AIDS Vancouver Library

New drug shows promise

2008-03-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Source: AIDSMAP

There are currently over 20 drugs available to treat HIV, but there is still a need for new drugs. This is mainly because HIV can become resistant to the drugs used to treat it. Researchers are not only trying to develop drugs that have a powerful effect against HIV, but that are also easy to take and cause fewer side-effects than those that are currently available.

CCR5 inhibitors are a new class of anti-HIV drug. They prevent HIV from binding to the surface of key CD4 immune system calls. One CCR5 inhibitor, maraviroc (Celsentri) has already been approved and another, vicriviroc, is doing very well in clinical trials.

Researchers are working on another type of drug that targets CCR5. It uses a special type of human antibody called “monoclonal antibodies.” Their main advantage could be that they only have to be taken every two weeks, or possibly even just once a month, but still have a powerful anti-HIV effect.

The safety and effectiveness of an experimental drug that uses this technology, called HGS004, was examined in a small study involving 63 HIV-positive patients. They were not taking any other anti-HIV drugs. The patients were randomised and given a single injection consisting of one of five different doses of the drug or a placebo.

Three of the doses led to big falls in viral load, that lasted as long as 28 days in some of the people who received the higher dose. The drug appeared safe. A similar drug that is also in development called HGS101 is thought to be five to ten times more powerful.

Cutting Funding Equals Cutting Lives

2008-03-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

A statement by AIDS Service Organizations in Alberta, Quebec and Ontario
TORONTO, March 18 /CNW/ - A life saving post card campaign is being launched by people living with HIV/AIDS, their friends, families and service organizations in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec after the Federal government slashed community HIV funding across the country.
This HIV funding is used to provide direct services to the 62,000 Canadians living with HIV/AIDS and for implementing education programs designed to prevent new HIV infections. 2,508 Canadians were diagnosed with HIV in 2006, 14% more than were diagnosed in 2001. It is estimated that approximately 4,000 Canadians are actually newly infected with HIV each year. There still is no cure for AIDS; it continues to be a debilitating and fatal illness.
Ontario alone lost 30% of its promised federal funding with a $1 million cut in funding for programs to prevent HIV and to provide support services for people who are already infected. Quebec lost 24% of its funding and Alberta AIDS Service Organizations still have no commitment from the federal government to continue their funding which expires March 31, 2008.
AIDS Service Organizations in Alberta, Quebec and Ontario are united in urging Canadians to send a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and to their Members of Parliament that, Cutting Funding=Cutting Lives.
"Given a commitment by all of Canada's major political parties to double the funding by 2008 we were shocked when we learned of the cuts" said Sue Cress, Chair of the Alberta Community Council on HIV. "Alberta AIDS Service Organizations have not received an increase in funding since 2004. Instead of an expected increase this year, we will have a decrease from last year's amounts."
The Federal Initiative on HIV/AIDS promised to increase funding from $42.2 million to $84.5 million by 2008-09. The government's own figures show that $7 million will be cut from front-line service organizations at the national and regional levels over a 5 year period. These cuts are occurring as HIV/AIDS-related programs and services are experiencing dramatic increases in demand both because of the number of new infections and because people with HIV are living longer. In fact there was a 43% increase in demands for service between 1993 and 2003.
Lyse Pinault, General Director of Quebec's Coalition des Organismes Communautaires Quebecois de Lutte Contre le SIDA (COCQSIDA) stated, "Quebec has never before received a funding cut to our HIV/AIDS prevention and support services from any previous Federal government. The cost of preventing HIV is much cheaper than the cost of expensive medications to treat it."
Every HIV infection that is prevented saves approximately three quarters of a million dollars in direct and indirect costs.
On July 31, 2006, Minister of Health Tony Clement stated in a press release "...HIV/AIDS remains an issue of significant concern for Canada". Despite this assurance AIDS organizations were not given any notice that cuts were coming or a clear explanation as to why these cuts were needed. Information on the Public Health Agency of Canada's website advises that funds have been diverted to a new HIV vaccine program announced by the Prime Minister and Bill Gates on February 20, 2007.
According to Rick Kennedy, Executive Director of the Ontario AIDS Network, "Vaccine research is important for our future, but it should not come at the expense of people who are infected with HIV/AIDS. Our lives should not be any more expendable than people living with other serious health conditions. It is hard to imagine the government cutting support services for people with cancer or other very serious diseases to invest in research that may or may not prove life saving. An AIDS vaccine is many, many years into the future. What happens to our health now?"
Twenty-two years ago on December 10, 1986 a World Health Organization specialist announced that human testing of an AIDS vaccine would begin the following year. A vaccine for AIDS is still decades away. We need more vaccine research and ultimately a cure. However, Canada must not regress and reduce its efforts to prevent new HIV infections and save lives now, before a vaccine is found. Cutting Funding=Cutting Lives. Funding must be restored to the levels promised in the Federal Initiative.
We are calling on all Canadians to join us in letting the Prime Minister and his government know that these cuts are hurting Canada's ability to stop AIDS.
Send a message to the Prime Minister and Members of Parliament that HIV prevention, education and support services are important. Postcards for the "Cutting Funding=Cutting Lives" campaign can be obtained in French or English at www.increaseaidsfunding.ca

New journal received: AIDS Education and Prevention, Vol. 20, no 1, February 2008

2008-03-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

In this issue:

Cultural Adaptation of the Focus on Kids Program for College Students in China
Authors: Xiaoming Li, Bonita Stanton, Bo Wang et al.
pp. 1-14
Abstract

HIV Serostatus Disclosure to Sexual Partners among HIV–Positive Methamphetamine-Using Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men
Authors: Karen C. McCready and Perry N. Halkitis
pp. 15-29
Abstract

Experiences and Sexual Behaviors of HIV–Infected MSM Who Acquired HIV in the Context of Crystal Methamphetamine Use
Authors: Matthew J. Mimiaga, Andrew D. Fair, Kenneth H. Mayer et al.
pp.30-41
Abstract

In the Shadows of a Prevention Campaign: Sexual Risk Behavior in the Absence of Crystal Methamphetamine
Authors: Christian Grov, Jeffrey T. Parsons and David S. Bimbi
pp. 42-55
Abstract

Gender Differences in Intimate Partner Violence on Substance Abuse, Sexual Risks, and Depression among a Sample of South Africans in Cape Town, South Africa
Authors: Frank Y. Wong, Z. Jennifer Huang, Julia A. DiGangi, et al.
pp. 56-64
Abstract

Self–Reported HIV Testing Behaviors among a Sample of Southeast Asians in an Urban Setting in the United States
Authors: Zhihuan Jennifer Huang, Frank Y. Wong, Jordana M. De Leon and Royce J. Park
pp. 65-77
Abstract

“Let's Talk About Sex”: Pilot Study of an Interactive CD–ROM to Prevent HIV/STIS in Female Adolescents
Authors: Kristin E. Ito, Sri Kalyanaraman, Carol A. Ford, et al.
pp 78-89
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

The nearly forgotten plague

2008-03-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Source: The Globe and Mail

Cutting-edge AIDS medications have lengthened patients' lives and given many a better existence than they would have had 10 years ago, but these advances have helped push the disease out of mainstream consciousness. Health-care workers point to continuing problems that need attention: 'premature aging,' lack of bed space and failure to make sure everyone - especially the poor - gets medicine

ROD MICKLEBURGH March 15, 2008

VANCOUVER -- In the lobby of the gleaming Dr. Peter Centre for patients with AIDS, a man of indeterminate age is moaning.

"If I go out there, I'll die," he says to himself.

Another man shuffles past, his face pinched and gaunt. He looks 75 years old but isn't.

Later, a third man, Tom Griffin, came into a room to talk. Or rather, he was wheeled in by his friend, Spencer Dane. He has difficulty keeping his head up. His voice is weak. Conversation often drops off from fatigue and emotion. And this is a good day for the once-vigorous restaurateur, Mr. Dane said.

It's a face of AIDS not seen much any more. As breakthrough medications lengthen lives, saving tens of thousands of infected Canadians from a terrible, premature death, the news media have moved on to other stories. But a visit to Dr. Peter's, or a talk with anyone on the treatment front lines, is a sobering reminder that Old Man AIDS, the deadly viral trickster, hasn't gone away. People are still being infected, still suffering and still dying.

The picture is not pretty. Although more people than ever before are living with AIDS and HIV, many are far from healthy. Woeful gaps in care remain, between those stable enough to maintain life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy and those who remain on the wild side. Despite the best efforts of dedicated outreach workers and physicians, 40 per cent of the 1,436 British Columbians who died of HIV-related causes from 1997 to 2005 made no attempt to access the drugs, even though they were free.

Another 2,500 individuals in B.C. are estimated to be HIV-positive without knowing it, greatly increasing the risk of passing the lethal virus on to others. (...)

Click here to read the complete article.

Study uncovers HIV 'mini-epidemics'

2008-03-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Source: Channel 4 News

HIV is spreading among gay men in mini-epidemics, a study has found.

Data from more than 2,000 infected men in London showed distinct clusters or "bursts" of the disease.

Researchers now believe targeted local campaigns in bars, nightclubs and via the internet could be the most effective way of curbing the spread of the disease by sexual contact.

The University of Edinburgh study was carried out with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, using data collected between 1997 and 2003. It found many men who became infected with the virus passed it on within a few months, often before they themselves had been diagnosed as HIV positive.

Professor Andrew Leigh Brown of the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said: "By studying changes in the virus over time, we have been able to pinpoint its progress in stages through the groups of men affected, which until now has not been done effectively. What we have discovered is that some of the spread occurred in bursts, with groups of people becoming infected within a short period of time."

Prof Leigh Brown said such a pattern had been seen occasionally among HIV-infected drug users but had not been identified in sexual transmission until now. (...)

The study is published in PLoS Medicine. Click here to access it.

Manitoba HIV rate almost quadruples among women

2008-03-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

Source: CBC News

The rate of HIV infection is rising dramatically in Manitoba among women and First Nations communities, according to a new report by Manitoba Health. The proportion of newly diagnosed HIV cases among women has almost quadrupled in the past decade, compared with the previous one, the report says.

Of cases where the ethnicity of the patient is reported, one-third of all new infections were diagnosed in aboriginal people in the past seven years. Dr. Pierre Plourde, medical officer of health for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, said one reason for the increase could be a change in attitude about HIV (the human immunodeficiency virus).

"We think that one of the reasons for that could be that HIV has now become seen as just a chronic condition that is manageable," he said.

"It's not the death sentence it used to be, and people's sexual behaviours are reflecting that now. There are much more risky sexual behaviours occurring in men and in women."

The trend for HIV infection on Manitoba First Nations appears to be mimicking the way infection has spread across sub-Saharan Africa, Plourde said.

Like sub-Saharan Africa
"If you look at the numbers among First Nations, the ratio of men-to-women cases is almost equal, which is more reflective of the type of dynamic that is seen in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting similar forms of transmission, i.e. men and women transmitting it to one another through sexual means," he said.

Between 1985 and 1995, about 65 per cent of new HIV cases were believed to have been transmitted among men having sex with men, the report says, while reported heterosexual transmissions made up just nine per cent. But in cases reported in the past decade, homosexual transmission cases had dropped to 18 per cent, while heterosexual transmission cases climbed to 32 per cent. Women accounted for a third of all new HIV cases in the past decade, compared with eight per cent in the previous one. Of the cases over the past seven years in which ethnicity of the patient was reported, 32 per cent of patients said they were aboriginal, 27 per cent white, and 20 per cent black. The number of people infected with HIV in Manitoba is still very low compared with other countries, Plourde said, but Manitoba has one of the highest per-capita rates of HIV infection in Canada.

82 new cases in 2007
A total of 1,477 people in Manitoba tested positive for HIV between 1985 and the end of 2007, according to the report. Eighty-two new cases were reported in 2007. More than 260 cases of AIDS have been reported since 1985, the report says; nearly three-quarters of them have died. More than 80 per cent of all HIV cases were reported among residents of Winnipeg. Positive HIV test results must, by law, be reported to provincial officials. AIDS cases and deaths are also reportable.

Last year, the provincial government made it possible for Manitobans to be tested anonymously for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, a move that was expected to encourage people who otherwise might not have been tested to do so.

HIV infections expected to rise

2008-03-05T12:46:00.000-08:00

Source: ABC News

A study focusing on HIV infection trends in Australian gay men is predicting a substantial increase in HIV infection in some states over the next seven years.

The report released today by the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research predicts a 73 per cent rise in HIV infections in Victoria and a 20 per cent rise in Queensland by 2015.

But the infection rate is predicted to show a slight decrease in New South Wales.

Researcher Dr David Wilson says reduced condom usage and a rise in other sexually transmitted diseases is expected to contribute to the increase.

"If somebody's HIV positive and have another infection such as syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, herpes, then they are 200 to 500 per cent more likely to transmit HIV to a susceptible person," he said.

Dr Wilson says increased promotion of safe sex is the most effective way to stop the rise HIV transmission.

Gene could stop spread of HIV

2008-03-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

Source: The Edmonton Sun

New research reveals from U of A
By KEVIN CRUSH, SUN MEDIA

New research out of the University of Alberta shows that a gene found in the human body could be used to stop the spread of HIV.
“It’s very exciting for patients who are infected with HIV,” said researcher Dr. Stephen Barr. “It gives them another target or hope that there is another gene that can help them out in their fight.”

News that there could be another weapon against HIV/AIDS is indeed a big deal, said Debra Jakubec, executive director of HIV Edmonton.

“It’s exciting research. It is still probably a far ways from getting it out of clinical research but it is exciting,” added Jakubec.

Three years ago while at the University of Pennsylvania, Barr, 32, began his work on a gene called TRIM22 – work that continued when he moved to the University of Alberta’s department of medical microbiology and immunology two years ago.

TRIM22 is a gene in humans that fights viruses. For a reason still unknown, TRIM22 doesn’t work in patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

But lab tests have shown that when TRIM22 is turned on in cell cultures infected with HIV, the gene stops the assembly of the virus and essentially locks the virus in the cell like a prisoner in a cage. If it can’t get out of the cell, the spread of HIV is stopped in its tracks.

“This gene works particularly at preventing the virus from getting out of cells. So it can’t stop the virus from getting in (to the cell) but it can lock it in so it can’t get out,” said Barr, whose research is being published in the medical journal PloS Pathogens.

It’s not a cure, cautioned Barr. It hasn’t been tried in live patients so it’s not known if TRIM22 could be turned on in a person or what would happen, but it could be a major step towards finding a cure.

“One hope is that if you can trap the virus in the cell, other defence mechanisms in the cell will try to get rid of it,” said Barr.

Another possibility is researchers may be able to develop drugs that mimic TRIM22 to be used to block the spread of HIV or even to possibly cure it.

“If we include TRIM22 in our therapies, it can be used in combination with drugs to make them more effective at blocking and killing the virus,” said Barr.

Jakubec is hopeful this research will help in finding a cure or vaccine, but she also cautions that cure is still a long ways off.

“If something does come out that’s a preventative vaccine, we would still want people to know just how effective it is and still practice safer sex,” she said.

She noted that Alberta is seeing rising rates of sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis. Even the number of HIV infections in Alberta appears to be on the rise. New infections in the province used to average 170-180 per year, but in 2006 that rose to 218.

Barr is also cautioning that this is just a step in the fight against AIDS.

“We’re really in the infancy of the research. This is the initial discovery and we need to go in and find out how the virus is interacting with TRIM22, such as does the virus have a way of killing TRIM22 so that it can survive?”

Zimbabwe: Canada Donates C$2,4m for HIV/Aids Project

2008-03-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

Source: All Africa

Harare

THE Canadian government on Wednesday injected C$2,4 million into the Expanded Support Programme for HIV and Aids Prevention, Treatment and Care in Zimbabwe while the Conglomerate of Farm and Industry has launched an HIV programme for the workplace.

ESP, an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme, has 16 districts in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe National HIV and Aids Strategic Plan will also benefit from the donation.

Canadian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mrs Roxanne Dubé handed over the money to UNDP on Wednesday in Harare. UNDP will then disburse the money to ESP's 16 districts for the benefit of about 20 000 people, most of them in rural areas. Speaking at the handover ceremony, Mrs Dubé hailed Zimbabweans for their efforts in to curb the incidence of HIV and Aids. "I appreciate the work being done by Zimbabweans and other stakeholders in addressing the prevalence of HIV and Aids in the country," she said.

Mrs Dubé said the donation would not only help to support the infected with drugs, prevention services, treatment and care but also the ESP.

"As partners in development, Canada is concerned with the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe. On issues of such critical humanitarian importance and for the direct benefit of the most vulnerable people, we are pleased to collaborate with the dedicated staff in both civil society and the national health system in rural and urban Zimbabwe," she said.

Ambassador Dubé said the initiative was consistent with the government of Canada's priorities to scale up universal access to HIV and Aids services reiterated at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV and Aids of 2006. National Aids Council director Dr Tapiwa Magure hailed Canada for its continued support in the national multi-sectoral response to HIV and Aids.

Meanwhile, the Conglomerate of Farms and Industry has launched a programme of HIV and Aids awareness in the workplace in Harare. CFI comprises 12 companies, among them Town and Country, Farm and City, Victoria Foods, Suncrest, Hubbard, Agrifoods as well as Dore and Pitt.

CFI group human resources director Mr Edwin Murwira said they launched the awareness programme because the rate at which people were perishing at workplaces on farms and in industry had reached alarming levels. He said they were not going to assist financially as yet because people needed to be taught first.

"We want people to know that they must abstain, use condoms or be faithful to thwart the spread of HIV and Aids in the workplace," he said.

Although Mr Murwira said the programme was the first of its kind, he expressed confidence that it would yield beneficial results. Speaking at the same workshop, National Aids Council finance director Mr Albert Manenji challenged the business community to help in HIV and Aids issues.

"NAC needs US$38 million to procure anti-retroviral drugs," he said.

New journal received in the library: AIDS Patient Care& STDs, Vol. 22, no 1, January 2008

2008-02-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

In this issue:

Case Report: Bilateral Renal Aspergillosis in a Patient with AIDS: A Case Report and Review of Reported Cases
A.W. Oosten, H.G. Sprenger, J.T.M. van Leeuwen, N.E.L. Meessen, S. van Assen
pp. 1-6.
Abstract

Viro-Immunologic Response to Ritonavir-Boosted or Unboosted Atazanavir in a Large Cohort of Multiply Treated Patients: The CARe Study
Maria Mercedes Santoro, Ada Bertoli, Patrizia Lorenzini, Adriano Lazzarin, Roberto Esposito, Giampiero Carosi, Giovanni Di Perri, Gaetano Filice, Mauro Moroni, Giuliano Rizzardini, Pietro Caramello, Renato Maserati, Pasquale Narciso, Antonietta Cargnel, Andrea Antinori, Carlo Federico Perno, the CARe Study Group
pp. 7-16.
Abstract

Concurrent HIV/AIDS Diagnosis Increases the Risk of Short-Term HIV-Related Death among Persons Newly Diagnosed with AIDS, 2002–2005
David B. Hanna, Melissa R. Pfeiffer, Lucia V. Torian, Judith E. Sackoff
pp. 17-28.
Abstract

Prior Illicit Drug Use and Missed Prenatal Vitamins Predict Nonadherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in Pregnancy: Adherence Analysis A5084
Susan E. Cohn, Triin Umbleja, Joseph Mrus, Arlene D. Bardeguez, Janet W. Andersen, Margaret A. Chesney
pp. 29-40.
Abstract

Predictors of the Initiation of HIV Postexposure Prophylaxis in Rhode Island Emergency Departments
Roland C. Merchant, Kenneth H. Mayer, Bruce M. Becker, Allison K. Delong, Joseph W. Hogan
pp. 41-52.
Abstract

A Qualitative Study Among Injection Drug Using Women in Rhode Island: Attitudes Toward Testing, Treatment, and Vaccination for Hepatitis and HIV
Michelle A. Lally, Sydney A. Montstream-Quas, Sara Tanaka, Sara K. Tedeschi, Kathleen M. Morrow
pp. 53-64.
Abstract

Vaccination in Brazilian HIV-Infected Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study
Yeh Li Ho, Thatiana Enohata, Marta Heloisa Lopes, Sigrid De Sousa Dos Santos
pp. 65-70.
Abstract

Self-Reported Adherence to Antiretroviral Treatment among HIV-Infected People in Central China
Honghong Wang, Gouping He, Xianhong Li, Aiyun Yang, Xi Chen, Kristopher P. Fennie, Ann Bartley Williams
pp. 71-80.
Abstract

Letter to the Editor: Medical Care of HIV-Infected Individuals in Poland: Impact of Stigmatization by Health Care Workers
Dorota Rogowska-Szadkowska, Alicja Małgorzata Ołtarzewska, Jolanta Sawicka-Powierza, Sławomir Chlabicz
pp. 81-84.

