posted by admin on Jul 11
Now that an estimated 1 in 4 Americans with HIV is infected without knowing it, tests that provide rapid results have been welcomed with open arms. But imagine if you were told you’re HIV positive and later learn that you actually don’t have the virus. In New York City, some people have had that experience: One rapid test that examines oral fluid samples–the OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test–has produced a higher than expected number of false positives, leading the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to suspend use of the test in its STD clinics; the OraQuick finger prick test is still in use.
Jennifer Ruth, a spokesperson at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the agency is investigating clusters of false positives associated with the Read the rest of this entry »
posted by admin on Jul 2
JOHANNESBURG, 26 June 2008 (PlusNews) - Providing HIV/AIDS services to people on the run from armed conflict or natural disaster seems, on the face of it, too complicated when trying to meet the pressing immediate demands of an emergency.
By failing to address people affected by HIV in such situations, however, aid organisations could be doing even more damage, warned the 2008 World Disasters Report, launched on 26 June by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
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posted by admin on Jul 1
TUESDAY, July 1 (HealthDay News) — Drugs that suppress HIV are keeping infected individuals alive and relatively healthy for years, even decades. But studies suggest that a new health risk is emerging for these long-term survivors: increased odds for heart attack and stroke.It’s not clear whether the cause is the virus itself or the drugs used to treat it, said Dr. Steven Grinspoon, professor of medicine at Harvard University.
The exact cause of heightened heart risk among HIV patients “may not be just one or the other,” he said. “Both may act, in different ways. The drugs may be causing metabolic problems such as dyslipidemia in the traditional way, while the virus can cause inflammation, which is a known factor in atherosclerosis.”
Dyslipidemia is an abnormal
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posted by admin on Jun 29
GENEVA (AFP) - Africa’s AIDS epidemic is so severe that it should be classed as a disaster comparable to floods or famine, the Red Cross said Thursday.In its annual “World Disasters Report”, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said that there was “no doubt” that HIV/AIDS matches the UN definition of a disaster.
About two thirds of the world’s HIV-positive cases are in sub-Saharan Africa. At least one person in 10 is living with HIV in nations such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia, the report said.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs classes a disaster as a “serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceed the ability of a society to cope using only its own resources”.
The Red Cross said such a crisis now exists in Africa.
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posted by admin on Jun 29
Like guided missiles, radioactive anti-HIV antibodies seek out and destroy HIV-infected cells.
The new approach to AIDS therapy — called radioimmunotherapy — works in mice, report Ekaterina Dadachova, PhD, of New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and colleagues.
“Radioimmunotherapy is supposed to be curative,” Dadachova tells WebMD. “Current HIV treatments kill the virus, but it will come back because it hides in latently infected cells. Our goal is to go after those cells, so radioimmunotherapy has the potential to cure somebody completely.”
Dadachova’s colleague, Harris Goldstein, MD, tempers his enthusiasm a bit more. Goldstein is director of the Einstein/MMC Center for AIDS Research in New York.
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