testing on blood samples sent to my laboratory is incorrect. Here question arises that if herbal remedy, propounded by Gambian president is ineffective then how, many patients felt better than before after undergoing his (president’s) treatment. Moreover, viral load measures in these patients were also found below the detectable level. Giving pertinent reply to such questions experts say that there is nothing surprising in this because most of these patients had been treated with ARVs prior to the administration of the herbal treatment, which reduced HIV viral load to levels of detection. Revelation of such issues really points to the ignominious conspiracy that Gambian president has woven around AIDS-afflicted patients, adding to their woes because he had asked AIDS patients to shun ARVs. And words fail to condemn this act of Gambian president. May be his intention behind introducing this herbal remedy was to help HIV/AIDS-afflicted patients but lack of transparency, and his perverse attitude towards other AIDS activists has exposed him to mordant criticism of AIDS activists from all round the world. Somewhere it seems that he himself was acquainted with the fact that his so-called herbal remedy is merely a myth perhaps that is the reason why he had denied revealing about his so-called herbal remedy to the world that what it was made of. Had his intention been good then he would not have said this, knowing that fact that Gambia is not the only country with HIV infected patients but several other countries are also wriggling under the same problem. In addition, he treated the whole issue as if he alone would do, which many others even jointly couldn’t do. Here it would also not be wrong to say that his plan to fight HIV/AIDS merely by using his so-called ‘herbal remedy’ was actually an attempt to wrap up the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS. Therefore, this act of Gambian president should be condemned on the world stage so that no such medicaster like Gambian president may ever think of bamboozling the world community and especially the people grappling with deadly HIV/AIDS. Image Via: Reuters
Protect yourself while exploring – the AIDS illustration
Every adult resident of this world have been taught the importance of safe sex in preventing AIDS. The French ad agency TBWA has come up with an interesting advert as a part of the AIDS prevention campaign. The colorful illustration creates an imaginary world of genitals with a nude woman exploring it in a protected capsule with the caption – Explore. Just protect yourself. Public awareness campaigns are most of the time rather boring but this is an unusual portrayal of an important campaign with a dash of the artist’s imagination that does not preach but makes one aware.
Man jailed for hiding HIV status at blood clinic
A judge has sentenced a man to 2 years in prison for concealing that he was HIV-positive when he gave blood to a Hammond plasma center. Michael Ivy, 46, of East Chicago pleaded guilty to selling blood contaminated with HIV in September last year to Bio-Blood Component Inc. Lake County Criminal Court Judge Robert Lewis on Friday ordered Ivy to serve a two-year sentence in a state prison and imposed a one-year probation on him. When giving blood products to Bio-Blood last summer, Ivy checked the “no” box on a questionnaire that asked if he was HIV-positive. Court records show he gave blood three times in September before Bio-Blood tested a specimen and found it HIV-positive. State law requires contaminated blood to be destroyed. Court records did not indicate whether or not, Ivy received money for donating his blood to the clinic. Ivy admitted he had been diagnosed with HIV in August 2002. A doctor at St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago confirmed the diagnosis in November 2002 and told Ivy he could never again give blood, plasma or tissue. According to a study — there is a 90% risk of HIV transmission through infected blood products which is higher than the risk from any other transmission means. Image Source
Cervical abnormalities higher in girls born with HIV
A new U.S research has found that — a generation of female teens born with HIV who are now reaching sexual maturity have a higher number of cervical abnormalities. Researchers monitored the rate of first-time pregnancies, genital health and Pap test results of 638 girls, ages 13 and over, who became infected with HIV around the time of birth. They found that nearly 50 percent of the teens had abnormal cervical cells. Lead author Susan Brogly of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston said: We have already seen this in HIV-infected women. However – in the adolescent girls, we didn’t expect to see as high rates as we did. The researchers also found that only half of the girls who were sexually active had got their Pap tests done. Joseph Harwell, M.D., an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Brown University, said that the results are troubling. The study appears in the June 2007 issue of American Journal of Public Health. Image Source
Does the Indian Doc have secret to destroy HIV?
Everything, if goes fine, may be, then researchers would be too near destroying HIV/AIDS, as Dr Indrani Sarkar’s PhD thesis provides key to open up the secret for developing enzymes that can destroy the dreaded Human Immuno-deficiency Virus or HIV within infected cells permanently. Enzyme called Tre is capable of detecting, recognizing and destroying HIV. Moreover, the detection of this enzyme (Tre) could be counted as a major achievement in our fight against HIV/AIDS. Today, major obstacle that we face while battling HIV/AIDS is its (HIV virus) resistance against HIV drugs. However, Tre promises to deplete HIV in the human genome just in three months, giving too short period for this virus to develop resistance. In the words of Indrani Sarkar: In laymans terms, it’s an engineered enzyme…cuts out the virus from the genome. Finally, hope is there to have another major weapon our arsenal to fight HIV/AIDS! Source