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

New approach stops HIV at earliest stage of infection

2008-02-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

Source: Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2008) — Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have developed a new two-punch strategy against HIV and they have already successfully tested aspects of it in the laboratory.

Their study, which appears in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may re-energize attempts to create a preventive/therapeutic vaccine against HIV, say the authors. To date, more than a dozen candidate vaccines, which have attempted to raise immunity against the spiky proteins on the viral envelope, have all failed in clinical testing.

The investigators have created devices they call glycodendrons that are designed to do two things at once: inhibit the transport of HIV from where it traditionally enters the body, preventing it from moving deeper inside where it can infect immune cells; and set up an immune antibody response to a unique carbohydrate structure on the surface of the virus.

"This paper is about a new direction in HIV vaccine design," said the study's lead investigator, Scripps Research Chemistry Professor Chi-Huey Wong. "Results we have so far are very promising."

To date, he says the devices have been able to stimulate the immune system of mice to induce antibodies against HIV surface glycoprotein, and, in laboratory studies, have been able to block the virus from infecting immune cells. (...)

Click here to read the complete article.

B.C. study shows 40 per cent of HIV sufferers died without getting treatment

2008-02-25T11:45:00.000-08:00

Source: The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER - Forty per cent of the people who died of HIV-AIDS in British Columbia never accessed life-saving treatment even though it was free, according to a new study released Friday.

The study by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS looked into more than 1,400 HIV-related deaths in the province between 1997 and 2005.

In that period of time, a total of 567 people died without ever receiving the highly effective antiretroviral treatment.

"We have a problem," said Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the centre. "The treatments are available for free but something is wrong because the people that most need the treatment, they're not always accessing the treatment."

Low income was strongly associated with the delay in starting therapy and the ensuing high mortality rate.

Residence in a poor neighbourhood was associated with an increased risk of mortality among HIV patients, Montaner said.

"Factors such as a lack of housing or transportation, mental illness, illegal activity and language barriers play a role in an individual's ability to access treatment," he said.

Twenty-five per cent of those infected with HIV in Canada are not aware of their infection, according to the centre.

The centre distributes the cocktail of antiretroviral medications to all eligible British Columbians, free of charge, through the provincewide Drug Treatment Program, funded by Pharmacare.

Yet ensuring access to the treatment remains an elusive goal, he said.

"We have found that over the last several years there is a persistent number of people dying with HIV in our midst, where treatment and health care is supposed to be readily available," Montaner said.

Typical examples are single mothers who don't have the resources to get a babysitter or a homeless, mentally ill drug addict who lives on the Downtown Eastside and doesn't even know he's HIV-positive, he said.

And it's not just Vancouver, Montaner said. It's a problem right across the country and the percentage could even be worse in smaller communities where fewer resources are available.

Ann Livingston, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, called the study shocking.

Four in 10 people in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside live outside and many among them are sick with AIDS, she said.

Some live in substandard hotels that are often infested with cockroaches and unsafe but people stay there because welfare payments don't provide enough money for decent housing for those who are too ill to work, Livingston said.

"And they have no general practitioner. That's another nightmare," she said.

Ken Buchanan, of the British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society, said the long-term solution is to bring some stability to the lives of HIV-AIDS sufferers.

"For a person who is homeless, taking medications, even free medications, is pretty low in their priorities," he said.

Buchanan warned that access to medication isn't enough. A person who begins treatment and doesn't maintain the proper dose regime will build up a resistance to the drugs and end up more likely to die.

"You can't take them for a few days and then stop for a few days," he said. "If your life is chaotic ... you don't have the ability or the need or the desire to take your meds."

The centre has a proposal before the provincial government to form outreach teams that would take rapid-response testing to the most vulnerable and offer treatment.

But "free health care is not necessarily enough to address this problem," he said.

"We need to bring the treatments to the people and we need to create the programs that are going to help these individuals to take the treatment," he said.

It is not only the ethical and human thing to do, he said, it's also better for society at large because it reduces HIV-related illnesses that drain the health care system.

"By treating these people we're doing what is right for them, we're doing what is right for the system and we're also going to decrease HIV transmission," Montaner said.

"This is the right thing to do both in an ethical sense and also in a business sense."

Previous research by the centre and by researchers in Taiwan showed a 50 per cent reduction in new HIV cases that they felt was due to access to the highly active antiretroviral therapy.

The treatment consists of three or more antiretroviral drugs on a daily basis for life and it requires a very high level of adherence in order to be fully effective.

It has been the standard of care for the treatment of HIV-AIDS since 1996.

Study: Gel Fails to Stop HIV Infection

2008-02-18T08:55:00.000-08:00

Source: The Associated Press

The first anti-AIDS vaginal gel to make it through late-stage testing failed to stop HIV infection in a study of 6,000 South African women, disappointed researchers announced Monday.

The study was marred by low use of the gel, which could have undermined results, they said. Women used it less than half the number of times they had sex, and only 10 percent said they used it every time as directed.

Scientists are still analyzing the results to see if this made a difference. They also plan more tests on a revamped gel containing an AIDS drug that they hope will work better.

The gel used in the current study did prove safe, however, and researchers called that a watershed event.

But for now, the effort is the latest disappointment in two decades of trying to develop a microbicide — a cream or gel women could use to lower their risk of getting HIV through sex. A female-controlled method is especially needed in poor countries where women often can't persuade men to use condoms.

A year ago, scientists stopped two late-stage tests of a different gel after early results suggested it might raise the risk of HIV infection instead of lowering it. (...)

Click here to read the complete article.

Test Detects Sensitivity to HIV Drug

2008-02-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

Source: US News & World Report

Test Detects Sensitivity to HIV Drug Could be first step toward personalized medicine, experts say
By Randy Dotinga

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 6 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that an expensive blood test could help a small minority of HIV patients discover whether they should avoid a common AIDS drug that can sometimes cause serious side effects.

The test detects sensitivity to the medication abacavir by checking to see if a patient's genetic makeup is linked to poor reactions to the medicine.

"This is very important news in relation to the great hopes from the work with the Human Genome Project," said Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg, a professor at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, who wrote a commentary about the research. The genome project aims to analyze the genetic blueprint of humans.

At issue is the AIDS drug abacavir, also known by the brand name Ziagen, which is found in compound drugs known as Trizivir and Epzicom. The drug is known as a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor and works by preventing the AIDS virus from going through the motions of multiplying.

About 8 percent of patients suffer from hypersensitivity to the drug, said study author Simon Mallal, a researcher at Murdoch University & Royal Perth Hospital in Australia. His report on the results is published in the Feb. 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The problems typically occur within the first six weeks that patients use the drug, he added.

According to the study, the side effects include fever, rash, gastrointestinal symptoms and other problems.

By testing patients for a genetic trait that was found in 5.6 percent of 1,956 female and male patients, the researchers found they could spot potential cases of sensitivity to abacavir.

The test's use could allow doctors to do a better job of personalizing drugs for individual patients, Mallal noted. (...)

Click here to read the complete article

Drug Helps Prevent Breast-Feeding Moms From Passing on HIV

2008-02-06T15:48:00.000-08:00

Source: US News and World Report

6 weeks of nevirapine greatly reduced infant infections in Africa, India, study found
Posted 2/6/08

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 6 (HealthDay News) -- The antiretroviral drug nevirapine greatly reduces the risk that HIV-infected mothers will pass the virus to their babies during breast-feeding, according to a study conducted in Africa and India.

Nevirapine is already in widespread use in developing countries to prevent HIV-positive women from infecting their newborns during childbirth, note researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore.

In this study, the Hopkins team and colleagues in Ethiopia, India and Uganda gave daily doses of the drug to breast-feeding infants when they were 8 to 42 days old.

By the time they reached 6 weeks of age, the rate of HIV infection among infants who received the drug daily was about half that of infants who received a single dose of nevirapine at birth, which is the current standard of care.

After six months, the infants who'd received the six-week drug treatment were almost a third less likely to suffer HIV infection or death than those given the single dose at birth.

The study included about 2,000 infants and was conducted from 2001 to 2007. It's one of the first randomized controlled trials to show that a drug can prevent HIV transmission in infants being breast-fed by HIV-infected mothers.

The findings were presented Monday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, in Boston.

Breast-feeding is a major cause of HIV infection in the developing world. Each year, about 150,000 infants are infected with HIV through breast-feeding, according to the World Health Organization.

Moms Pre-Chewing Food Gave HIV to Kids

2008-02-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

Source: The Associated Press

By MIKE STOBBE

ATLANTA (AP) — For the first time, health officials report that the AIDS virus can be spread by a mother pre-chewing her infant's food, a practice mainly seen in poor, developing countries.

Three such cases were reported in the United States from 1993-2004, government scientists said Wednesday in a presentation in Boston at a scientific conference.

It's blood, not saliva, that carried the virus because in at least two of the cases the infected mothers had bleeding gums or mouth sores, according to investigators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC officials say more study is needed. But they are asking parents and caregivers with HIV not to pre-chew infants' food, and are trying to educate doctors about this kind of transmission.

Health officials believe chewed-food transmission is rare in the United States, where such behavior is considered unusual. In some countries, mothers do it because they have no access to baby food or a means of pulverizing food for toothless infants.

"But even one case is too many," said the CDC's Dr. Ken Dominguez, who helped investigate the U.S. cases. (...)

Click here to read the complete article.

Circumcising HIV positive men may increase HIV infections in female partners, but fewer STIs seen

2008-02-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Source: AIDSMAP - 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Boston USA - February 2008

There was a trend towards higher HIV incidence in the wives of HIV positive men who were circumcised compared with wives of men left uncircumcised, in the latest prevention study conducted in Rakai province, Uganda, investigators revealed at a press conference on the opening day of the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.

In 2006, a randomised trial of circumcision in Rakai reported that circumcision led to an almost 50% reduction in a man’s risk of acquiring HIV through heterosexual sex. The impact of male circumcision on transmission of HIV to the female partner remains unknown, and the study reported today set out to examine the effects.

In the Gates Foundation-funded study, 1015 HIV positive men were randomised either to immediate circumcision or circumcision delayed by two years. Of these 770 were married and were asked to invite their wives into the study; 566 wives enrolled of whom 245 (43%) were HIV-negative and therefore in a serodiscordant relationship.

The annual HIV incidence rate in the wives of the men who were circumcised was 14.4% over two years of follow-up compared with 9.1% in women whose partners remained uncircumcised. This result may be due to chance as it was not statistically significant, but was described as “unexpected and somewhat disappointing” by lead investigator Maria Wawer of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. It was not due to behavioural disinhibition; condom use was the same in both arms.

Wawer said that these results were an additional challenge to the rolling-out of mass circumcision programmes in Africa, which are expected following the positive results from three randomised controlled trials of circumcision in HIV negative men, one of them conducted within the Rakai community.

She said: “It is inevitable that some HIV positive men will seek circumcision. It is the only HIV prevention modality that leaves a mark, and no one wants to be the only guy in the village who is uncircumcised if it becomes regarded as a mark of HIV.” (...)

Click here to read the rest of the article.

New Issue of JANAC received: Vol. 19, no 1, Jan/Feb 2008

2008-02-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care covers the spectrum of nursing issues in HIV/AIDS: education, treatment, prevention, research, practice, clinical issues, awareness, policies and program development. This peer-reviewed journal is a forum for nurses and other health care professionals whose focus is the care and treatment of individuals infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care offers the latest information in the areas of health care delivery, program implementation and research analysis and application.

In this issue:

Editorial
Women and HIV Infection
Lucy Bradley-Springer
pages 1-2

Features

Low-Income HIV-Infected Women and the Process of Engaging in Healthy Behavior
Tracy A. Riley, Brenda M. Lewis, Mary Pat Lewis, Joseph L. Fava
pages 3-15
Abstract

Adaptation of an HIV Prevention Curriculum for Use With Older African American Women
Judith B. Cornelius, Linda Moneyham, Sara LeGrand
pages 16-27
Abstract

African American Women's Experience of Infection With HIV in the Rural Southeastern United States
Caroline Mallory
pages 28-36
Abstract

Health Concerns of Mature Women Living With HIV in the Midwestern United States
Maithe Enriquez, Nancy Lackey, Jacki Witt
pages 37-46
Abstract

Women's Voices: The Lived Experience of Pregnancy and Motherhood After Diagnosis With HIV
Lorraine B. Sanders
pages 47-57
Abstract

Improving Women's Adjustment to HIV Infection: Results of the Positive Life Skills Workshop Project
Carol Bova, Tobey Nestor Burwick, Maritza Quinones
pages 58-65
Abstract

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing: Reactions of Women Attending Community Health Clinics
Joe W. Burrage, Gregory D. Zimet, Dena S. Cox, Anthony D. Cox, Rose M. Mays, Rose S. Fife, Kenneth H. Fife
pages 66-74
Abstract

Promoting Adaptive Coping by Persons With HIV Disease: Evaluation of a Patient/Partner Intervention Model
Betsy L. Fife, Linda L. Scott, Naomi S. Fineberg, Beth E. Zwickl
pages 75-84
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

Judge’s ignorance of AIDS draws fire

2008-02-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Source: The Toronto Star

Witness with HIV forced to wear a mask in court, groups complain

An Ontario judge is at the centre of a misconduct investigation after insisting a witness who is HIV-positive and has Hepatitis C don a mask while testifying in his courtroom.

Three groups have complained to the Ontario Judicial Council about the conduct of Barrie judge Justice Jon-Jo Douglas, who later moved the case to a bigger courtroom in order to create more distance between the witness and the bench. The judge refused to accept Crown counsel Karen McCleave's entreaties there was no need for such measures.

"The HIV virus will live in a dried state for year after year after year and only needs moisture to reactivate itself," Douglas insisted, according to a transcript of the Nov. 23 trial proceedings.

"This is outlandish," Bluma Brenner, an assistant professor at the McGill AIDS Clinic at McGill University in Montreal, said yesterday. A drop of human immunodeficiency virus drying on the floor "would be inactivated within 20 minutes," Brenner said in an interview.

But Douglas, a former Crown attorney appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice 10 years ago, was not prepared to continue the trial until he was satisfied "the safety and integrity of this courtroom" was protected.

"I mean, he speaks within two feet of me with two serious infectious diseases," Douglas told McCleave. "Either you mask your witness and/or move us to another courtroom or we do not proceed." (...)

Click here to read the article.

HIV rate soars among Vancouver's native drug users

2008-02-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

Source: The Globe & Mail

Startling new research reveals that aboriginal drug users living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside are contracting HIV-AIDS at twice the rate of non-aboriginal users.

Over the four-year study, 18.5 per cent of aboriginal men and women who injected such drugs as cocaine and heroin became HIV-positive, compared with 9.5 per cent of non-aboriginal intravenous drug users.

"This is a tragedy," Evan Wood, a research scientist at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, said in an interview. "Many people in the aboriginal community are reaching out for care and the care isn't there."

Dr. Wood, the lead author of the research, said the higher rates of infection among natives are not due to biological factors but rather to patterns of social networking: The fact that aboriginal people interact principally with other aboriginals heightens their exposure and speeds the spread of HIV-AIDS.

Better social programs tailored to aboriginals could help alleviate that situation, he said.

In fact, even before researchers started tracking new infections, they found that the proportion of aboriginal drug users with HIV-AIDS was already higher - 25.1 per cent versus 16 per cent for non-aboriginals. (...)

The entire article is available here.
Click here for an abstract of the research article.

Briton sentenced to 14 years in prison for infecting women with HIV in Sweden

2008-02-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Source: The Canadian Press

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A British man was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for infecting two young women with HIV and putting 13 more at risk of infection.

News agency TT reports that thirty-two-year-old Christer Aggett, also convicted of six counts of having sex with minors, was ordered to pay more than $428,000 in damages. The two HIV-infected women will receive the equivalent of about $134,000 - each. Aggett was charged in October with two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly infecting two girls during sex without telling them he was HIV-positive.

Solna District Court in November had found Aggett guilty of the charges but him to undergo psychiatric examination before sentencing. He also was charged with aggravated assault, or "exposing others to danger," by having unprotected sex with more than a dozen other women between 2001 and 2006 - six of them under the age of 15. They were not infected with HIV.

He confessed to most of the charges, but not to having had sex with underage girls, saying he was unaware they were so young. Aggett's lawyer, Jonas Granfelt, said his client is likely to appeal the ruling. Police suspect that Aggett had been in contact during the five-year period with at least 130 women he met via Internet chat rooms.

UK patients to get new HIV drug

2008-01-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

Source: BBC News

The first in a new class of HIV drugs has become available in the UK.
It means doctors will have a further treatment option for patients who have built up resistance to existing drugs. Raltegravir is an integrase inhibitor, which works by blocking an enzyme essential for HIV to be able to replicate itself.

An estimated 73,000 people live with HIV in the UK. Raltegravir will be reserved for those who have stopped responding to other treatment.

Resistance to HIV medication is becoming increasingly common - more than one in 10 UK patients with HIV has some level of resistance to at least one drug before they have even begun therapy, research has shown.

A clinical trial of Raltegravir published last year found it to be effective in patients who had been taking regular antiretroviral HIV drugs for about 10 years.

Treatment for HIV is helping people to live longer but, in the UK, one of the biggest challenges is the threat of resistance.

Integrase is one of three HIV enzymes the virus uses to multiply.

It inserts viral genes into the DNA of the host cell, effectively making it a "factory" for producing more of the virus. Without this, the virus cannot multiply and infect other cells as easily, reducing the amount of virus present in the blood.

The complete article is available on BBC's Website

Sexually transmitted diseases soar in the Outaouais

2008-01-29T12:44:00.000-08:00

Source: CBC News

Cases of sexually transmitted diseases increased sharply in Quebec's Outaouais region between 1996 and 2006, alarming public health officials.

Provincial statistics for the western Quebec region that includes Gatineau show that over 10 years, chlamydia infections more than doubled, from 275 cases in 1996 to 590 cases in 2006 (about 170 cases per 100,000). Gonorrhea infections are also on the rise and syphilis, which had almost disappeared from the region, is making a comeback. There was only one case of syphilis in 2001, but around a dozen in 2006. In the case of hepatitis C, there were 95 cases in 2006, up from 49 in 1996, but down from a high of 118 in 2003.

The growth in sexually transmitted diseases was particularly large among 15- to 35-year-olds, said Denis Carrier, a spokesman for the Outaouais public health agency. He blames the growth on young people failing to use protection such as condoms.

"Because there's some new pills or new treatments, people consider there's no big risk anymore," he said.

However, he warned that unprotected sex can have serious health consequences, and he said the health agency is launching a campaign to send home that message.

According to Health Canada's website, even chlamydia and gonorrhea, which can be treated with antibiotics, can potentially have serious effects such as pelvic inflammatory disease in women, which can cause internal abscesses and long-lasting pain. They can also lead to infertility among both men and women, and in some cases, a type of arthritis that affects joints throughout the body.

Sores associated with syphilis greatly increase the chance of contracting HIV. And if left untreated, syphilis can cause a wide range of symptoms ranging from fever to joint pain to hair loss, Health Canada said.

The agency also warns that AIDS is still incurable and fatal, and hepatitis C, which is also incurable, can lead to serious liver damage or liver cancer.

Immunologists find better way to boost the immune system

2008-01-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Source: Science daily

Immunologists have discovered how to manipulate the immune system to increase its power and protect the body from successive viral infections.

Published in Viral Immunology, these findings may point the way toward developing new and more effective vaccines against diseases like influenza or HIV and enhance new developments in immunology.

The study suggests that scientists can boost the body’s resistance and fend off successive viral infections by taking components of the virus and indirectly activating specific populations of killer T cells – the body’s virus-killing cells. The virus components are introduced through a process known as “cross priming” whereby virus molecules are engulfed by immune cells to activate killer T cells.

“With this mechanism in mind, we can develop better tools to make more successful and effective vaccines,” says Sam Basta, Queen’s professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and the principal investigator of the study. The other members of the research team are master’s students Attiya Alatery and Erin Dunbar.

The researchers hope to build on their findings by next studying which immune cells do a better job of protecting the body while using this mechanism.

“The answer to this question is like having the Holy Grail of immunotherapy and vaccine design within our grasp,” says Dr. Basta.

Dr. Basta suggests that by fully understanding this new mechanism, researchers should be able to shuttle the appropriate viral components to the right immune cells.

The study was funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Franklin Bracken Fellowship program.

Adapted from materials provided by Queen's University.

Study of teen sex finds more education needed on transmitted diseases

2008-01-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

Source: The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Most teens are responsible when it comes to sexuality, but lack of knowledge about sexually transmitted infections and their consequences is a concern, says a new study.

