Archive for February, 2009

A majority of HIV-positive prison inmates in Texas do not fill their prescriptions in an appropriate amount of time after release, creating a threat to public health, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Houston Chronicle reports. According to researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, Baylor ... Full story

NPR's "News and Notes" on Tuesday profiled two brothers, originally from a village in western Kenya, who returned to the village after attending medical school at Dartmouth College to build and operate a local health clinic to provide services such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria treatment. Milton Ochieng said that after seeing "the difficulties in people ... Full story

"A combination of two antiobiotics already in use to treat other bacterial infections could potentially treat extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB), scientists from New York’s Yeshiva University report today in the February 27 edition of Science. "If the results are replicated in human studies due to begin later this year in South Africa and South Korea, “this discovery could be one of the most promising developments ... Full story

Young people in Costa Rica's coastal cities of Limon and Puntarenas have limited knowledge of HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention methods, and many practice unsafe sexual behaviors, according to a report released Tuesday, Xinhua News Agency reports. Costa Rica released the report during an event launching an agreement between the government and UNICEF to implement a joint ... Full story

A lawmaker in Illinois has proposed a bill (H.B. 0154) to amend a current statute that requires state or local health officials to report the names of HIV-positive students to school principals, the Daily Journal reports. The standing law also allows principals to reveal to school nurses the identity of HIV-positive students, ... Full story

HIV can adapt rapidly to evade immune system responses, and these mutations can be passed on in the wider population, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature, Reuters reports. Although researchers have known that HIV constantly mutates within an individual person, the new study indicates that these mutations that help the virus attack ... Full story

Providing a synthetic form of the immune system protein interleukin-2 (IL-2) to HIV-infected individuals already taking combination antiretroviral therapy boosts their numbers of CD4+ T cells, the key white blood cells destroyed by HIV, but fails to reduce their risk of HIV-associated opportunistic diseases or death compared with combination antiretroviral therapy alone. "These are the findings of ... Full story

IDSA and HIVMA are surprised and disappointed that the Senate removed one of the most cost-effective provisions—the Prevention and Wellness Fund—from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to be voted on today. This $5.8 billion provision—less than one-tenth of one percent of the total stimulus package—would have invested in immunizations, health promotion, HIV/AIDS prevention, ... Full story

HIV/HCV co-infected individuals who achieve a complete early response to interferon-based therapy for chronic hepatitis C have a 51% chance of achieving a sustained virological response using an extended 72-week course of treatment, researchers reported on Tuesday at the Sixteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal, Canada. ... "Many patients found extended duration therapy difficult ... Full story

HIV infection itself appears to increase the thickness of the carotid artery and is therefore a significant independent risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD)—ultimately increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke—according to a new study presented Wednesday, February 11, at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Montreal." Full story