The research, published in the January issue of Pediatrics and Child Health [abstract], found that 27 per cent of teens were sexually active at a mean age of 15 years. The last time that they had sex, 76 per cent had used a condom, according to the findings.

"They don't know about many of the STIs that are common and they don't know about the consequences of the STIs," author Dr. Jean-Yves Frappier, head of the Adolescent Medicine Division at Sainte-Justine University Health Centre, said Monday in an interview from Montreal.

Five per cent of the sexually active teens said they had been diagnosed with an STI.

The teens surveyed overestimated the prevalence of HIV compared to other sexually transmitted infections, Frappier said.

"They don't know about chlamydia, which is much much more common," he said.

"Very few teens will be HIV positive but a certain percentage will be chlamydia positive in their teens. And that, they don't mention it."

Sixty-nine per cent of teens surveyed could not find information they were looking for about sex, and 62 per cent reported obstacles in getting information.

Online interviews were conducted in October 2005 by Ipsos Reid with 1,171 Canadian teenagers aged 14 to 17. As well, 1,139 mothers of teenagers were interviewed, but these weren't the mothers of the teens who were surveyed. The results are considered accurate to within 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Click here to read the complete article.

Charges dropped in Canada HIV tainted-blood scandal

2008-01-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

Source: AFP

MONTREAL (AFP) — Canadian prosecutors on Friday dropped all charges against a former director of the Canadian Red Cross who had been implicated in the distribution of HIV-contaminated blood. Crown prosecutors told a court in Hamilton it would be virtually impossible to prove the case against Dr Roger Perrault which dates back to the 1980s and was Canada's worst health scandal.

"We have concluded that there no longer remains a reasonable prospect of conviction in this case," prosecutor John Pearson told the court.

Perrault had already been acquitted by the Ontario Superior Court in Toronto in October that ruled he was not criminally negligent in a separate case involving the contamination of seven children suffering from hemophilia, a bleeding disorder.

Two other Canadian doctors, an executive of Armour Pharmaceuticals, and the US firm itself were also acquitted in that case. It was the first criminal trial in the scandal in which more than 20,000 people contracted human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C in the 1980s and 1990s. At least 3,000 people died, including 800 from AIDS. In the second trial, Perrault had faced six charges of negligence for failing to take the necessary measures to protect patients from contracting HIV and to inform the public about the dangers of blood products.

Perrault has not made any comment on the case. But his lawyer Eddie Greenspan said his client may sue the Canadian government for damages.

"Not every tragedy requires a scapegoat. Dr Perrault should have never been named for the tainted blood crisis," he said.

New HIV drug sanctioned when others fail

2008-01-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

Source: US News

Blocks enzyme that virus needs to multiply

MONDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- The anti-HIV medication entravirine has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for adults who have failed treatment with other antiretrovirals.

Sold under the trade name Intelence, entravirine is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, which helps block an enzyme that the AIDS-causing virus needs to multiply, the FDA said in a statement. This is aimed at reducing the amount of HIV in the blood and boosting infection-fighting white blood cells.

In clinical testing, 599 adults who received entravirine and additional antiviral therapy had greater reductions in blood HIV levels than adults who received a non-medicinal placebo and the same additional therapy. The most common side effects reported were rash and nausea.

The long-term effects of entravirine haven't been studied, nor have the drug's effects in pregnant women or among people age 16 or younger, the agency said.

Entravirine is distributed by Tibotec Therapeutics, whose parent firm -- Ortho Biotech Products -- is based in New Jersey.

More information on FDA's Website.

Aging Baby Boomers and seniors are at risk for HIV

2008-01-15T15:05:00.000-08:00

Source: The Chicago Tribune

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Jane Fowler thinks it's about time college students had "the talk" with their grandparents. She doesn't mean grandmothers and grandfathers explaining the facts of life. She wants kids to explain safe sex to their elders.

It's part of a broader message the 72-year-old has advocated for more than a decade. Ever since she contracted HIV when she was in her 50s, Fowler has made it her mission to help aging Baby Boomers and members of her generation avoid her mistakes.

"Once people get past their own embarrassment and understand grandparents today are still sexually active, they realize I'm right," said Fowler, who spoke at a recent safe-sex event at Kansas State University. "Their grandparents face the same risks of sexually transmitted diseases as they do."

The over-50 crowd is a relatively small segment of the nation's at-risk group for sexually transmitted diseases. Approximately four times as many HIV diagnoses occurred in people ages 25 to 44 as in those 50 and older, according to a 2005 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, medical experts agree that older Americans often are among the most overlooked and, therefore, one of the more vulnerable populations.

Click here to read the article.

Antiretroviral drugs may prevent vaginal transmission of HIV

2008-01-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

Source: US News and World Report

Mouse study shows they could protect against spread of disease

Antiretroviral drugs used to treat people with HIV might also prevent vaginal transmission of the virus, claims a study by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

The vast majority of new HIV infections worldwide, which total about 6,800 new transmissions daily, occur through unprotected vaginal sex with an infected partner.

For this study, the researchers used special mice with fully developed human immune systems that produced the infection-fighting cells specifically targeted by HIV in people. The Texas team found that daily doses of antiretroviral drugs before and after exposure to HIV can prevent vaginal transmission of the virus.

HIV was introduced vaginally into the mice. None of the mice that received the antiretroviral drugs emtricitabine (FTC) and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) showed any evidence of infection, while 90 percent of mice that didn't receive the drugs became infected by HIV.

The study was published in the Jan. 14 online issue of PLoS Medicine.

Click here to read the article

The study published in PLoS Medicine, Antiretroviral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Prevents Vaginal Transmission of HIV-1 in Humanized BLT Mice, is available here.

Syphilis on the rebound in Europe

2008-01-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

Source: The Toronto Star

Risky sexual behaviour, especially among gay men, spark fears 19th-century scourge will spread

Maria Cheng - ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON–Syphilis is back: The sexually transmitted disease long associated with 19th-century Bohemian life is making an alarming resurgence in Europe.

"Syphilis used to be a very rare disease," said Dr. Marita van de Laar, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. "I'm not sure we can say that any more."

Most cases of syphilis are in men, and experts point to more risky sex among gay men as the chief cause for the resurgence. But more cases are being seen among heterosexuals, both men and women, too. Syphilis was the sexual scourge of the 19th century, and is believed to have killed artists like poet Charles Baudelaire, composer Robert Schumann, and painter Paul Gauguin. But the widespread use of penicillin in the 1950s all but wiped it out in the Western world.

In the last decade, however, syphilis has unexpectedly returned, driven by risky sexual behaviour and outbreaks in major cities across Europe, including London, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin. In Britain, syphilis cases have leapt more than tenfold for men and women in the past decade to 3,702 in 2006, according to the Health Protection Agency. Among men in England, the syphilis rate jumped from one per 100,000 in 1997 to nine per 100,000 last year.

In Germany, the rate among men was fewer than two per 100,000 in 1991; by 2003, it tripled. In France, there were 428 cases in 2003 – almost 16 times the number just three years earlier. Similar trends have been seen in the United States and Canada. In 2006, Ontario counted 350 syphilis cases, two-third in Toronto.

In 2000, syphilis infection rates were so low that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention embarked on a plan to eliminate the disease. But about 9,800 cases were reported in 2006. In Europe, Van de Laar said syphilis's reappearance was so surprising that many doctors initially had trouble diagnosing it. Though these days it mainly affects urban gay men, experts worry that the disease could also rebound in the general population.

In 2005, British authorities reported that syphilis was spreading across the entire country, and that more heterosexual men and women were being infected. Pregnant women with syphilis can pass it on to their babies. Nearly half of all babies infected with syphilis while they are in the womb die shortly before or after birth.

Syphilis is a bacterial disease causing symptoms that include ulcers, sores and rashes. In extreme cases, it can result in dementia or fatally damage the heart, respiratory and central nervous systems. Syphilis is treatable with antibiotics if caught early. Once there are more than just a few isolated cases, containing the disease is difficult. Advances made in treating AIDS may have inadvertently boosted syphilis's spread.

"The evidence points to an increase in unsafe sexual behaviour since anti-retrovirals for AIDS came along in 1996," said van de Laar.

After decades of being instructed to use condoms and to limit the number of sexual partners, some people are probably suffering from "safe sex fatigue," van de Laar said. The Internet has also allowed people to find sexual partners more easily than before, and some experts link the rise of dating websites to the jump in syphilis cases. Amid this resurgence, some officials are now attacking the disease online.

See also Syphilis outbreak - cases continue to rise in Alberta.

H.I.V. rises among young gay men

2008-01-14T12:33:00.000-08:00

Source: The New York Times

AIDS appears to be making an alarming comeback. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the incidence of H.I.V. infection among gay men is shooting up, following an encouraging period of decline. The rise of infections among younger gay men, especially black and Hispanic men, is troubling, and the study carries the clear implication that people at high risk of contracting the disease are becoming less cautious.

Statistics gathered by New York City health officials show that new diagnoses of H.I.V. infection — the virus that causes AIDS — in gay men under age 30 rose 32 percent between 2001 and 2006. Among black and Hispanic men, the figure was 34 percent. Most troubling, the number of new diagnoses among the youngest men in the study, those between ages 13 and 19, doubled.

New York officials say increased alcohol and drug use may be partly responsible since they make unprotected sex more likely. Other basic precautions, including finding out whether a potential partner is infected, are also apparently being ignored.

The one bright spot in this bleak picture was the 22 percent decline in infections among men over 30 in the New York study. Awareness of the disease’s devastating effects, as much as maturity, may explain the difference. A large number of these older men came of age when AIDS was all but untreatable. They may have buried friends who died after being horribly ill.

When the disease was new and terrifying, the gay community helped change behavior by preaching loudly against taking sexual risks. From San Francisco to New York, bathhouses notorious for promoting casual sex changed the way they did business or closed down. Condoms were encouraged, and so was H.I.V. testing. “Silence equals death” was the motto of the day.

Silence now seems to be winning the day. Nearly 6,000 gay men died of AIDS in the United States in 2005; still, many young men appear to have persuaded themselves that the infection is no longer such a big deal. It is true that antiretroviral therapy has improved the outlook for anyone who becomes infected. But the treatments are still too new to know whether they can work much beyond a decade. Public health officials need to continue to distribute condoms, encourage testing and treat those who are ill. Leaders in the hardest-hit communities need to start speaking out again. The fight against AIDS is far from over.

HIV a stigma in aboriginal communities

2008-01-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

Source: The Toronto Star

Rates of infection among Canada's native people grossly disproportionate to their total numbers

Emily Mathieu - Staff Reporter

HIV rates among Canada's aboriginal community continue to rise at alarming rates – and women face the highest risk. That's where Catherine Beaver comes in.

A wry, outspoken, slip of a woman who walks with a bit of a limp, Beaver is a public speaker with 2-Spirited People of the First Nations in Toronto, a gay, lesbian and transpositive organization that conducts HIV/AIDS outreach for the community.

"The way I look at it is, I am not ashamed or afraid of it," says Beaver, 28, who is HIV-positive. She tells her story nationwide to try to stem the epidemic spread of HIV in the aboriginal community – mostly connected to intravenous drug use.

In November, the Public Health Agency of Canada released its latest stats on the spread of HIV and AIDS in this country. The report reveals aboriginal people (Inuit, Métis and First Nations) accounted for more than a quarter of all positive HIV tests reported in 2006, even though they only make up about 6 per cent of the total population in the 12 provinces and territories included in the stats. (Ontario and Quebec are excluded because they do not collect ethno-specific HIV data.) And, for the third year in a row, women accounted for more than half of the positive test results among aboriginal people. In her talks, Beaver explains how she became infected 2 -1/2 years ago through intravenous drug use. She talks about being adopted, of her isolation while living on the streets, losing custody of her two children, substance abuse and prostitution.

"You know, when the whole world just disintegrates, goes black, like in TV shows ... and you are just standing there by yourself..."

After years of treatment, she is no longer an addict but still struggles to fight the occasional setback. Beaver uses her story to make a point.

"I'm not scared of people reacting," she says, insisting not enough aboriginal people are speaking out, which is why the number of infections continues to rise.

According to the Public Health report, intravenous drug use was the main cause of HIV infection among aboriginal people, at 64 per cent. Heterosexual contact was the other main cause, at 34 per cent. That's the reverse of the national averages for HIV-positive tests, where 74 per cent of new cases are attributed to heterosexual contact and 24 per cent to intravenous drug use.

Click here to read the article

Genomic Screen Nets Hundreds Of Human Proteins Exploited By HIV

2008-01-14T09:48:00.000-08:00

Source: Science daily

In some ways, HIV resembles a minimalist painter, using a few basic components to achieve dramatic effects. The virus contains just nine genes encoding 15 proteins, which wreak havoc on the human immune system. But this bare bones approach could have a fatal flaw. Lacking robust machinery, HIV hijacks human proteins to propagate, and these might represent powerful therapeutic targets.

Using a technique called RNA interference to screen thousands of genes, Harvard Medical School researchers have now identified 273 human proteins required for HIV propagation. The vast majority had not been connected to the virus by previous studies. The work appears online in Science Express on Jan. 10.

Drugs currently used to treat the viral infection interact directly with the virus itself, and it's quite simple for the rapidly mutating virus to avoid destruction by altering how it interacts with these chemicals. Patients use a cocktail of HIV inhibitors because the virus is less likely to evolve resistance to multiple drugs at the same time. But some HIV strains have still managed to evade particular drugs. These could eventually develop resistance to several drugs, especially among patients who don't adhere to their regimens. (...)

Click here to read the article.

New issue of JAIDS: Vol. 46, no 5, Dec 15, 2007

2008-01-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

December 15, 2007, Volume 46, Issue 5
Each issue of JAIDS publishes vital information on the advances in diagnosis and treatment of HIV and non-HIV infectious, as well as the latest research in the development of therapeutics and vaccine approaches.

In this issue:

Commentary
Bystander Effects: Children Who Escape Infection But Not Harm.

Basic Science
Differentiation of Monocytes Into CD1a- Dendritic Cells Correlates With Disease Progression in HIV-Infected Patients.
pp. 519-528
Abstract

Redistribution of FOXP3-Positive Regulatory T Cells From Lymphoid Tissues to Peripheral Blood in HIV-Infected Patients.
pp. 529-537
Abstract

Clinical Science
Carraguard Vaginal Gel Safety in HIV-Positive Women and Men in South Africa.
p. 538-546
Abstract

Racial Differences in Virologic Failure Associated With Adherence and Quality of Life on Efavirenz-Containing Regimens for Initial HIV Therapy: Results of ACTG A5095.
pp. 547-554
Abstract

Directly Administered Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV-Infected Drug Users Does Not Have an Impact on Antiretroviral Resistance: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial.
pp. 555-563
Abstract

HIV-Associated Alterations in Normal-Appearing White Matter: A Voxel-Wise Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study.
pp. 564-573
Abstract

Effects of a Behavioral Intervention on Antiretroviral Medication Adherence Among People Living With HIV: The Healthy Living Project Randomized Controlled Study.
pp.574-580
Abstract

A Randomized, Multicenter, Open-Label Study of Poly-L-Lactic Acid for HIV-1 Facial Lipoatrophy.
pp.581-589
Abstract

Brief Report
Clinical Science
Evaluation of Filter Paper Transfer of Whole-Blood and Plasma Samples for Quantifying HIV RNA in Subjects on Antiretroviral Therapy in Uganda.
pp. 590-593
Abstract

Chinese Pediatric Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy Observational Cohort: A 1-Year Analysis of Clinical, Immunologic, and Virologic Outcomes.
pp. 594-598
Abstract

Epidemiology and Social Science
Maternal Disease Stage and Child Undernutrition in Relation to Mortality Among Children Born to HIV-Infected Women in Tanzania.
pp. 599-606
Abstract

Importance of Baseline Prognostic Factors With Increasing Time Since Initiation of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy: Collaborative Analysis of Cohorts of HIV-1-Infected Patients.
pp. 607-615
Abstract

HIV Prevalence and Incidence in Rural Tanzania: Results From 10 Years of Follow-Up in an Open-Cohort Study.
pp. 616-623
Abstract

HIV-1 Infection in Patients Referred for Malaria Blood Smears at Government Health Clinics in Uganda.
pp. 624-630
Abstract

Risk Factors for Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 and HIV Among Women at High Risk in Northwestern Tanzania: Preparing for an HSV-2 Intervention Trial.
pp. 631- 642
Abstract

Circumcision Status and HIV Infection Among Black and Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men in 3 US Cities.
pp. 643-650
Abstract

Brief Report
Epidemiology and Social Science
Subclinical Mastitis, Cell-Associated HIV-1 Shedding in Breast Milk, and Breast-Feeding Transmission of HIV-1.
pp. 651-654
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles

Sexually active gay men no longer allowed to donate organs

2008-01-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

Source: CBC

A number of organ donation groups said Monday that they are unaware of new Health Canada regulations that mean sexually active gay men, injection drug users and other groups considered high risk will no longer be accepted as organ donors. The new rules, which came into effect in December, are similar to the regulations for determining who can donate blood. Those rules exclude groups that are at high risk of transmitting infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and B.

Officials at several transplant programs in the country said because they were unaware of the new regulations, they would continue to consider all potential donor organs.

"We have not been informed, first of all, that Health Canada is considering this," said Dr. Gary Levy, who heads Canada's largest organ transplant program at Toronto's University Health Network. "Obviously if Health Canada wishes to discuss that, we would hope they would engage all stakeholders."

Dr. Peter Nickerson, director of Transplant Manitoba, which procures organs in that province, said transplant programs must now by law interview family members of the donor as part of the screening process.

"We'll be asking about things like travel, history of infectious disease, whether they've [donors] been in jail — that puts you at increased risk," Nickerson said. "Have they been an IV drug abuser in the past? Have they had tattoos? There's a whole list of questions we go through."

They are also asked about the donor's sexual orientation. The donor will be excluded if the donor is a man who had sex with another man in the previous five years. Health Canada had contracted the Canadian Standards Association in 2003 to come up with standardized guidelines to ensure the safety of the organ donation system.

Transplant programs have been screening potential donors, but in some cases use organs from people in high-risk groups if they've tested negative for diseases. The new legislation means that practice must stop.

A spokeswoman for Health Canada confirmed the new regulations in an e-mail, but the department didn't make anyone available to explain the changes. (...)

Click here to read the article

Canadian AIDS Society HIV/AIDS Education Survey

2007-12-13T10:57:00.001-08:00

The Canadian AIDS Society is launching its HIV and AIDS Education survey. CAS wants to know more from parents/guardians, educators and students to improve HIV/AIDS education in Canada. You can help! Please take some time to fill out the survey. After you're finished, spread the word. Please tell others about this important survey and encourage them to participate!

Surveys for:

Parents/guardians

Educators

Students

The survey closes December 30, 2007.

Fighter for addicts ready to quit

2007-12-13T10:16:00.000-08:00

Source: The Tyee

Ann Livingston of VANDU is wearied by death.
By Sarah Ripplinger
Published: December 13, 2007

After spending the past 13 years trying to save Vancouver's poor from the filthy alleys of the Downtown Eastside, Ann Livingston doesn't have a pension plan or any significant savings, but she has decided to quit her job.

Livingston, a star of the widely shown documentary Fix [video available in the library], has spent the last nine years co-ordinating the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), a non-profit operated by addicts. She's done a lot to help drug users get their voices heard. But she says she is tired of Vancouver's hypocrisy. While the host of the 2010 Olympics is termed the world's "most liveable city" by The Economist magazine, its poorest neighbourhood grapples with an epidemic of HIV/AIDS comparable to Botswana's.

After devoting more than a decade of her life helping people in the Downtown Eastside, Livingston says she hasn't noticed improvements in living conditions or a decrease in the demand for aid. In fact, she says, things just seem to be getting worse.

"Yeah, people did change, but then they died," Livingston remembers thinking to herself last spring. "I started to realize, I do leadership development with people who are very likely to die and there's more dead people now that I've worked with than live people." (...)

Click here to read the article.

Woman Misdiagnosed With HIV Gets $2.5 M

2007-12-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Source: The Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A jury awarded $2.5 million in damages to a woman who received HIV treatments for almost nine years before discovering she never actually had the virus that causes AIDS.

In her lawsuit against a doctor who treated her, Audrey Serrano said the powerful combination of drugs she took triggered a string of ailments, including depression, chronic fatigue, loss of weight and appetite and inflammation of the intestine. Serrano, 45, said she cried after hearing the verdict Wednesday in Worcester Superior Court and was gratified that the jury believed her.

"I'm going to finish my school and I am going to continue to help others," Serrano said in a telephone interview from her Fitchburg home. "I am going to find another doctor that will help me."

Serrano's attorney, David Angueira, said Dr. Kwan Lai, who treated his client at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester's HIV clinic, repeatedly failed to order definitive tests even after monitoring of Serrano's treatment did not show the presence of HIV in her blood. (...)

Click here to read the article.

Figures on H.I.V. rate expected to rise

2007-12-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

Source: The New York Times

By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: December 2, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — More people in the United States are infected each year with the AIDS virus than previously thought, according to federal health officials, in a finding that could affect the debate over how much money should be spent on prevention efforts. No one is yet sure whether more people have actually been infected in recent years or the figures, still undergoing peer review, are simply a better estimate than the old ones.

For 14 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used informal methods to estimate that about 40,000 people annually in the United States are newly infected with H.I.V. In recent years, federal officials have worked to set up a more accurate assessment technique. The numbers from the new system are now in, although the agency has not released them. The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper, reported on Nov. 14 that the new estimates showed infection rates were 50 percent higher than previously believed, with 58,000 to 63,000 infected in the most recent 12-month period. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal had similar reports on Saturday.

“We currently have a paper going through a scientific review process,” Tom Skinner, a C.D.C. spokesman, said Saturday, “and until that process is complete, we’re not in a position to say one way or another whether the numbers will actually be up from current estimates.”

A federal official who would not speak for attribution about the new numbers because of the review process said they were indeed higher than the old estimate, but not by as much as The Blade and The Post reported. It has been clear for at least a year that the old estimate would have to be revised upward, said David R. Holtgrave of Johns Hopkins University, a former director of one of the C.D.C.’s principal AIDS prevention programs. From 2001 to 2005, more than 186,000 people in 33 states received diagnoses of H.I.V. or AIDS, according to figures. That amounts to more than 37,000 new cases each year from just two-thirds of the country.

“With just a little simple math, you get more than 40,000 new cases,” Dr. Holtgrave said.

Whether the number of infections is higher than previously believed and whether infection rates are rising are both politically charged issues. President Bush has increased financing for AIDS treatment and prevention programs abroad, but spending for domestic prevention efforts dropped 19 percent in inflation-adjusted terms from 2002 to 2007.

Julie Davids, executive director of the Community H.I.V./AIDS Mobilization Project, a national advocacy group, said it planned to protest Tuesday in front of the C.D.C. headquarters in Atlanta to demand that the agency release the new figures and step up prevention efforts. “We don’t know whether infection rates are rising or they’ve just been higher than we thought,” Ms. Davids said. “But either way, this shows that prevention efforts are insufficient.”

Doctors and states are required to report cases of full-blown AIDS, but only some states report positive results on tests for H.I.V. infection to the agency. It takes years for someone who is infected to develop symptoms; many people have been infected for years before they are tested. Under the C.D.C.’s new surveillance system, 19 states and cities are performing two different blood tests of H.I.V. antibodies — the first indication of an infection. One test is highly sensitive and is able to spot an infection even in its earliest months. The other test is cruder, and patients must nurse an infection for many months before it can be identified with this test. When a blood sample receives a positive result on the first test and a negative result on the second, officials have decided that this person was probably infected recently. By adding up these mixed results and projecting them across the country, the agency is able to come up with an estimate for new infections. The agency sent out a letter to scientists on Nov. 26 describing the new system and urging patience as the numbers are reviewed.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting from New York.

New event at PARC: HIV and Nutrition

2007-12-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

The PARC library and
BCPWA Treatment Information Program (TIP)
are hosting an event on
Nutrition and HIV

Videos on nutrition will be presented:
Wednesday, December 12th and Tuesday December 18th, 12:00PM 3:00PM.

There will also be a book display until Thursday, December 20th.

Come and get your copy of the new
"Practical guide on
nutrition for people living with HIV"
published by CATIE!

Lawmakers Protest HIV/AIDS Travel Rule

2007-12-12T09:10:00.000-08:00

Source: Yahoo News
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - On World AIDS Day last month the White House said new rules would soon make it easier for people with HIV/AIDS to travel to the United States. Democratic lawmakers and gay rights groups are complaining that the regulations proposed by the Homeland Security Department could actually create more barriers.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said Tuesday that the proposal "offers little of value to HIV-positive applicants."

"It imposes strict requirements that unfairly limit travel to the United States," Kennedy said after chairing a Senate health committee hearing on the Bush administration's international AIDS efforts. "It is mired in the past, a past where people feared HIV as a contagious disease that could not be controlled or effectively managed."

Bebe Anderson, HIV project director at the gay civil rights group Lambda Legal, said the rules were "inappropriate based on medicine and public health concerns."

Gay rights advocates have long opposed a 1993 federal law that strictly restricts travel and immigration to the U.S. by HIV-positive people, arguing it's discriminatory. Foreigners with the virus can obtain visas only after receiving a waiver from the Homeland Security Department in a cumbersome process that requires approval from DHS headquarters.

The White House says it wants to make the process easier for HIV-positive people seeking 30-day stays. As President Bush observed World AIDS Day on Nov. 30, the administration announced the publication of regulations meant to speed up the process. (...)

Click here to read this article

New issue of JANAC: Vol. 18, no 6, Nov/Dec 2007

2007-12-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

Just Say No
Lucy Bradley-Springer
pages 1-2

Features
Conception Practices of HIV-Infected Women in the Midwest
Nancy J. Cibulka
pages 3-12
Abstract

Predictors of sexual Behaviors Among Thai Young Adults
Amnuayporn Rasamimari, Barbara Dancy, Marie Talashek et al.
pages 13-21
Abstract

HIV/AIDS Education, Prevention and Control Course (BNS101): The Way Forward
Keitshokile Dintle Mogobe, Naomi Seboni, Marie Scott Brown et al.
pages 22-31
Abstract

Nurses' Health Education Program in India Increases HIV Knowledge and Reduces Fear
Hemlata Pisal, Savita Sutar, Jayagowri Sastry et al.
pages 32-43
Abstract

Comprehensive Clinical Adherence Interventions to Enable Antiretroviral Therapy: A Case Report
Dunja Nicca, Kimberly Moody, Luigia Elzi, Rebecca Spirig
pages 44-53
Abstract

Healthy Lifestyles and Health-Related Quality of Life Among Men Living With HIV Infection
Constance R. Uphold, Wanda Holmes, Kimberly Reid, Kimberly Findley, Jorge P. Parada
pages 54-66
Abstract

Relationships Among Functional Social Support, HIV-Related Stigma, Social Problem Solving, and Depressive Symptoms in People Living With HIV: A Pilot Study
Worawan Prachakul, Joan S. Grant, Norman L. Keltner
pages 67-76
Abstract

Practice Brief
Difficult-to-Manage HIV/AIDS Clients With Psychiatric Illness and Substance Abuse Problems: A Collaborative Practice With Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurses
Betty D. Morgan, Anne P. Rossi
pages 77-84
Abstract

Research Brief
Process and Contents of Telephone Consultations Between Registered Nurses and Clients with HIV/AIDS in Japan
Masakazu Nishigaki, Megumi Shimada, Kazuko Ikeda,
pages 85-96
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

Unstable housing makes access to B.C. AIDS treatment difficult

2007-12-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Source: CBC News

The B.C. Persons With AIDS Society says thousands of British Columbians with the disease are not receiving the medication and services available to them because they are low-income people with unstable housing.

About 4,000 people in B.C. are on antiretroviral therapy, which is a drug combination that helps control the HIV virus, said Glyn Townson, the group's chair.

"We know that there's at least 2,000 people here who meet the current criteria that should be treated but because of unstable housing [and] because of communication barriers, they're not accessing that treatment," Townson told CBC News.

Townson said he was diagnosed with the disease in 1995 but has been living a relatively full life thanks to the drugs developed to combat AIDS.

He said more treatment centres will help but with thousands homeless in Vancouver, getting those who are high risk tested and stabilized continues to be a huge challenge.

Townson said people should know there are better medications available and that finding out they have HIV-AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was.

HIV statistics updated

2007-11-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

The library just published a compilation of the latest HIV statistics in British Columbia, Canada and worldwide.
Contact the library to request a copy of this document.

The sources used to compile these statistics are:

British Columbia:
British Columbia Centre for Disease Control Society, STD/AIDS Control (http://www.bccdc.org)
- HIV/AIDS Update: Year End 2006
- HIV statistics, 2006
Vital Statistics of B.C. http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/stats/annual/2005/index.html

Canada:
HIV and AIDS in Canada: Surveillance Report to 31 December, 2006. Health Canada
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/aids-sida/publication/survreport/index-eng.html

Worldwide:
2007 AIDS Epidemic Update. UNAIDS/World Health Organization
http://data.unaids.org/pub/EPISlides/2007/2007_epiupdate_en.pdf

New HIV test provides results in seconds

2007-11-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

Charlie Fidelman , CanWest News Service; Montreal Gazette
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007

MONTREAL -- A non-invasive test that can detect the virus that causes AIDS within seconds is being unveiled in Montreal Thursday. The 60-second HIV test gets a jump on current, laboratory-run tests that usually take seven to 10 days to process. The Health Canada-approved test can be done in a doctor's office using a droplet of blood from a fingertip.

The INSTI testing kit detects antibodies for the HIV virus using a chemical dye.
"Patients can get immediate, accurate results and avoid the grueling 10-day wait period," Matthew Clayton, executive vice-president of bioLytical Laboratories of British Columbia, said in a telephone interview. Tested on 16,500 people during the past two years, it proved 99.96 per cent accurate, Clayton said. A positive result would require further testing in a laboratory, he added.

It's an excellent screening tool that will help limit HIV spread, said Mark Wainberg, head of the McGill AIDS Centre. A member of bioLytical's scientific advisory board, Wainberg said the test has real benefits. An estimated one in four people don't know they are infected with HIV, and these people are considered the fastest spreaders of the infection, he said.

"There's evidence that those informed (of their HIV status) will modify their behaviour, and that's a big plus - that's what our study aims to do," Wainberg said.

Wainberg, who got a donation of 5,000 kit samples from the manufacturer, is to launch a screening pilot project from mobile clinics using the instant test. The project aims to target a vulnerable population, mostly men who sleep with men, that doesn't want to go to hospitals and clinics, said Michel Morin, assistant executive director of COCQ-Sida, an anti-AIDS coalition.

"We've known about the test for two years and we're very happy that it's available," he said.

But Morin warned against making the test available over-the-counter in pharmacies or using the self-testing kits sold on the Internet. Such use is controversial because it comes without counselling from a health professional, Morin said.

"It's not an easy diagnosis. It's not like a pregnancy test," he said.

Ontario bought the kits at $10 each for testing in its anonymous clinics. Quebec is analyzing who should get priority to the kits, said Helene Gingras, a Quebec health department spokeswoman.

Canadians have the most compassion for HIV and AIDS affected people

2007-11-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

Source: VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)

When it comes to having compassion for people affected by HIV and AIDS around the world -- Canadians have the most. The World Vision Index of concern survey shows Canada leads the seven nations surveyed for the highest level of empathy for people living with HIV and AIDS. We are followed by France, Germany, United States, Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan.

The survey also shows a lack of knowledge in some countries though. More than 25 years after the HIV virus was first discovered, one-third of those surveyed in the seven countries admit they know little or nothing at all about the global HIV and AIDS issue.

The results are being released today to mark World AIDS Day.

The World Vision’s Global AIDS Attitudes Survey is available here. A print copy is also available in the library collection.

25 years after AIDS exploded, cases among gay men on the rise

2007-11-28T13:36:00.000-08:00

ource: The Canadian Press

TORONTO - A quarter-century after AIDS burst on the world's radar as it began ravaging gay male populations in North America, public health authorities in a number of developed countries are seeing a disturbing trend.

Rates of HIV infections among men who have sex with men are on the rise, reversing years of declining rates in that community.

As World AIDS Day approaches, several leading public health authorities raised the politically touchy topic in a commentary published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, asking why infection rates among this group of individuals are rising and what can be done to stem the trend.

"The tragedy of the epidemic for an earlier generation of MSM must not be repeated," they argued, using the public health community's shorthand - MSM - for men who have sex with men.

The authors are Dr. Harold Jaffe, director of the department of public health at Oxford University, Dr. Kevin de Cock, head of HIV-AIDS at the World Health Organization and Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, chief consultant to the public health strategic health care group of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The commentary looks only at trends in western countries, where men who have sex with men have always made up the lion's share of people living with HIV-AIDS.

They noted there was a 13-per-cent increase in American MSM living with HIV-AIDS between 2001 and 2005. A 10-fold increase in syphilis cases among MSM in the United States over the same period is further evidence of an increased frequency in unprotected sex, the authors said.

HIV-AIDS rates among men who have sex with men are also in the increase in Canada. (...)

Click here to read the article.

UNAIDS reduces estimate of global HIV prevalence to 33 million

2007-11-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

Source: AIDSMAP

Edwin J. Bernard, Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The global prevalence of HIV has fallen to an estimated 33.2 million, according to new data released today by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in their annual AIDS epidemic update. The decline largely reflects changes in the way that HIV prevalence is estimated, UNAIDS says.

Their data also suggest that global HIV incidence has fallen to 2.5 million from a peak of 3 million in the late 1990s, and the number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses – estimated at 2.1 million – has also declined as a result of the impact of ARV treatment programmes.

“Unquestionably, we are beginning to see a return on investment,” notes UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot. “New HIV infections and mortality are declining and the prevalence of HIV levelling. But with more than 6,800 new infections and over 5,700 deaths each day due to AIDS we must expand our efforts in order to significantly reduce the impact of AIDS worldwide.”

New methodologies, revised data
UNAIDS says that the latest figures reflect “improved and expanded epidemiological data and analyses that present a better understanding of the global epidemic.”

UNAIDS, WHO and the Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling and Projections comprehensively reviewed their methodologies and monitoring systems to provide epidemic estimates that reflect improvements in country data collection and analysis, as well as a better understanding of the natural history and distribution of HIV infection.

In addition, new assumptions have also been made as a result of a better understanding of the natural history of untreated HIV infection. Notably, the average number of years that people living with HIV are estimated to survive without treatment has been increased from nine to eleven years. This longer average survival period has resulted in lower estimates of new HIV infections and deaths due to AIDS. (...)

Cick here to read the article.
The UNAIDS report, AIDS epidemic update: December 2007, is available here. There's also a print copy in the library.

Nurse swaps smiley face for penis to fight spread of Syphilis

2007-11-22T09:40:00.000-08:00

Source: Bloomberg

By Simeon Bennett and Jason Gale

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Elaine Jones, a 52-year-old soccer mom, surfs the Web to find guys.

Jones isn't looking for partners. She's using the Internet to deliver safe-sex messages and fight a resurgence of syphilis. Cases are rising among gay and bisexual men as new drugs reduce the threat of AIDS, and doctors warn the syphilis outbreak may spread to the wider community.

The popularity of online dating has opened up a new battleground for health workers, who say giving away condoms and hanging posters in clubs aren't enough to stem the sexually transmitted disease, which has reached decade-high levels in cities from London to Melbourne.

"If you have a whole generation who were raised chatting on the Internet, why not try to work with that?" said Jones, an outreach nurse with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver whose online symbol is a penis wearing a nurse's cap. "The anonymity helps people ask questions they would feel uncomfortable asking in person."

Syphilis, the dementia-causing disease blamed for killing gangster Al Capone, painter Paul Gauguin and composer Franz Schubert, was considered dormant 10 years ago. Infectious cases were diagnosed in 2,766 people in the U.K. last year, up from 137 a decade earlier. In the U.S., cases rose 12 percent to 9,756 in 2006, the sixth straight annual increase, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Sydney, home to one in five Australians, declared October syphilis month as part of a drive to get men tested and treated.

Click here to read the article.

Legal Network president named national recipient of Canadian Institutes of Health Research Award

2007-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

Source: CNW Group

Thomas Kerr to accept CIHR Knowledge Translation Award tonight

TORONTO, Nov. 20 /CNW/ - The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network today congratulated the president of its board of directors, Thomas Kerr, on being awarded the CIHR Knowledge Translation Award by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The award recognizes an exceptional individual or team involved in a health research project that advances and expands "knowledge translation." Kerr's research evaluating Insite, the supervised injection facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, has contributed significantly to academic, public and government discussions, both nationally and internationally, on the subject of injection drug use and HIV/AIDS.
"Thomas turns groundbreaking research into evidence-based action," said Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Legal Network. "His work, dedication and leadership have benefited more people than he or we will ever know. I hope this award will allow him and his colleagues to continue their life-saving work."
Kerr is currently a research scientist with the Vancouver-based British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
Previously, Kerr sat on the Legal Network's board of directors from 2001 to 2003. From 2003 until the end of 2004, he was Director of Health Policy and Research with the Legal Network. Since then, he has co-authored several articles and served on the editorial board of the HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Review, the Legal Network's flagship journal.
Kerr will receive his award at a ceremony tonight in Ottawa. Further information is available on the CIHR website at www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca.

New issue of the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Vol. 18, no 5, September/October 2007

2007-11-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

In this issue:
Editorial
Poverty and Human Development: A Global Theme
Lucy Bradley-Springer
pages 1-2

Commentary
Poverty and HIV: Cause, Consequence, and Context
Anne Hughes
pages 3-5

Features
Poverty and Devastation of Intimate Relations: Tanzanian Women’s Experience of Living With HIV/AIDS
Gunnel Balaile, Rose Laisser, Anna-Berit Ransjö-Arvidson, Bengt Höjer
pages 6-16
Abstract

Predictors of Life Satisfaction in HIV-Positive Nepali Women
Lucille Sanzero Eller, Ganga Mahat
pages 17-26
Abstract

Characteristics of Individuals Seeking Voluntary Counseling and Testing for HIV Infection in South Korea
Su-Rin Shin, Hee Sun Kang, Linda Moneyham
pages 27-33
Abstract

State-Mandated HIV Testing in Connecticut: Personal Perspectives of Women Found to Be Infected During Pregnancy
B. Joyce Simpson, Brian W.C. Forsyth
pages 34-46
Abstract

Art in HIV
Big Fat Lie!
page 47

Commentary
The Political Path to Mandatory Prenatal HIV Testing in Connecticut
B. Joyce Simpson, Brian W.C. Forsyth
pages 48-50
Abstract

Research Briefs

Chilean University Students: Knowledge and Concern About HIV/AIDS
Lilian Ferrer, Rosina Cianelli, Edwin Guzman et al.
pages 51-56
Abstract

Adaptation and Refinement of the HIV Knowledge Questionnaire for Use With Adolescent Girls
Ellen M. Volpe, LaRon E. Nelson, Rachel A. Kraus et al.
pages 57-63
Abstract

Masthead
page 64

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

New Issue of AIDS Patient care and STDs, Vol. 21, no 10, OCt 2007

2007-11-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

In this issue:
Letter to the Editor: Tenofovir Resistance among HIV-Infected Patients Failing a Fixed-Dose Combination of Stavudine, Lamivudine, and Nevirapine in a Resource-Limited SettingSomnuek Sungkanuparph, Weerawat Manosuthi, Sasisopin Kiertiburanakul, Wasun Chantratitra
pp. 711-714.

Letter to the Editor: Observations on Implementing Routine HIV Testing in Jails
Ravi Kavasery, Frederick L. Altice
pp. 715-716.

Letter to the Editor: Response to: “Feasibility and Acceptability of Rapid HIV Testing in Jail”
Curt G. Beckwith
pp. 717-717.

Case Report: Hepatitis C Virus Activation in HIV-Infected Patients Initiating Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy
H. Nina Kim, Robert D. Harrington, Margaret C. Shuhart, et al.
pp. 718-723.
Abstract

Prevalence of Oral Manifestations of HIV Infection in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil from 1988 to 2004
Sonia Ferreira, Cesar Noce, Arley Silva Júnior et al.
pp. 724-731.
Abstract

Efficacy of Group Psychotherapy to Reduce Depressive Symptoms among HIV-Infected Individuals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Seth Himelhoch, Deborah R. Medoff, Gloria Oyeniyi
pp. 732-739.
Abstract

Experiences of Stigma in Older Adults Living with HIV/AIDS: A Mixed-Methods Analysis
Charles A. Emlet
pp. 740-752.
Abstract

HIV-Related Stigma in Health Care Settings: A Survey of Service Providers in China
Li Li, Zunyou Wu, Sheng Wu et al.
pp. 753-762.
Abstract

Stigmatization of Patients with AIDS: Understanding the Interrelationships between Thai Nurses' Attitudes toward HIV/AIDS, Drug Use, and Commercial Sex
Kit Yee Chan, Daniel D. Reidpath
pp. 763-775.
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles

A few resources on Crystal Meth

2007-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

New in the collection:

Lee, Steven. Overcoming Crystal meth addiction : An essential guide to getting clean
New York, NY, Marlowe and Company, 2006
B 1260 LEE 2006
In Overcoming Crystal Methamphetamine Addiction, one of the few books to address the topic for a general audience, Dr. Steven Lee, MD, a psychiatrist who specializes in crystal meth addiction, offers a complete guide to the drug, its effects, and how to overcome it. Based on extensive scientific and social research and drawing from his professional experience, he covers everything from the definition and history of crystal meth to the physical and psychological effects; from dealing with the addictive personality to helping a friend or family member cope with it. He focuses on understanding rather than outright condemnation of the drug, and empathetically covers all of the crucial questions: What is crystal meth? How is it made? How does it affect the body? How do you know if you’re addicted to it? How do you stop using it? What if you don't want to stop? If you are going to use CM anyway, how can you minimize the damage? What if you quit but slipped and used again?

Other resources on Crystal Meth available in the library:

Osborne, Duncan. Suicide Tuesday. Gay men and the crystal meth scare
New York, Carroll & Graf, 2005
B 1260 OSB 2005 (Borrow this book!)
Abstract: Crystal methamphetamine, also known as “crystal meth,” has rocked national news headlines as the often deadly party drug of choice for gay and bisexual men. The recent media blitz around the so-called “AIDS supervirus” was only one of virtually thousands of earlier stories that laid the blame for an outbreak of new HIV transmission among gay men on impaired judgment brought about by crystal meth use. The low-priced stimulant—which can be snorted, smoked, ingested, or injected—increases its user’s heart rate, blood pressure, and stamina, while decreasing the need for food and sleep. Health experts estimate that 22 percent of all gay men have tried crystal meth at least once. Heterosexuals, including teenage girls, have also joined the millions of crystal meth users and addicts.
In Suicide Tuesday, Duncan Osborne, the leading journalist on the topic of gay men and crystal meth, offers a critical, clear-eyed look on the history of crystal meth, its effect on gay men, its alleged link to HIV transmission, the gay community’s response to the reported epidemic, as well as the media’s role in fostering public awareness but also sex panic among gay people.

Cimino, K. The politics of crystal meth : Gay men share stories of addiction and recovery
[Boca Raton], [Universal Publishers], [2005]
B 1260 CIM 2005 (Borrow this book!)
"Dr. Ken Cimino reveals the intimate and horrifying nature of meth abuse and presents ten inspiring true life dramas of meth use and recovery in The Politics of Crystal Meth: Gay Men Share Personal Stories of Addiction and Recovery. In part one he illustrates the varied reasons why gay men use methamphetamines, from gay oppression to homophobia to building self esteem to HIV issues. In the second part of the book he shares ten personal and motivating stories of meth use and recovery."

Crystal meth reference guide : "Remember your spirit"
[North Vancouver], Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of
British Columbia, [2006]
B 1260 CRY 2006 (Borrow this book!)
This reference guide explains what meth is, how it is made, its effects on the body, how to spot a meth user or a meth lab, and discusses meth in the aboriginal community (on-reserve and off). It explains how to deal with someone on meth, and discusses how communities can fight meth. A resource guide section lists addiction service organizations Canada-wide, and by province and territory.

Click on the links or Contact the library to borrow one of these books.

B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS: B.C. Centres Receive $1.2 Million to Study Heart Disease and HIV

2007-11-15T09:33:00.001-08:00

Source: MarketWire

People with HIV at up to 25 per cent higher risk for cardiovascular disease
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Nov. 14, 2007) - Two B.C.-based health research centres are embarking on a $1.2 million national study to examine how to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in people living with HIV.

The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (CfE) and the Providence Heart and Lung Institute, both housed at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, part of Providence Health Care, will be investigating how the cholesterol-lowering drug rosuvastatin (Crestor) interacts with essential anti-HIV medications and whether or not it successfully prevents hardening of the arteries. This is the first known study of its kind.

"As a result of the success of HIV treatments in preventing AIDS-related disease and death, HIV-infected persons have longer life expectancies, but they are beginning to see an increase in cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes," says Dr. Greg Bondy, the study's principal investigator and a researcher with the CfE. "This is not only an important study for HIV disease - it could also have much broader implications in the general population, particularly for those with metabolic disorders."

While it is not completely understood why people with HIV are at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease, a number of factors can be pointed to as the most likely causes. Antiretroviral drugs have been found to cause cholesterol levels to rise and researchers believe that HIV disease itself may put individuals at an increased risk. In addition, a high prevalence of smoking among this specific population is of particular concern. (...)

Click here to read the Press release

New book in the library: 2nd edition of "The first year HIV"

2007-11-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Grodeck, Brett. The first year HIV : an essential guide for the newly diagnosed. A patient-expert walks you through everything you need to learn and do.
New York, Marlowe & Company, 2007
D 100 GRO 2007
The treatment of HIV has come a long way in twenty-five years. Yet hearing the words "You are HIV-positive" can still be a scary, isolating experience. When he was diagnosed in 1987, Brett Grodeck educated himself on every aspect of the management and treatment of this condition and, as a "patient-expert", Grodeck shared everything he learned about living with HIV in the first edition of the book. Now completely revised and updated, The First Year- HIV guides you step-by-step through everything you need to do and learn throughout the crucial first year. In clear, concise, accessible language, Grodeck covers a wide range of practical, medical, and life-style issues, beginning with coming to terms with your diagnosis and then moving on to subjects including:
- Common myths and tales about HIV and AIDS
- Disclisng your news to others: now or later?
- How to navigate the confusing health-care system
- The hard truth about alternative medicine
- When to start HIV medicine
- The preferred HIV pill available today
- Double diagnosis with Hepatitis C, herpes or HPV
- Crystal meth and HIV
- Drugs, alcohol and sex: the dopamine connection
- Sex and intimacy
- Dealing head-on with stigma and discrimination
- Lifestyle strategies for long-term health

Contact the library if to borrow this book.

New issue of AIDS Education and Prevention received, Vol. 19, no 5, October 2007

2007-11-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

In this issue:

The Reliability and Validity of Self–Report Measures Used to Evaluate Adolescent HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs in Sub–Saharan Africa
Authors: Kari C. Kugler, Kelli A. Komro, Melissa H. Stigler, Kagoma S. Mnyika, Melkiory Masatu, Anne N. Aastrom and Knut–Inge Klepp
pp. 365-382
Abstract

Education and Nutritional Status of Orphans and Children of Hiv–Infected Parents in Kenya
Authors: Vinod Mishra, Fred Arnold, Fredrick Otieno, Anne Cross and Rathavuth Hong
pp. 383-395
Abstract

HIV/AIDS–Related Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Rural Residents in China: Potential role of Rural–to–Urban Migration
Authors: Xiaoming Li, Liying Zhang, Bonita Stanton, Xiaoyi Fang, Qing Xiong and Danhua Lin
pp. 396-407
Abstract

Communication as a Protective Factor: Evaluation of a Life Skills HIV/AIDS Prevention Program for Mexican Elementary-School Students
Authors: Susan Pick, Martha Givaudan, Jenna Sirkin and Isaac Ortega
pp. 408-421
Abstract

Promoting HIV Risk Awareness and Testing in Latinos Living on the U.S.–Mexico Border: The Tú No Me Conoces Social Marketing Campaign
Authors: Alisa M. Olshefsky, Michelle M. Zive, Rosana Scolari and María Luisa Zuñiga
pp. 422-435
Abstract

Condom Use Among Heterosexual Immigrant Latino Men in the Southeastern United States
Authors: Emily Knipper, Scott D. Rhodes, Kristen Lindstrom, Fred R. Bloom, Jami S. Leichliter and Jaime Montaño
pp. 436-447
Abstract

Condom Use Among Unmarried Students in a Hispanic-Serving University
Authors: Sunny Kim, Mario De La Rosa, Mary Jo Trepka and and Megan Kelley
pp. 448-461
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles

Drug comparison: Kaletra and Saquinavir/Ritonavir

2007-10-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Source: AIDSMAP, HIV WEEKLY

Kaletra (lopinavir boosted by a small amount of ritonavir) is a powerful anti-HIV drug that is one of the drugs recommended for use in combination with other anti-HIV drugs by people starting anti-HIV treatment for the first time.

A new study shows that saquinavir (Invirase) boosted by ritonavir is just as effective in initial drug combinations. Equal numbers of patients (about 70%) taking Kaletra and saquinavir/ritonavir had an undetectable viral load after a year.

Protease inhibitors are associated with tummy problems, particularly diarrhoea. Doctors found that 17% of people taking saquinavir/ritonavir had diarrhoea compared to over a quarter of those taking Kaletra. Another side-effect caused by many protease inhibitors is an increase in blood fats, particularly ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol which can be a risk factor for heart disease. Researchers found that 34% of people taking saquinavir/ritonavir had high levels of LDL cholesterol compared to just over a quarter of those taking Kaletra.

Reference

Walmsley S et al. Saquinavir/r (SQV/r) BiD versus lopinavir/r (LPV/r) BiD, plus emtricitabine/tenofovir (FTC/TDF) QD as initial therapy in HIV-1 infected patients: the GEMINI study. Eleventh European AIDS Copnference, Madrid. Abstract PS1/4. 2007.

AIDS, poverty and human development

2007-10-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

Source: UNAIDS

In an article published in leading scientific magazine PLoS, UNAIDS examines the often called ‘vicious circle’ within which the impacts of AIDS increase poverty and social deprivation, while socio-economic inequalities increase vulnerability to HIV infection.

Read article - Squaring the Circle: AIDS, Poverty, and Human Development

Recently acquired: The psychiatry of AIDS

2007-10-30T09:58:00.001-07:00

Treisman, Glenn J.; Angelino, Andrew F. The Psychiatry of AIDS : A guide to diagnosis and treatment
Baltimore, MA, Johns Hopkins, 2004
D 400 TRE 2004
The book provides HIV/AIDS professionals with overviews of psychiatric disorders, including mood and personality disorders, mental retardation, substance abuse and addiction, and sexual disorders and dysfunction. It also provides mental health professionals with essential information on how to care for patients with HIV and those at risk for the infection. The book discusses psychopharmacology, psychotherapy and counseling, as well as adherence and compliance issues, and the relationship between psychiatric disorders and other STDs.
Containing the most up-to-date information on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, this book draws on the authors' unrivaled experience and uses case studies to show HIV/AIDS professionals how psychiatric interventions benefit the patient, the medical team, and society as a whole. The cases are rich and engaging, and convey to the reader the intense disorder that can affect the lives of patients.

Contact the library to borrow this book.

AIDS virus invaded US from Haiti in 1969 -study

2007-10-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Source: Reuters

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday. Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed. The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognized by scientists as a disease in 1981. Many people had died by that point.

"It is somehow chilling to know it was probably circulating for so long under our noses," Worobey said in a telephone interview.

The researchers conducted a genetic analysis of stored blood samples from early AIDS patients to determine when the human immunodeficiency virus first entered the United States. They found that HIV was brought to Haiti by an infected person from central Africa in about 1966, which matches earlier estimates, and then came to the United States in about 1969.

The researchers think an unknown single infected Haitian immigrant arrived in a large city like Miami or New York, and the virus circulated for years -- first in the U.S. population and then to other nations. It can take several years after infection for a person to develop AIDS, a disease that ravages the immune system.

DISEASE MULTIPLIES

"That one infection would have become two, and then it doubles again and the two becomes four," Worobey said. "So you have a period -- probably a fair number of years -- where you're dealing with probably fewer than a hundred people who are infected.

"And then, as with epidemic expansion, at some point the hundred becomes 200, you start getting into thousands, tens of thousands. And then quite rapidly you can be up into the hundreds of thousands of infections that were probably already there before AIDS was recognized in the early 1980s."

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The path the virus traveled as it jumped from nation to nation has long been debated by scientists.

The University of Miami's Dr. Arthur Pitchenik, a co-author of the study, had seen Haitian immigrants in Miami as early as 1979 with a mystery illness that turned out to be AIDS. He knew the government long had stored some of their blood samples. The researchers analyzed samples from five of these Haitian immigrants dating from 1982 and 1983. They also looked at genetic data from 117 more early AIDS patients from around the world. This genetic analysis allowed the scientists to calibrate the molecular clock of the strain of HIV that has spread most widely, and calculated when it arrived first in Haiti from Africa and then in the United States.

The researchers virtually ruled out the possibility that HIV had come directly to the United States from Africa, setting a 99.8 percent probability that Haiti was the steppingstone.

"I think that it gives us more clear insight into the history of it (the AIDS epidemic) and what path the virus took -- and hard objective evidence, not just armchair thinking," Pitchenik said in a telephone interview.

Studies suggest the virus first entered the human population in about 1930 in central Africa, probably when people slaughtered infected chimpanzees for meat. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people and about 40 million others are infected with HIV.

New issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Vol. 21, no 9, September 2007

2007-10-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

In this issue:

Immunologic Response to Protease Inhibitor-Based Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy: A Review
Mark A. Wainberg, Bonaventura Clotet
pp. 609-620.
Abstract

Outcomes of Blood and Oral Fluid Rapid HIV Testing: A Literature Review, 2000–2006
Kathleen Johnston Roberts, Oscar Grusky, Aimee-Noelle Swanson
pp. 621-637.
Abstract

Maternal HIV-1 DNA Load and Mother-to-Child Transmission
Nils D. Arvold, Nicole Ngo-Giang-Huong, Kenneth McIntosh et al.
pp. 638-643.
Abstract

Prevalence of Drug-Resistant and Nonsubtype B HIV Strains in Antiretroviral-Naïve, HIV-Infected Individuals in New York State
Monica M. Parker, Daniel Gordon, Andrew Reilly et al.
pp. 644-652.
Abstract

MDR1 and CYP3A4 Polymorphisms Are Associated with HIV Seropositivity in Israeli Patients But Do Not Influence the Course of HIV Disease
Meirav Kedmi, Shlomo Maayan, Sara Bar Cohen et al.
pp. 653-658.
Abstract

The Effects of Smoking Abstinence on Symptom Burden and Quality of Life Among Persons Living with HIV/AIDS
Damon J. Vidrine, Roberto C. Arduino, Ellen R. Gritz
pp. 659-666.
Abstract

Social Support, Coping, and Medication Adherence Among HIV-Positive Women with Depression Living in Rural Areas of the Southeastern United States
Medha Vyavaharkar, Linda Moneyham, Abbas Tavakoli et al.
pp. 667-680.
Abstract

Predictors of AIDS-Related Morbidity and Mortality in a Southern U.S. Cohort
Michael J. Mugavero, Brian Wells Pence, Kathryn Whetten et al.
pp. 681-690.
Abstract

Retention Challenges for a Community-Based HIV Primary Care Clinic and Implications for Intervention
Sharon Coleman, Ulrike Boehmer, Fumihido Kanaya et al.
pp. 691-701.
Abstract

Antiviral Briefs
pp. 702-705.

Drug Developments and STD News
pp. 706-709.

Insite could run without feds' OK

2007-10-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

Source: The Province

Operators of Dr. Peter Centre offering similar service rely on nursing ethics
David Carrigg, The Province
Published: Monday, October 29, 2007

VANCOUVER - Vancouver's largest supervised injection site does not need Health Canada's permission to operate, says the head of a smaller injection site that operates without federal permission.

"A Section 56 exemption [of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act] isn't needed," said Maxine Davis, head of the Dr. Peter Centre of Vancouver. "We've very confident of the position we're taking."

The Dr. Peter Centre provides a supervised injection site for 50 of its 300 clients. Those clients are HIV-positive and some are homeless with mental-health and drug-addiction problems. The centre's injection site opened in April 2002, prior to the opening of the Insite supervised injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Davis said the Dr. Peter Centre does not need Health Canada permission to operate because it is not part of a scientific study Insite is involved in. A Section 56 exemption was needed for the Insite study to be undertaken.

Davis said she's confident her centre's facility is legal under the B.C. Nurses Act because of a nurse's duty of patient care. She said the same would apply to Insite, meaning it's not subject to Health Canada approval.

The centre's supervised injection facility opened after two overdose deaths at the centre's old location at St. Paul's Hospital.

Click here to read the article.

Social agencies to run rooming hotels

2007-10-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

Source: the Vancouver Sun

Province picks non-profits for role in Downtown Eastside
Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, October 29, 2007
Eleven Downtown Eastside hotels will be turned over to non-profit social agencies to run as of Dec. 1, in a move the province and the agencies say will mean more and better rooms for the homeless and hardest to house.

Housing Minister Rich Coleman is set to announce today the 10 non-profit agencies that have been chosen to run them.

A wide variety of agencies will be named, including one that specializes in native housing, another that deals with women's housing and two that handle housing specifically for the mentally ill. One agency will operate two hotels.

The non-profits, all of which run other buildings targeted to particular groups of people who are the most vulnerable to homelessness, will gradually add new tenants who are part of their target group to the existing mix.

Two hotels, the Park and the Marble Arch, will be added to the stock of "dry" housing that City Centre Care Society offers for people trying to live without drugs and alcohol after they've come out of a detox program.

Most of the others are not like that, instead providing safe and supportive homes to women, aboriginals with HIV, the mentally ill, the addicted or a mix of any of those categories.

Click here to read the article.

HIV spread most by those with moderate virus level

2007-10-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

Source: Reuters

By Michael Kahn

LONDON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - People with moderate levels of HIV in their blood are the most likely to infect others, researchers said on Monday in a study that provides a better understanding of how the deadly virus spreads.

Looking at several groups of HIV-positive people in Europe, the United States and Africa, the researchers found that people with high levels of the AIDS virus were the most infectious but had only limited time to pass it on to others. Those with moderate virus levels -- using a measure called viral load -- had plenty of virus circulating in their blood as well as the opportunity to infect others, the researchers said. This means that trying to halt the spread of AIDS by focusing on people with the highest viral loads may not be the most effective approach, said Christophe Fraser, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London who led the study.

"The surprise was that those people with high viral loads actually infected fewer people because they progressed to AIDS more quickly," Fraser said in a telephone interview.

The findings may also suggest that the virus has somehow adapted to find the optimal balance between infectiousness and virulence in order to maximise its chances of spreading -- something one would expect from evolution, the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We now want to see whether the virus has adapted in order to allow it to infect the most people, which seems plausible given the results of our study," Fraser said. "While it is too early to sound the alarm, more research to prove or disprove this theory is urgently needed."

More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since the incurable disease that ravages the body's immune system was first recognized in 1981. Almost 40 million people now live with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. In their study, the researchers analysed previously published European and African studies linking viral load, infectiousness and survival. The researchers focused on people with medium viral loads as individuals may show no symptoms and not progress to full-blown AIDS for about seven to eight years. Those with high loads were typically people who developed AIDS in a short period of time, usually two to three years, Fraser said.

People with a medium viral load also form the largest, most common group not to receive treatment, so these individuals are far more dangerous when it comes to contributing to the AIDS epidemic, the researchers said.

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS: First Academic Division of AIDS opens in Canada

2007-10-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

Source: Marketwire
The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS partners with the University of British Columbia in the fight against HIV/AIDS

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Oct. 24, 2007) - The University of British Columbia (UBC) Department of Medicine has established Canada's first Division of AIDS (DAIDS) based at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Providence Health Care. DAIDS will attract and retain staff with the wide range of expertise needed to continue HIV/AIDS clinical care, scientific research and training. The new division is also intended to provide an academic home for researchers within the Centre, as well as other UBC affiliated institutions.

"The establishment of DAIDS recognizes both the complexities brought upon by HIV and AIDS, as well as the unique contributions made by UBC based researchers and educators over the years," says Centre director and newly appointed head of the DAIDS, Dr. Julio Montaner. "HIV/AIDS is a rapidly evolving field of medicine that requires a very specific set of skills and dedication. The formal acknowledgement of HIV/AIDS as an academic discipline within the UBC-Department of Medicine will open the door for new generations of physicians and scientists to focus their careers on this important field."

DAIDS will work collaboratively within the Department of Medicine at UBC. The division's key areas of involvement include: epidemiology, basic science, clinical science, prevention, integrated primary and specialty care, urban health and international health. The newly created Division will bring together more then 40 faculty and staff members, with plans to grow as it attracts additional academics.

Montaner was chosen as the new DAIDS head as a result of his vast knowledge and experience in HIV research and treatment, and his ability to shape modern treatment regimens that assist health care professionals to better manage the disease. Montaner is considered one of the world's outstanding clinical investigators in the field of HIV/AIDS. He is currently the president-elect of the International AIDS Society. Montaner has also been named the B.C. Innovation Council's 2007 B.C. Science and Technology Champion of the Year Award.

"Dr. Montaner's work has revolutionized patient care in the province of British Columbia," says UBC president Stephen Toope. "We are all grateful for his significant contributions to the global fight against HIV/AIDS."

In the last 20 years - particularly during the last decade - HIV/AIDS has become the fastest growing field of medicine in terms of research, therapy and service delivery methods, explains Montaner. UBC is the first academic institution in Canada to establish a Division of AIDS.

Approximately 13,000 HIV-positive men and women live in B.C., with 56,000 in total across Canada. While B.C. has the third highest number of persons living with HIV after Ontario and Quebec, the province has the highest per capita rate of HIV infection in Canada. Health economists estimate it will cost approximately $250,000 to treat and care for each of these HIV-infected Canadians over their lifetime. At this rate, it will cost nearly $2 to $4 billion to treat and care for all persons infected with HIV living in B.C. More than $58 million was spent on antiretroviral therapy alone in B.C. in the last fiscal year.

Key partners to DAIDS include the Centre, as well as the HIV Program at Providence Healthcare, AIDS Ward at St. Paul's Hospital, John Ruedy Immunodefiency Clinic (IDC) and AIDS Research Program within the Department of Medicine at UBC.

About the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Founded in 1992 at St. Paul's Hospital by the provincial Ministry of Health, the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is a key provincial resource. The mandate of the centre is to improve the health of people with HIV through the development, ongoing monitoring and dissemination of comprehensive investigative and treatment programs for HIV and related diseases. St. Paul's Hospital is one of seven care facilities operated by Providence Health Care, Canada's largest faith-based health care organization.

For interview requests or further information relating to the Centre and its ongoing research in HIV/AIDS, please contact Stephen Burega, media relations, 604-506-3734, stephen.burega@karyo-edelman.com.

New issue of AIDS Care: Vol. 19, no 8. Sept 2007

2007-10-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

In this issue:

Sexual dysfunction in HIV-positive men is multi-factorial: A study of prevalence and associated factors
pp. 955 – 965
Authors: D. Asboe; J. Catalan; S. Mandalia et al.
Abstract

Sexual practices of church youths in the era of HIV/AIDS: Playing the ostrich
pp. 966 – 969
Author: C. V. Nweneka
Abstract

Contexts of condom use and non-condom use among young adolescent male perpetrators of dating violence
pp. 970 – 973
Authors: A. Raj; E. Reed; E. Miller et al.
Abstract

Skinning the goat and pulling the load: transactional sex among youth in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
pp. 974 – 981
Authors: R. K. Maganja; S. Maman; A. Groves et al.
Abstract

Patient preferences among third agent HIV medications: a US and German perspective
pp. 982 – 988
Authors: K. M. Beusterien; K. Dziekan; S. Schrader et al.
Abstract

Sex, condoms, gender roles, and HIV transmission knowledge among adolescents in León, Nicaragua: Implications for HIV prevention
pp. 989 – 995
Authors: A. Manji; R. Peña; R. Dubrow
Abstract

Cost-effectiveness of clinical interventions for AIDS wasting
pp. 996 – 1001
Authors: A. Beaston-Blaakman; D. S. Shepard; N. Stone; A. H. Shevitz
Abstract

Validation of the HIV/AIDS Stigma Instrument - PLWA (HASI-P)
pp. 1002 – 1012
Authors: William L. Holzemer; Leana R. Uys; Maureen L. Chirwa et al.
Abstract

Impact on HIV test providers of giving a positive test result
pp. 1013 – 1019
Authors: Ted Myers; Catherine Worthington; Jeffrey P. Aguinaldo et al.
Abstract

Predictors of workplace sexual health policy at sex work establishments in the Philippines
pp. 1020 – 1025
Authors: M. Withers; K. Dornig; D. E. Morisky
Abstract

Acceptability of tenofovir gel as a vaginal microbicide by US male participants in a Phase I clinical trial (HPTN 050)
pp. 1026 – 1031
Authors: Alex Carballo-Diéguez; Iván C. Balán; Kathleen Morrow et al.
Abstract

Condom use behaviours among 18-24 year-old urban African American males: a qualitative study
pp. 1032 – 1038
Authors: S. B. Kennedy; S. Nolen; J. Applewhite et al.
Abstract

Factors associated with discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy in HIV-infected patients with alcohol problems
pp. 1039 – 1047
Authors: T. W. Kim; A. Palepu; D. M. Cheng et al.
Abstract

Antiretroviral therapy in the lives of women of colour with HIV
pp. 1048 – 1051
Authors: A. Wayson Locher; K. Pargament; J. Duggan
Abstract

Determinants and evolution of squamous intraepithelial lesions in HIV-infected women, 1991-2004
pp. 1052 – 1057
Authors: M-P. Drogoul-Vey; C. Marimoutou; A. Robaglia-Schlupp et al.
Abstract

The idiographic study of inconsistent condom use behavior of persons living with HIV
pp. 1058 – 1064
Authors: W. D. Barta; S. M. Kiene; H. Tennen et al.
Abstract

Case management community care for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs)
pp. 1065 – 1072
Authors: W. Husbands; G. Browne; J. Caswell et al.
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

Bristol-Myers/Gilead HIV treatment gets Canada approval

2007-10-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

Source: CNN Money / DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) and Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) Wednesday said Health Canada approved the companies' Atripla for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults.

The companies said Atripla, which combines Bristol-Myers' Sustiva and Gilead's Truvada, will be Canada's first once-daily single tablet HIV regimen for use as a stand-alone therapy or in combination with other antiretrovirals. The drug, developed through a joint venture between Bristol-Myers and Gilead, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in July 2006.

In premarket activity, shares of New York health- and personal-care products maker Bristol-Myers were trading at $29.87, up about 2.2% from Tuesday's close of $29.24. Shares of Foster City, Calif., biopharmaceutical company Gilead closed Tuesday at $42.40, up 39 cents. The stock reached a 52-week high of $43.90 on Monday.

Zambia: Male Circumcision Can Reduce a Man's Risk of HIV

2007-10-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

Source: AllAfrica.com

Since the announcement of findings that male circumcision can reduce a man's risk of HIV infection through heterosexual sex, thousands of men have opted to be circumcised as a way of protecting themselves against being infected with the virus.

Much as male circumcision does not guarantee 100 per cent protection from contracting the virus that causes AIDS, the mere fact that it reduces the risk of infection by as much as 65 per cent is good news, and an opportunity to build on the fight against the spread of the pandemic.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a move by medical practitioners to cash in on this circumcision craze, by charging up to K350,000 for the operation.

University Teaching Hospital (UTH) management says the response witnessed so far has been overwhelming and it is those who opt to have the operation in high cost private clinics who are paying as much as K350,000.

According to UTH spokesperson Pauline Mbangweta, the operation can also be accessed at the cheaper rate of K10, 000 at low cost clinics.

The only problem with the low cost clinics is that there are so many people on the waiting list and those seeking to have the operation have to wait for almost a month before being attended to.

Click here to read the article.

bioLytical Reports Milestone Patient Enrollment in New Trial for INSTITM, 60-Second Rapid HIV Test

2007-10-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Source: Marketwire.com

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Oct. 16, 2007) - bioLytical Laboratories (bioLytical) today announced patient enrollment has exceeded 30% in their Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of INSTITM, a 60-second rapid HIV test for point-of-care (POC) testing. bioLytical's IDE filing was accepted by the FDA July 6, 2007.

Initial patient enrollment began July 31, 2007. As of October 15, 755 patients were enrolled, representing over 30 percent of the total enrollment. To date, 11 clinical testing sites are involved in the study and are actively enrolling patients.

"The rapid pace of enrollment clearly reflects strong interest by investigators and patients," commented Rick Galli, Chief Technical Officer at bioLytical. "Timely site activation has also accelerated our ability to register new patients. We look forward to completing the study and substantiating for the FDA the safety and efficacy of INSTITM."

Patient enrollment is expected to continue until December 2007 and include approximately 2500 patients of known and unknown HIV status in total. This multi-centre, cross-country study will include up to 15 clinical sites and one central laboratory. bioLytical has contracted with Beardsworth Consulting Group Inc. in Flemington, NJ, as the Contract Research Organization for this study.

bioLytical is a Canadian company that has developed the INSTITM Rapid Antibody Test. INSTITM is a rapid, in-vitro, qualitative test for the detection of antibodies to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Type 1 in human whole blood, serum or plasma. INSTITM is also approved for HIV Type 2 detection in a number of other international countries, including Europe, and is pending similar approval in Canada. The test is intended for use by trained personnel in medical facilities, clinical laboratories, emergency care situations, physicians' offices and any other primary care facility as a screening assay capable of providing test results in less than 60 seconds.

The US Center for Disease Control estimates that approximately 40,000 persons in the United States become infected with HIV each year. Of those, 25 percent are unaware of their infection and could be spreading the disease unknowingly. Each year up to 22 million persons in the US are tested for HIV. With current revisions to both CDC and WHO guidelines on HIV testing advocating routine HIV screening as part of regular medical practice, the market for rapid HIV tests in the US will continue to escalate.

Rapid HIV antibody tests seek to improve access to HIV testing however, most must be administered in a clinical setting. Currently available rapid tests also have longer response times that can be a deterrent for many who should be tested. INSTITM has been developed to make it ideal for use in mobile and in-field scenarios allowing all communities access and social barriers to be removed.

Click here to read the press release

New report: Sexual Health in Canada: Baseline 2007

2007-10-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Source: Canadian Federation for Sexual Health

This groundbreaking report represents the first ever comprehensive, national portrait of Canadians’ sexual and reproductive health. It was compiled after a thorough review of all relevant data from government and academic sources. It establishes a baseline for policy, planning and further study.

Highlights of report findings:
Trends in Canadians’ sexual and reproductive health vary distinctly by province and territory. For example:
- Youth aged 14-15 in the Maritimes & Quebec are more likely to be sexually active than those in Ontario or the western provinces (...)

Canada is way off track to meet the 2010 national goals for prevention of sexually transmitted infections set by Health Canada in 1996. The goals were to reduce the disease incidence rates. Instead they have steadily risen for all reportable STIs (chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis) except HIV. In some cases the most recent disease rates are seven to nine times the level reported in 1996.

Rates of STIs among young people (15 – 24 years) show the most dramatic rise, placing this age group at the highest risk. For example, over two thirds of chlamydia cases occur among youth, although they only represent 14% of the population.
(...)

The full report is available online. A copy will be shortly available in the library.

Health Canada Approves Novel Treatment for HIV

2007-10-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Source: CNW Group
CELSENTRI(TM) (maraviroc) Tablets Available, First in a New Class of
Oral HIV Medicines in More than a Decade

KIRKLAND, QC, Oct. 15 /CNW/ - CELSENTRI (maraviroc) tablets, the first in a new class of oral HIV medicines in more than 10 years, is now approved and available in Canada. CELSENTRI blocks entry of HIV into T cells (CD4+ white blood cells), significantly reducing the level of HIV in treatment-experienced patients.
"There is an important need for new medicines to help the many Canadians living with HIV/AIDS who are running out of effective medications to control the virus," said Dr. Sharon Walmsley, MSc, FRCPC, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. "The approval of maraviroc is a significant breakthrough in that it provides a new class that blocks an early step in the viral life cycle that can be used for people with HIV who have developed resistance to our currently available drugs."
CELSENTRI is the first in a class of drugs known as CCR5 antagonists, which block the CCR5 co-receptor, the virus' main entry route into the body's immune cells or CD4+ cells. CELSENTRI stops the CCR5-tropic HIV-1, which is also known as "R5 virus" on the surface of the cell before it enters, rather than fighting the virus inside the cell as do all other classes of oral HIV medicines. A tropism test confirms that a patient is infected with R5 virus.
Earlier this year, Health Canada granted CELSENTRI priority review status. Priority reviews are granted to medicines that would represent an improved overall risk/benefit profile for a disease or condition not adequately managed by a medicine currently available in Canada.
"The approval of CELSENTRI is a Pfizer research and development success story," said Dr. Bernard Prigent, Vice President & Medical Director, Pfizer Canada. "Our hope is that CELSENTRI will offer a much needed new option to many people living with HIV in Canada."

Click here to read the press release.

Canadian to head effort to speed HIV vaccine

2007-10-11T09:13:00.001-07:00

Source: The Globe and Mail
ANDRÉ PICARD
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER

Canada's top scientist is taking on a new challenge: trying to speed up the development of an AIDS vaccine. Alan Bernstein, the founding president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has been appointed the first executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. The role of the new body is to get a diverse group of scientists, activists and industry to agree on a common strategy for speeding up research on an AIDS vaccine, an endeavour that has been floundering.

"Part of me was scared by the challenge," Dr. Bernstein said in an interview from Cape Town, South Africa. "But I love a challenge and there's a fantastic need for the world to have an AIDS vaccine."

An estimated 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV-AIDS, and another five million are infected each year. But attempts to create a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus have proved fruitless, in large part because it is able to mutate quickly, it can lie dormant for years and it attacks the immune system.

"There's no question HIV is a particularly challenging foe," Dr. Bernstein said. But, at the same time, he said expectations have been unrealistic.

"New pathogens come along and it takes time to understand them. We've never had a vaccine in 20-25 years."

The CIHR, created in 2000, doles out close to $1-billion a year in research funds. The HIV Vaccine Enterprise, by contrast, will have a budget of only $1-million annually to operate its New York-based secretariat. However, it has already mobilized commitments of more than $750-million to support its scientific plan.

The enterprise plans to focus on six key areas: vaccine discovery, laboratory standardization, product development and manufacturing, clinical trials capacity, regulatory issues and intellectual property.

Stephen Lewis, the former United Nations envoy on HIV-AIDS in Africa and now the co-director of AIDS-Free World, said Dr. Bernstein is an "ideal choice to serve as a leader among leaders, co-ordinating the HIV vaccine field and working to build productive partnerships between researchers, donors and advocates."

José Esparza, senior adviser on HIV vaccines for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the enterprise "has an important role to play in ensuring HIV vaccine development effort match the magnitude of the pandemic" and said the foundation is committed to supporting the new initiative.

New journal issue received: AIDS and Behavior, Vol. 11, no 5, September 2007

2007-10-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Vol. 11, no 5, September 2007
AIDS and Behavior provides an international venue for the scientific exchange of research and scholarly work on the contributing factors, prevention, consequences, social impact, and response to HIV/AIDS.

In this issue:

Some Data-Driven Reflections on Priorities in AIDS Network Research
Authors: Samuel R. Friedman, Melissa Bolyard, Pedro Mateu-Gelabert et al.
pp. 641-651
Abstract

Safe Syringe Disposal is Related to Safe Syringe Access among HIV-positive Injection Drug Users
Authors Phillip O. Coffin, Mary H. Latka, Carl Latkin et al.
pp. 652-662
Abstract

Medication Adherence and Sexual Risk Behavior among HIV-Infected Adults: Implications for Transmission of Resistant Virus
Authors: Robert H. Remien, Theresa M. Exner, Stephen F. Morin et al.
pp. 663-675
Abstract

Beliefs about Personal and Partner Responsibility among HIV-Seropositive Men Who Have Sex with Men: Measurement and Association with Transmission Risk Behavior
Authors Richard J. Wolitski, Stephen A. Flores, Ann O’Leary et al.
pp. 676-686
Abstract

Motivations and Methods for Self-disclosure of HIV Seropositivity in Nairobi, Kenya
Authors Ann Neville Miller and Donald L. Rubin
pp. 687-697
Abstract

Reducing HIV Transmission Risk by Increasing Serostatus Disclosure: A Mathematical Modeling Analysis
Authors Steven D. Pinkerton and Carol L. Galletly
pp. 698-705
Abstract

Correlates of Risk Patterns and Race/Ethnicity among HIV-Positive Men who have Sex with Men
Authors Ann O’Leary, Holly H. Fisher, David W. Purcell et al.
pp. 706-715
Abstract

HIV-positive Romanian Adolescents: Acquisition Routes, Risk Behaviors, and Psychological Correlates
Authors Blair T. Johnson and Doru Buzducea
pp. 716-725
Abstract

Ongoing Risk Behavior Among Persons With HIV in Medical Care
Authors Matthew R. Golden, Robert W. Wood, Susan E. Buskin et al.
pp. 726-735
Abstract

Educational Attainment and HIV Status among Ethiopian Voluntary Counseling and Testing Clients
Authors Heather Bradley, Amare Bedada, Heena Brahmbhatt et al.
pp. 736-742
Abstract

Migrant Latino Day Laborers and Intentions to Test for HIV
Authors Samantha F. Ehrlich, Kurt C. Organista and Doug Oman
pp. 743-752
Abstract

Acceptance of Routine Testing for HIV among Adult Patients at the Medical Emergency Unit at a National Referral Hospital in Kampala, Uganda
Authors Damalie Nakanjako, Moses Kamya, Kyabayinze Daniel et al.
pp. 753-758
Abstract

Readiness for HIV Testing among Young People in Northern Nigeria: The Roles of Social Norm and Perceived Stigma
Author Stella Babalola
pp. 759-769
Abstract

Community-based Voluntary Counseling and Testing Services in Rural Communities of Chiang Mai Province, Northern Thailand
Authors Surinda Kawichai, David D. Celentano, Suwat Chariyalertsak et al.
pp. 770-777
Abstract

HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing among Injection Drug Users in South China: A Study of a Non-Government Organization Based Program
Authors Huey T. Chen, Shaoling Liang, Quilan Liao et al.
pp. 778-788
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

Canada gives more time to drug injection site

2007-10-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Source: Reuters
By Allan Dowd

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct 2 (Reuters) - The Canadian government granted another reprieve on Tuesday to North America's only sanctioned injection site for drug addicts, saying it wants more research before deciding its fate.

Vancouver's Insite facility had faced closure at the end of the year, but Health Minister Tony Clement notified the local health authority that the injection site can stay open until June 30, 2008.

The facility, which opened in 2003 as part of a research project in Vancouver's poor, drug-infested Downtown Eastside neighborhood, needs an exemption from Canada's drug laws to remain in operation.

Ottawa has been weighing Insite's long-term future, and the six-month extension will allow continued research on its impact on efforts to promote drug treatment programs and reduce crime, Clement said.

Addicts using drugs such as heroin and cocaine are given clean needles to inject with at the facility in a room supervised by a nurse. After shooting up, they go to a "chill-out room" before returning to the street.

Insite receives more than 600 addict visits daily. Insite's supporters, including Vancouver police, say studies have already shown it has prevented overdose deaths and helped get addicts into treatment. They say it also has slowed the sharing of needles, which is how AIDS and other diseases are often spread. Insite received a similar reprieve last year.

"This is the second time that the federal government has stalled on this decision, and said that more research is needed. But the fact is, Minister Clement is asking questions that have already been answered and calling for research that's already been done," said Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian AIDS/HIV Legal Network.

But Insite's critics, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have complained that the government should not be sanctioning illegal drug use. The U.S. government has complained that Insite is a weak link in Canada's anti-drug efforts.

Questions about Insite's fate had been fueled by the government's announcement last weekend that it was ready to unveil a new national drug strategy expected to emphasize a tougher stand on illegal drug use.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which oversees the facility, was pleased with the announcement and ready to supply federal officials with any additional information they need, spokeswoman Viviana Zanocco said.

Victoria, British Columbia, has said it also wants permission to establish a drug injection facility, but the federal government has ruled out setting up any new sites until the research in Vancouver is completed.

Armour found not liable in Canadian blood taint trial

2007-10-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

Source: Bloomberg Canada

By Joe Schneider

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Armour Pharmaceutical Co. and a former director at the Canadian Red Cross were acquitted of criminal negligence following an 18-month trial on charges they failed to properly screen blood products that infected thousands of Canadians with hepatitis and HIV. Ontario Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Benotto released her ruling today in Toronto, finding Armour, former Canadian Red Cross chief Roger Perrault and three other officials acted properly in distributing the blood products.

"There was no conduct that showed wanton and reckless disregard," required for a criminal negligence conviction, Benotto told a courtroom filled with victims, their relatives and media. "The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by evidence, they were disproved."

More than 1,000 Canadians contracted HIV and as many as 20,000 got hepatitis C from blood transfusions with tainted products in the 1980s and 1990s, according to evidence presented at the trial.

"The events here were tragic," Benotto said. "However, to assign blame where none exists is to compound the tragedy."

Armour, which had been based in New Jersey, supplied the blood-clotting agent H.T. Factorate, which had been tainted with HIV, between July 1986 and December 1987. The Red Cross had distributed the products to clinics and hospitals.

`Shocked'

"We're quite shocked at this particular decision," John Plater of the Canadian Hemophilia Society told reporters after the judge read her decision. "This certainly is not over, despite what we heard today."

Now a non-operating company, according to lawyer Brian Greenspan, Armour won a contract in 1985 to supply the Canadian Red Cross with 10 million units of Factor VIII. A year later the contract was renewed for 12 million units, prosecutor Michael Bernstein said in his opening statement Feb. 21, 2006.

The four counts of criminal negligence of which Armour was accused stem from four Canadians who developed AIDS after being treated with HIV-contaminated Factor VIII, the government said. Three of them died, Bernstein said.

Also charged with criminal negligence were John Furesz, former director of Canada's Bureau of Biologics; Donald Boucher, former chief of the blood products division of the Bureau of Biologics; and Michael Rodell, former vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at Armour.

All of the defendants were acquitted on all charges. Bernstein wasn't immediately available for comment.
The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty in May 2005 to distributing harmful products in contravention of the federal Food and Drugs Act and agreed to pay a C$5,000 ($5,044) fine and C$1.5 million to establish charitable foundations.

The agency had sold its blood operations in 1998 to help pay C$70 million to the people who were infected.

The case is Between Her Majesty the Queen and Armour Pharmaceutical Co., Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Toronto), Case No.: P51/04.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Schneider in Toronto at jschneider5@bloomberg.net .

Canada issues compulsory licence for HIV/AIDS drug export to Rwanda, in first test of WTO procedure

2007-09-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

Source: BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest

Rwanda last week came one step closer to becoming the first nation to use a WTO procedure designed to allow developing countries to import cut-price copies of patented medicines, when Canadian patent authorities issued a compulsory licence authorising the generic production of a patented HIV/AIDS drug for export to the central African country.

"This is big step forward in finally getting at least one affordable medicine from Canada to a developing country in need," said Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. However, noting that it had already been three years since Canada introduced a legal system for making such exports possible, he said "it's also a wake-up call" about the need to simplify the process to make it more efficient and effective.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) cleared large generic pharmaceutical company Apotex to manufacture and deliver 260,000 packs of Apo-Triavir at cost to Rwandan health authorities. This would be enough to treat 21,000 AIDS patients for a year.

Rwandan WTO delegate Edouard Bizumuremyi told Bridges he was delighted with the development and said Rwanda had been "waiting for this."

The authorisation follows Rwanda's July notification to the WTO that it wanted to import that quantity of the medicine from Canada (see BRIDGES Weekly, 25 July 2007), becoming the first country to try to import generics under a WTO procedure criticised as too complex to be effective. (...)

Click here to read the entire article.

New journal received: AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Vol. 21, no 8, August 2007

2007-09-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Free access to this issue!

Case Report: Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome Associated with Disseminated Mycobacterial Infection in Patients with AIDS
Felipe Francisco Tuon, Grace Carvajal Mulatti, Walkyria Pereira Pinto, Francisco Oscar De Siqueira Franca, Ronaldo Cesar Gryschek
pp. 527-532.
Full Text PDF

TORO: Ninety-Six-Week Virologic and Immunologic Response and Safety Evaluation of Enfuvirtide with an Optimized Background of Antiretrovirals
Jacques Reynes, Keikawus Arastéh, Bonaventura Clotet, Calvin Cohen, David A. Cooper, Jean-François Delfraissy, Joseph J. Eron, Keith Henry, Christine Katlama, Daniel R. Kuritzkes, Jacob P. Lalezari, Joep Lange, Adriano Lazzarin, Julio S.G. Montaner, Mark Nelson, Mary O' Hearn, Hans-Jürgen Stellbrink, Benoit Trottier, Sharon L. Walmsley, Neil E. Buss, et al.
pp. 533-543.
Full Text PDF

Utility of Repeat Genotypic Resistance Testing and Clinical Response in Patients with Three Class Resistance and Virologic Treatment Failure
Sheila M. Badri, Oluwatoyin M. Adeyemi, Blake E. Max, Bala N. Hota, David E. Barker
544-550.
Full Text PDF

Attitudes and Perceptions of AIDS Clinical Trials Group Site Coordinators on HIV Clinical Trial Recruitment and Retention: A Descriptive Study
William D. King, Donna Defreitas, Kimberly Smith, Janet Andersen, Lisa Patton Perry, Toyin Adeyemi, Jennifer Mitty, Jan Fritsche, Carrie Jeffries, Melvin Littles, Margaret Fischl, Gregory Pavlov, Donna Mildvan, Underrepresented Populations Committee of the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group (AACTG)
pp. 551-563.
Full Text PDF

Adherence, Drug Use, and Treatment Failure in a Methadone-Clinic–Based Program of Directly Administered Antiretroviral Therapy
Gregory M. Lucas, B. Anna Mullen, Mary E. McCaul, Paul J. Weidle, Shannon Hader, Richard D. Moore
pp. 564-574.
Full Text PDF

Characteristics of a Sample of Men Who Have Sex with Men, Recruited from Gay Bars and Internet Chat Rooms, Who Report Methamphetamine Use
Scott D. Rhodes, Kenneth C. Hergenrather, Leland J. Yee, Emily Knipper, Aimee M. Wilkin, Morrow R. Omli
pp. 575-583.
Full Text PDF

The Effect of Perceived Stigma from a Health Care Provider on Access to Care Among a Low-Income HIV-Positive Population
Janni J. Kinsler, Mitchell D. Wong, Jennifer N. Sayles, Cynthia Davis, William E. Cunningham
pp. 584-592.
Full Text PDF

Inequality and Unwillingness to Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS: A Survey of Medical Professionals in Southeast China
Guoxi Cai, Kazuhiko Moji, Sumihisa Honda, Xiaonan Wu, Konglai Zhang
pp. 593-601.
Full Text PDF

Antiviral Briefs
pp. 602-605.
Full Text PDF

Drug Developments and STD News
pp. 606-608.
Full Text PDF

George Michael cuts HIV interview

2007-09-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Source: BBC News

Pop star George Michael has asked for an interview in which he discusses his fears of having HIV to be removed from a forthcoming BBC programme. The BBC has confirmed the interview will no longer feature in the documentary, Stephen Fry: HIV and Me.

Michael's former partner, Anselmo Feleppa, died of an Aids-related illness in 1995.

"On reflection, he felt it was too close and too personal a journey," said a spokesman for the singer, 44.

He added: "It was too personal for Anselmo's family to revisit."

'No tests'
When the documentary was launched in July, the BBC revealed details of Michael's interview.
"George says he does not believe in tests," said producer Ross Wilson. "He says he finds the wait for results too harrowing and that he hasn't had a test since at least 2004 due to his fears it might be positive."

The two-part programme will examine how HIV is spreading and show Fry taking an HIV test himself. Michael is still set to appear in this year's festive edition of Catherine Tate's BBC comedy programme. (...)

HIV sequences cannot prove guilt

2007-09-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

Source: NewScientist News Service

People infected with HIV might well want to know who gave it to them - but the genetic sequence of their virus won't tell them.

The virus is now routinely sequenced in each infected person to uncover drug-resistance genes, but virus sequences have also been used in several high-profile court cases by lawyers seeking to show who infected whom. This has led some HIV carriers to wonder if they might be able to do the same.

"The data won't work for that," warns Deenan Pillay of University College London - because HIV evolves too fast. This means that even though the viruses from two people may look similar, other local viruses may even be more alike. Analysing them can't show whether A infected B or vice versa, whether it went through a third person or whether both were infected by another person (BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.39315.398843.BE).

However, the British database - now the world's largest collection of viral sequences from a national epidemic - could answer other important questions. For example, it could tell us whether certain strains tend to spread among certain risk groups, or where the super-spreaders of HIV are.

From issue 2621 of New Scientist magazine, 19 September 2007, page 5

New book in the library: HIV Reference Manual

2007-09-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

Cairns, Gus (ed.) HIV reference manual
London, NAM Publications, 2007
C 200 HIV 2007
"HIV is more than a medical condition and the HIV Reference Manual is your guide to understanding the complex picture of HIV. It explains the wider interplay of social cultural, economic and legal factors that impact on people living with HIV and those working to support them" (From: http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1230954.asp).

Key topics include:

- benefits - helping people with HIV understand their entitlements
- the epidemiology of HIV
- HIV and the law – major update on confidentiality, disclosure and medical professional standards and immigration law
- HIV in 2007 – updated analysis of the UK and global
- HIV statistics
- helping people get the most out of the services available
- how HIV status affects asylum applications – the rights of asylum seekers explained, including rights to medical treatment on the NHS
- the impact of HIV on the communities most affected
- the latest prevention research – new technologies and strategies, including the debate on circumcision
- quality of life – how HIV may impact upon mental health rights under the Disability Discrimination Act
- women & HIV

New Issue of AIDS Care: Vol. 19, no 7, August 2007

2007-09-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

AIDS Care - Psychological and Socio-medical Aspects of AIDS/HIV
In this issue:

Original Articles

Is AIDS chronic or terminal? The perceptions of persons living with AIDS and their informal support partners
pp. 835 – 843
Authors: C. P. Hoy-Ellis; K. I. Fredriksen-Goldsen
Abstract

Gender relations in the context of HIV/AIDS in rural South Africa
pp. 844 – 849
Authors: Catherine Ndinda; Ufo Okeke Uzodike; Chiweni Chimbwete; Robert Pool
Abstract

To determine factors in an initiation of a same-sex relationship in rural China: using ethnographic decision model
pp. 850 – 857
Authors: W. C. W. Wong; T. S. K. Kong
Abstract

The social epidemiology of HIV transmission among African American women who use drugs and their social network members
pp. 858 – 865
Authors: M. Miller; C. T. Korves; T. Fernandez
Abstract

Coping with AIDS-related bereavement in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
pp. 866 – 870
Author: C. Demmer
Abstract

Local understanding of an HIV vaccine and its relationship with HIV-related stigma in the Dominican Republic
pp. 871 – 877
Authors: C. Barrington; L. Moreno; D. Kerrigan
Abstract

Health-seeking behaviour for sexually transmitted infections and HIV testing among female sex workers in Vietnam
pp. 878 – 887
Authors: A. D. Ngo; E. A. Ratliff; S. A. McCurdy; M. W. Ross; C. Markham; H. T. B. Pham
Abstract

Knowledge and attitudes of nursing students toward patients living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV): A Turkish perspective
pp. 888 – 894
Authors: H. A. Bekta; Ö. Kulakaç
Abstract

Using the theory of planned behaviour to understand the motivation to learn about HIV/AIDS prevention among adolescents in Tigray, Ethiopia
pp. 895 – 900
Authors: H. Gebreeyesus Hadera; Henk Boer; W. A. J. M. Kuiper
Abstract

HIV-related traumatic stress symptoms in AIDS caregiving family dads
pp. 901 – 909
Authors: R. G. Wight; K. P. Beals; D. Miller-Martinez; D. A. Murphy; C. S. Aneshensel
Abstract

Care centre visits to married people living with HIV: An indicator for measuring AIDS-related stigma & discrimination
pp. 910 – 915
Authors: D. A. Green; S. Devi; L. S. Paulraj
Abstract

Comprehension of sexual situations and its relationship to risky decisions by young adults
pp. 916 – 922
Authors: V. L. Patel; N. A. Yoskowitz; D. R. Kaufman
Abstract

Quality of life in HIV-positive Brazilians: application and validation of the WHOQOL-HIV, Brazilian version
pp. 923 – 930
Authors: R. R. Zimpel; M. P. Fleck
Abstract

Sex work and risk behaviour among HIV-negative gay men
pp. 931 – 934
Authors: G. Prestage; L. Mao; F. Jin; A. Grulich; J. Kaldor; S. Kippax
Abstract

Return to post-test counselling by out-of-treatment injecting drug users participating in a cross-sectional survey in north Vietnam
pp. 935 – 939
Authors: A. Bergenstrom; V. Go; L. V. Nam; B. T. Thuy; D. D. Celentano; C. Frangakis; V. M. Quan
Abstract

Characteristics of bisexually active men in the Seropositive Urban Mens' Study (SUMS)
pp. 940 – 946
Authors: A. O'Leary; D. W. Purcell; R. H. Remien; H. E. Fisher; P. S. Spikes
Abstract

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

New Strategy Could Dramatically Slow The Spread Of HIV

2007-09-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

Source: Science daily

Giving a daily antiretroviral pill to people to prevent HIV could profoundly slow the spread of the infection in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is a full-blown epidemic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report.

Published by the Public Library of Science in the Sept. 19 issue of PLoS One, the findings are based on a mathematical model developed by the researchers to predict the public-health impact of pre-exposure chemoprophylaxis (PrEP) -- an HIV prevention strategy that uses antiretroviral drugs, currently given in combination to treat HIV-positive individuals, to stop the infection from occurring in the first place.

Through the model, the research team predicts that PrEP, targeted to those at highest behavioral risk, could have a major impact on public health, potentially preventing 3.2 million cases of HIV in southern sub-Saharan Africa alone in 10 years. Sub-Saharan Africa, the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS global epidemic, contains almost 63 percent of the world's HIV-infected population, totaling about 22.4 million adults.

Click here to read the entire article.
The article plublished in PLoS One is available here

Voluntary HIV-screening for all adult male inpatients at hospitals

2007-09-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Source: Channel News Asia
By Julia Ng, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 18 September 2007

SINGAPORE: By year's end, all adult male patients admitted to hospitals will be asked if they would like to take a HIV-screening test.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan told Parliament on Tuesday he is also changing the Infectious Diseases Act soon so that no one will be able to claim ignorance of one's HIV-positive status as defence against charges of high-risk behaviour.

He said: "All individuals who engage in high-risk sexual behaviour must go for regular HIV-testing. The Infectious Diseases Act makes it an offence for someone who is HIV-positive to have sex without informing his sexual partner of his HIV status. I will soon come to this House to amend the Act to clarify that ignorance of one's HIV status will not be a defence for those who engage in high-risk sexual behaviour."

There are 3,338 known HIV-infected patients in Singapore, with 278 infected in the first eight months of this year. But what is worrying, Mr Khaw said, is the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV.

Click here to read the entire article

Number of Partners Doesn't Explain Gay HIV Rate

2007-09-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

Source: HealthDay News
Gay, straight men equally prone to unprotected sex, research shows

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 13 (HealthDay News) -- The HIV epidemic among gay men can't be explained by their number of sexual partners, U.S. researchers report.

More than half the new HIV infections diagnosed in the United States in 2005 were among gay men, a team at the University of Washington, Seattle, noted. In addition, as many as one in five gay men living in cities may be HIV-positive.

But the sexual behaviors of gay and heterosexual men in the United States may not be as different as most people think, the researchers said. In fact, two surveys found that most gay men have a similar rate of sex with unprotected partners compared to straight men or women.

"Just because gay men continue to have much higher levels of HIV, we can't jump to the conclusion that that means that they are promiscuous or that prevention messages aren't working," said lead researcher Steven Goodreau, an assistant professor of anthropology.

In the study, Goodreau and a colleague, Dr. Matthew R. Golden, analyzed data from two large population-based surveys. Using those figures, they estimated how many sex partners gay men and straight men and women have, and what number of gay men have either insertive or receptive anal sex, or both.

The report is published in the Sept. 12 online edition of Sexually Transmitted Infections. (Access to abstract)

Click here to read the article.

New issue of the Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social services (Vol. 6, no 3)

2007-09-14T10:02:00.001-07:00

The Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services provides a forum in which social workers and other professionals in the field of HIV/AIDS work can access the latest research and techniques in order to provide effective social, educational, and clinical services to all individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. From best practices and advice on case management to evaluations of the impact of various legislation and social policy decisions, this journal will keep you at the forefront of the field!

In this issue:

Attitudes, Knowledge, Behavior in the Context of HIV/AIDS Stigma
pp. 1 - 4
Nathan L. Linsk PhD, Dorie J. Gilbert PhD

Opening Up Windows When Clients Keep Closing Doors: Key Elements in Engaging HIV-Positive Individuals in Prevention Interventions
pp. 5 - 28
Sheri B. Kirshenbaum PhD, Rogerio M. Pinto PhD, Jacqueline Correale MPH et all.

Understanding Motivations for Sex Among Detained Youth: Implications for HIV Prevention Programs
pp. 29 - 41
Dexter R. Voisin PhD, Laura F. Salazar PhD, Richard A. Crosby PhD, Ralph J. DiClemente PhD

Extending the Use of the 40-Item HIV-Stigma Scale to Older Adults: An Examination of Reliability and Validity
pp. 43 - 54
Charles A. Emlet PhD, ACSW

The Impact of HIV-Related Stigma on HIV Care and Prevention Providers
pp. 55 - 73
Michael Reece PhD, MPH, Amanda E. Tanner PhD, MPH, Stephen E. Karpiak PhD, Kate Coffey PhD, MSc

Guyanese Health Care Providers' HIV-Related Experiences, Attitudes, and Readiness to Provide Care
pp. 75 - 96
Cynthia Cannon Poindexter MSW, PhD

A Comparison of Grief Reactions in Cancer, HIV/AIDS, and Suicide Bereavement
pp. 97 - 112
James A. Houck PhD

Contact the library to request copies of articles.

Peru blood banks face HIV crisis

2007-09-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

Source: BBC News

Dozens of blood banks in Peru have been closed after at least four people were infected with the HIV virus through contaminated transfusions.
The government said all 240 of the country's facilities would be thoroughly screened, amid what is being described as a national emergency. The patients were all infected at a hospital in the port city of Callao. Officials insisted Peru's blood banks met international standards and urged people to continue giving blood.

"We do not want people to panic, what we have to do is be more careful, strengthen our care [of patients]," said Health Minister Carlos Vallejos.

Public alarm

The crisis was prompted after 44-year-old Judith Rivera contacted the media earlier this week to say she had been infected with HIV during a routine operation. Mrs Rivera, a mother of four, said she was taking legal action to claim compensation.

"What is done is done, as they say, and a life has no price tag," she said during a news conference.

Health officials later revealed that three other patients had been infected with the virus after having blood transfusions at the same hospital - one of them a child aged 11 months.

The Washington-based Pan American Health Organization says its latest figures show that up to a quarter of the blood in Peru's banks is not properly screened. In a further blow to the health system, officials also confirmed that 30 patients who attended a dialysis treatment centre had been infected with Hepatitis C. The BBC's Dan Collyns, in Lima, says Peruvians are alarmed and are avoiding public hospitals. He says the government's response to the crisis is unlikely to restore public confidence in the country's flagging health service.

European researchers develop method of calculating short-term risk of HIV disease progression

2007-09-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Source: AIDSMAP

A new HIV risk score can accurately calculate the short term risk of HIV disease progression, according to researchers who have tested it in a cohort of 5150 HIV-infected people. The research is published in the September edition of AIDS.

The researchers hope the scoring system – which will soon be available on the web – will make treatment decisions easier for both patients and clinicians.

Other prognostic HIV scores have been developed but have tended to be designed to predict long-term clinical progression in patients before they have started antiretroviral therapy. They have also not used routinely measured lab values.

The new tool, called the EuroSIDA risk score, has been designed to be used in people already on anti-HIV treatment and calculates the risk of disease progression in the short-term, for example three, six or twelve months. (...)

Click here to read the entire article

New Issue of AIDS Education and Prevention (Vol. 19, no 4, August 2007)

2007-09-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

In this issue:

Focusing HIV Prevention on Those Most Likely to Transmit the Virus
Authors: Gary R. West, Amy L. Corneli, Kim Best, Katie M. Kurkjian and William Cates Jr.
pp. 275-288
Abstract

Interaction of Cognitive Performance and Knowing Someone Who Has Died from AIDS on HIV Risk Behaviors
Authors: Mary M. Mitchell, S. Geoff Severtson and William W. Latimer
pp. 289-297
Abstract

HIV–Related Communication and Perceived Norms: An Analysis of the Connection Among Injection Drug Users
Authors: Melissa A. Davey–Rothwell and Carl A. Latkin
pp. 298-309
Abstract

Changes in Sexual Behavior during a Safety and Feasibility Trial of a Microbicide/Diaphragm Combination: An Integrated Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
Authors: Greg Guest, Laura Johnson, Holly Burke, Reathe Rain-Taljaard, Lawrence Severy, Claire von Mollendorf and Lut Van Damme
pp. 310-320
Abstract

Current Sexual Activity and Risky Sexual Behavior in Older Men With or At Risk for HIV Infection
Authors: Nina A. Cooperman, Julia H. Arnsten and Robert S. Klein
pp. 321-333
Abstract

Sexual Behaviors of Individuals With HIV Living in South India: A Qualitative Study
Authors: A.K. Sri Krishnan, Ellen Hendriksen, Snigda Vallabhaneni,
pp. 334-345
Abstract

Structural Violence Against Kothi–Identified Men Who Have Sex with Men in Chennai, India: A Qualitative Investigation
Authors: Venkatesan Chakrapani, Peter A. Newman, Murali Shunmugam,
pp. 346-364
Abstract

AIDS Vancouver rides a custom chopper to 'Spread The Word'

2007-08-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

There is no cure for HIV disease and infection rates continue to increase. There were 420 positive HIV test results in Vancouver in 2005 bringing the total to 12,342 since 1989.

That's why AIDS Vancouver and Vancouver Custom Chopper are launching the AIDS Vancouver Custom Chopper Raffle to help spread the word about HIV disease.

"We all have a responsibility to protect ourselves and others," said William Booth, executive director for AIDS Vancouver. "Don't ask don't tell doesn't work."

Of the 2,500 Canadians that will test positive for HIV this year 1,300 won't know where they contracted the infection according to AIDS Vancouver's national statistics.

"The demand for care and support services is greater than we can meet," Booth said. "We are only getting resources for delivering support programs but not for prevention. Yet if we invested more resources for prevention we would need much less for services."

A United Nations Population Fund report released globally last month states there is an estimated 30 per cent HIV prevalence rate in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside- the same as Botswana.

"We wanted to make this chopper special for AIDS Vancouver," Teather said. "AIDS is a horrible disease and it's affecting our young people so we want to help AIDS Vancouver in the work they are doing to fight this disease."

The prize motorcycle is a 2007 Phantom Chopper designed by Vancouver Chopper owner Troy Teather and comes with an 88 cubic inch Harley Davidson engine, a Berrie Dale original stitch-leather seat and a 70's throwback James Brown paint theme.

"While we have made tremendous progress over the years, increasing awareness must remain a top priority in the fight against HIV/AIDS," said Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan. "This is why it is so important to 'Spread The Word.' There is a risk of complacency associated with the success we have achieved."

For More Information or to set up interviews please contact John Pigeon at 604-987-9699 or by email at johnp@vancouverchopper.com
Click here for the downloadable form to order tickets.

Drug deaths too high in Downtown Eastside: study

2007-08-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Source: CTV News

VANCOUVER -- A report on illegal drug use in Vancouver says deaths were down in Vancouver and the rest of B.C. for 2006.

However, residents of the Downtown Eastside don't fare well in the report from the Canadian Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use. It says residents there have seven times the provincial rate of drug-induced deaths and a 33 per cent higher death rate than the rest of the province.

Vancouver's rate of newly diagnosed hepatitis C cases declined from 2006 and new cases of HIV were down from 2005 in connection to intravenous drug use. The report also says the weight of ecstasy seized by police in 2005 is over 40 times that seized in 2002.

The group says the study was done to provide policy makers and community leaders with better information to help develop harm reduction and prevention techniques to reduce drug use.

Recent acquisitions on Sexually Transmitted Diseases

2007-08-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Barlow, David. Sexually transmitted infections : The facts
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006
B 700 BAR 2006 (Click on call number to borrow this book!)
"With all the attention heaped upon the most deadly sexually transmitted infection of all (HIV), other non-fatal forms of infection have been somewhat neglected, and even overlooked in sexual education. However, incidences of STIs such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea have been dramatically and silently rising in many parts of the world in recent years - though receiving far less attention. It is now recognized that this is a major public health issue, affecting thousands of people, irrespective of background, education or social class. Providing essential information on all the main forms of sexually transmitted infections, the book delivers essential, accessible, pragmatic, information that should be read by all adults."

Canadian guidelines on sexually transmitted infections
Ottawa, ON, Public Health Agency of Canada, 2006
B 700 CAN 2006
Available online: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/std-mts/sti_2006/pdf/sti2006_e.pdf

Sutton, Amy L. (Ed.) Sexually transmitted diseases sourcebook : Basic consumer health information about Chlamydial infections, Gonorrhea, Hepatitis, Herpes, HIV/AIDS, Human papillomavirus, Pubic lice, Scabies, Syphilis, Trichmoniasis, Vaginal infections and other sexually transmitted diseases, including facts about risks factors, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections; along with updates on current research initiatives, a glossary of related terms and resources for additional help and information.
Detroit, USA, Omnigraphics, 2006
Call number: B 700 SEX 2006

Sexually Transmitted Infections : A guide for people with HIV
London, UK, Terrence Higgins Trust, 2005
Available online
This booklet explains some of the specific issues about STIs relevant to people with HIV. It explains how STIs might impact on their health, and on the risks of HIV transmission. It also gives guidance on screening and treatment.

HIV & sex
London, UK, NAM, 2006
Available online.
"This booklet is an introduction to sexual health for people with HIV. It is in two broad sections. The first looks at how having HIV might affect the way you regard sex.The second section explains why sexual health is important and the steps you can take to protect your own and other people's sexual health. This booklet is not intended to replace discussion with your doctor. However, it might help you to decide what questions you would like answered."

All these publications are available in the library. Visit us or contact us to borrow them.

Uganda: Country's Invisible Cure for HIV/Aids

2007-08-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Source: AllAfrica

John Donnelly
Kampala

HALFWAY through The Invisible Cure, author Helen Epstein writes about finding a long- forgotten document in a small research library in Canada. Reading through the paper, Epstein says, "I felt as though a small stick of dynamite had gone off in my head."

Epstein had unearthed a rare copy of a detailed study on the sexual behaviour of Ugandans in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period that coincided with the country's historic drop in HIV rates. In short, Epstein knew, the research done by Maxine Ankrah, an African-American academic, would give invaluable insights into what had halted the epidemic - insights that could then be applied to other countries with high rates of H.I.V. and Aids.

Before Epstein's discovery, Ankrah's research seemed destined for oblivion. A United Nations Aids researcher had read it, failed to understand its significance or to credit it and, Epstein recounts, wrongly concluded that an increase in condom use was responsible for the decrease of the HIV rate in Uganda. In reality, according to three later analyses of Ankrah's study, the primary reason for the decline was completely different: substantial numbers of Ugandans had ended affairs and remained faithful to one partner

Uganda has long been a focal point in the contentious world of Aids policy. But sometimes a bolt of clarity shoots out of the blue, as it did for Epstein when she read Ankrah's paper - and as it will for readers of this book who yearn for insights on how a deadly virus now infects an estimated 25 million Africans and has killed untold millions more. Reading The Invisible Cure is like travelling into remote and hard-to comprehend territory with an unblinking and sure-footed guide. (...)

Click here to view the complete text of this book review.
The Invisible cure is also available in the library. Use our catalogue to borrow it.

Alcohol consumption linked to HIV disease progression, study shows

2007-08-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

Source: Science daily

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found a link between alcohol consumption and HIV disease progression in HIV-infected persons.

Alcohol use is common among HIV-infected persons, and its impact on HIV disease progression has been examined in in-vitro, animal and human studies. Alcohol may adversely affect immunologic function in HIV-infected persons by various mechanisms, including increased HIV replication in lymphocytes.

Researchers assessed CD4 cell counts, HIV RNA levels [viral load], and alcohol consumption in 595 HIV-infected persons with alcohol problems. The relation of HIV disease progression to alcohol consumption was studied using longitudinal regression models controlling for known prognostic factors, including adherence and depressive symptoms, and stratified by antiretroviral therapy (ART) use. Among subjects who were not on ART, heavy alcohol consumption was associated with a lower CD4 cell count. Among subjects who were on ART, heavy alcohol consumption was not associated with a lower CD4 cell count or higher HIV viral load. "

Alcohol use in patients with a prevalent disease such as HIV, can have important public health consequences," said lead author Jeffrey Samet, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine at BUSM and chief of General Internal Medicine at Boston Medical Center. "HIV-infected persons who drink alcohol heavily and are not on ART might decrease their risk of disease progression if they abstain from alcohol use."

Researchers further noted that there is extensive evidence about the efficacy of a brief intervention for unhealthy alcohol use in nondependent drinkers in medical settings and of the efficacy of psychosocial and pharmacologic treatments for alcohol dependence. "Although limited evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of intervention for alcohol problems specifically in people with HIV, its implementation among HIV-infected populations seems to be a worthwhile goal," according to senior author Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at BUSM, director of the Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit at Boston Medical Center, and associate director of the Boston University School of Public Health Youth Alcohol Prevention Center.

The study appears in the August issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Contact the library to request a copy.

Food 'no substitute' in HIV fight

2007-08-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Source: BBC News

Scientists in South Africa say they have found no evidence that healthier eating is a substitute for medical drugs when treating HIV/Aids and TB. This follows an exhaustive study on the links between nutrition and treatment. South Africa's health minister has faced ridicule in the past for stressing the benefits of beetroot, garlic and potatoes in fighting HIV. South Africa has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates and has increased the rollout of Aids drugs.

Controversy

The researchers say that scientific evidence about conditions in South Africa was urgently needed. The report by the Academy of Science of South Africa concludes that no food has been identified as an effective alternative to appropriate medication in fighting HIV/Aids and tuberculosis. It acknowledges that nutrition is important for general health, but is not sufficient to contain either the HIV/Aids or the TB epidemic. It says a well-fed population on its own will not resist HIV/Aids without anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs.

Controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been criticised for over-emphasising the importance of nutrition, and under-playing the role of ARVs. But the government has now adopted a comprehensive approach and about 280,000 people were on ARV treatment at the end of March this year. However, that is still well short of the estimated 800,000 who are thought to need ARVs in South Africa.

New issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Vol. 21, no 7, July 2007

2007-08-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

In this issue:

Case Report: An Uncommon Presentation of HIV-Related Lymphoma
pp. 443-446.
Abstract

Merkel Cell Carcinoma and HIV Infection: A Case Report and Review of the Literature
pp. 447-451.
Abstract

Global Cardiovascular Risk in Patients with HIV Infection: Concordance and Differences in Estimates According to Three Risk Equations (Framingham, SCORE, and PROCAM)
pp. 452-457.
Abstract

Tobacco Addiction and HIV Infection: Toward the Implementation of Cessation Programs. ANRS CO3 Aquitaine Cohort
pp. 458-468.
Abstract

Risk Factors for Grade 3–4 Liver Enzyme Elevation in HIV and Hepatitis C Coinfected Patients on Combination Antiretroviral Therapy
pp. 469-478.
Abstract

Hepatitis C Infection Is Associated with Lower Lipids and High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein in HIV-Infected Men
pp. 479-491.
Abstract

Disclosure of Positive HIV Serostatus by Men Who Have Sex with Men to Family and Friends Over Time
pp. 492-500.
Abstract

Posttraumatic Stress and Trauma History in Adolescents and Young Adults with HIV
pp. 501-508.
Abstract

Experiences and Perceptions of Patients with 100% Adherence to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy: A Qualitative Study
pp. 509-520.
Abstract

130 Canadian doctors call on Prime Minister to support InSite

2007-08-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Source: CNW Group

VANCOUVER, Aug. 21 /CNW/ - The executive directors of PHS Community Services Society (PHS), one of the operators of Canada's only supervised injection site, have responded to yesterday's comments by Minister of Health Tony Clement by pointing to a commentary published today, supported by 130 doctors and scientists, that states the treatment of substance abuse is being judged by "an entirely different standard than the treatment of other common conditions".

The commentary by respected University of Toronto research scientist, Stephen Hwang, was published today in Open Medicine and says that the current uncertainty over InSite's future is "an alarming example of a recent trend towards the increased politicization of science".

"In a series of peer-reviewed research articles, the supervised injection facility in Vancouver has been shown to provide a number of benefits, including reduced needle sharing, decreased public drug use, fewer publicly discarded syringes, and more rapid entry into detoxification services by persons using the facility," the commentary reads.

The commentary, Science and Ideology: A Call for Action, can be read in full here:
http://www.communityinsite.ca/Commentary%20-%20Science%20and%20Ideology_CMAJ-1.htm

"This commentary reflects our view that any judgment on InSite should be a health issue, not a political issue," said Liz Evans, executive director of PHS. "This latest academic commentary, and its high-level of support from the scientific community, adds to the overwhelming consensus that InSite saves lives and improves public safety in our communities."

A total of 24 peer-reviewed papers have been published over the last few years in prestigious medical journals including the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the British Medical Journal, stating that InSite has reduced public injections, overdose fatalities, and the transmission of blood-borne infections, like HIV and Hepatitis C.

On Friday, PHS and two addicted people who use InSite issued a statement of claim in the BC Supreme Court that questions the need for its current exemption from the Federal Government of Canada to continue to operate.

"We would rather not be in court on this issue, but we see this as an opportunity to get some much-needed clarification on the future of InSite," said Mark Townsend, executive director of PHS. "We need to be able to operate on a long-term basis, so that we can move past this recurring debate and focus on continuing to save lives."

HIV denialists spread misinformation online: Consequences could be deadly

2007-08-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Source: Science Daily

The Internet is serving as a fertile medium for "HIV denialists" to spread false ideas about HIV/AIDS, which could have terrible public health consequences, say scientists in a policy paper in PLoS Medicine.

"It may seem remarkable that, 23 years after the identification of HIV, there is still denial that the virus is the cause of AIDS," say Tara Smith (University of Iowa College of Public Health) and Steven Novella (Yale University School of Medicine). But with the arrival of the Internet, HIV denialist organizations such as "Reappraising AIDS" have reignited their campaign to spread misinformation.

There is a consensus in the scientific community that HIV is the cause of AIDS, based upon over two decades of robust research. Deniers must therefore reject this consensus, say Smith and Novella, "either by denigrating the notion of scientific authority in general, or by arguing that the mainstream HIV community is intellectually compromised."

It is therefore not surprising, they say, that much of the newer denial literature on the Internet reflects a basic distrust of authority and of the institutions of science and medicine. Distrusting mainstream medical practitioners, many HIV deniers turn to unproven "alternative" medicines in search of treatment.

Many members of the general public do not have the scientific background to critique the assertions put forth by these groups, say Smith and Novella. Those who believe the false information spread by HIV denialists could end up putting themselves at risk of HIV infection (e.g. by abandoning safe sex), while those who are already infected could end up seeking unproven, ineffective remedies.

"The effect of denial groups on public perception of HIV infection is an area ripe for careful research," they say "as this denial can have lethal consequences."

Citation: Smith TC, Novella SP (2007) HIV denial in the Internet era. PLoS Med 4(8): e256. (available here)

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Public Library of Science.

Canadians want to ramp up global AIDS initiatives: poll

2007-08-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

Source: CBC News

Most Canadians want the federal government to help increase access to treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS in developing countries, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll released Friday. Ninety-one per cent of those surveyed said that it's "very important" (46 per cent) or "somewhat important" (45 per cent) that the federal government should help facilitate access to drugs and medical treatments.

Residents of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were most likely to believe this is important, accounting for 93 per cent of the responses. Forty-eight per cent of respondents felt that current spending on HIV and AIDS outside of Canada is too little, while 43 per cent said the government spends "the right amount."

Stephen Lewis, board chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, told CBC.ca that the poll highlights a large divide between the views of Canadians and their politicians. He spoke at a press conference in Toronto announcing the results of the Ipsos-Reid poll.

"I've never fully understood that. The G8 governments have always had this extraordinary disconnect between what obviously the public feels about the issue and what the politicians express or do on the issue. I don't know what that means," he said. "Does it mean that the budget is more important than human well-being? How do they go to Africa for their photo ops and then they come back and it's business as usual?"

Lewis used the press conference to lobby the federal government for more aid. "We are calling on Canada to provide five per cent of the global [AIDS] fund, which is $900 million over the next three years."

Read the rest of the article
More information here: http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=3596

Rare blood virus found in almost 4 in 1,000 in Nunavut

2007-08-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Source: CBC News

Almost four in every 1,000 people in Nunavut may have a rare, incurable yet preventable virus called HTLV-1, a research report prepared for the Nunavut government has found. Known as the Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus Type One, HTLV-1 is transmitted through sexual intercourse, breastfeeding, blood-to-blood contact and needle sharing. In less than five per cent of those infected, it can cause cancer of the blood and disorders affecting the bladder, legs and nervous system.

The overall prevalance rate of the virus in the territory is still low at 3.7 for every 1,000 people. But health officials are stressing the importance of safer sex practices and testing, said Dr. Geraldine Osborne, Nunavut's associate medical officer of health

"It's a concern as much as any sexually transmitted disease — as much as hepatitis C, hepatitis B, all these other viruses that are here that are preventable," Osborne told CBC News.
The study, which had its final report published in July, was prepared by the Public Health Agency of Canada and Nunavut Health and Social Services.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

bioLytical Gains Support of BC Persons with AIDS Society and AIDS Vancouver in HIV Testing and Awareness Campaign

2007-08-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

Source: bioLytical Laboratories

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Aug. 9, 2007) - bioLytical today announced the added support of the BC Persons with AIDS Society and AIDS Vancouver for the inaugural Test Your Commitment Campaign. Through the campaign bioLytical hopes to bring increased awareness to HIV and the ease of being tested. Running August 10th at the Vancouver Art Gallery and August 11th at Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby, the Test Your Commitment campaign will feature live demonstrations of the INSTITM kit, the only Health Canada approved rapid HIV test for point-of-care testing. At 60 seconds for a reading, the INSTITM HIV test is the fastest HIV diagnostic test in the world.

Upon consultation with local HIV/AIDS community groups, including BC People With AIDS Society (BCPWA) and AIDS Vancouver, bioLytical agreed the public would be best served with an HIV awareness and education campaign. 15,000 Canadians are HIV positive and do not know it.

Community organizations raised concerns that testing public venues would risk confidentiality of test results. As an alternative solution, it was decided to showcase the INSTITM kit through live testing of public personas and local celebrities. While the focus of the campaign will be on the importance of getting tested for HIV, actual testing will be encouraged in private point-of-care facilities across the province. AIDS Vancouver will be on hand supporting the event by providing educational support and information.

"These community organizations work directly within HIV communities and are an invaluable source of knowledge and insight into events such as this," comments Carl Roy, CEO bioLytical, "We appreciate their concerns and recognize the importance of confidentiality."

BCPWA Society and AIDS Vancouver recognize the benefits the INSTITM kit offers in terms of increasing the accessibility of HIV testing. Both groups believe the INSTITM kit, when applied together with confidential care and counselling, will benefit HIV/AIDS education, prevention and care.

"The INSTITM kit provides a welcome advancement in addressing the HIV epidemic," says Paul Lewand, Chair of BCPWA. "Being able to obtain HIV test results in just 60 seconds makes HIV testing much more accessible and convenient. The rapidity of the test could translate to greater numbers being tested and becoming aware of their HIV status. The sooner HIV positive people are aware of their status, the sooner they can implement an appropriate care and treatment regime, and the sooner they can take steps necessary to avoid further infections."

"AIDS Vancouver welcomes new opportunities to increase public education and awareness about HIV disease. Combined with proper standards for client-confidentiality, informed consent and counselling, the point of contact test kit has potential to be an extremely useful tool for health care providers," comments William Booth, Executive Director, AIDS Vancouver. "We appreciate that bioLytical recognizes the importance of collaborating with community-based organizations such as AIDS Vancouver, who provide care and support services for individuals living with HIV disease."

Currently in British Columbia, the INSTITM test is only available at limited locations. Though approved for use by all point-of-care facilities, the provincial healthcare system has yet to cover the cost of the kit under the current healthcare plan. It is hoped that B.C. will follow the example of the Ontario government and offer the test free of charge as part of the provincial healthcare system. Such government funding would alleviate supply demands on individual clinics and physicians.

ABOUT THE BRITISH COLUMBIA PERSONS WITH AIDS SOCIETY

The British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society (BCPWA Society), a non-profit, consumer-driven organization is in its 20th year of operation, is dedicated to empowering persons living with HIV disease and AIDS through mutual support and collective action. As western Canada's largest AIDS organization, with a membership of more than 4,400 HIV+ individuals, the Society provides support and advocacy services, treatment information, and volunteer opportunities to its diverse membership.

ABOUT AIDS VANCOUVER

AIDS Vancouver was founded in 1983 as one of the first AIDS service organizations in Canada. For the past 20 years, AV has been at the forefront of community response to the epidemic here in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Their 28 paid staff and 300 volunteers strive to provide a comprehensive and integrated range of health promotion, education, and support services.

ABOUT INSTITM HIV-1 RAPID ANTIBODY TEST

The INSTITM HIV-1 Rapid Antibody Test is a rapid, in-vitro, qualitative test for the detection of antibodies to Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in human whole blood, serum or plasma. The test is capable of providing results in 60-seconds and is intended for use as a screening assay by trained personnel in medical facilities, clinical laboratories, emergency care situations, and physicians' offices.

ABOUT BIOLYTICAL LABORATORIES

bioLytical Laboratories (Inc.) is a leading developer and manufacturer of diagnostic tests for global health care markets. bioLytical is a privately owned company with headquarters and a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility located in Richmond, British Columbia, with offices in United Kingdom and Uganda, Africa. For more information about bioLytical and INSTITM, please visit www.biolytical.com.

This news release is not, and under no circumstances is to be construed as, an advertisement, solicitation or offering of securities of bioLytical Laboratories. The statements made in this news release may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual events or results may differ from the Company's expectations.

For more information, please contact

Smith Biotech
Amanda Smith, BSc.
Media Contact for bioLytical Laboratories
(778) 846-4116
Email: amanda@smithbiotech.com

or

Media Contact for AIDS Vancouver
Arthur Yee
(604) 893-2241
(604) 893-2211 (FAX)
Email: arthury@aidsvancouver.org