HIV Woman Jailed...

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Who was the lab tech that was supposed to test the organs??...

4 transplant patients infected with HIV
Tues., Nov. 13, 2007 - Experts: Case signals patients’ need for more information on donors

A troubling case in which a high-risk organ donor infected four patients with the AIDS virus and hepatitis has led medical ethicists to warn that patients need to know more about whose organs they’re getting. Public health officials said Tuesday the Chicago case is the first known instance of HIV transmission through organ transplants since 1986.

It’s also the first ever known instance in which one organ donor has spread hepatitis C and HIV at the same time, said Dr. Matt Kuehnert of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC and other public health officials are investigating the Chicago cases.

But they emphasized that the risk of getting any disease from transplanted organs is less than 0.01 percent. Noting that more than 400,000 transplants have occurred nationwide in the past two decades, they called the transplant system safe.

Failure of standard testing

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Feds investigate tainted transplants
At issue is what hospitals knew and told four patients about high-risk donor
Nov. 16, 2007

Federal officials are investigating what three hospitals knew and told four organ transplant patients about a high-risk donor who infected them with HIV and hepatitis _ the first known instance of HIV transmission through organ transplants in the U.S. since 1986. The investigation's new phase involves the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees organ procurement programs and hospitals countrywide.

The stakes are high: If the agency finds any mishandling and the hospitals do not comply with any demands for corrective action, the hospitals could face penalties. The worst would be being ousted from the Medicare program participation, meaning a loss of crucial federal revenue. The case disclosed this week also is the first time HIV and hepatitis have been spread simultaneously from one donor to transplant recipients, public health officials say.

While Medicare officials generally contract with local authorities to investigate hospitals, this time the agency has sent officials to Chicago to assist investigators from Illinois' Department of Public Health, said Jan Tarantino, director of the agency's division of continuing care providers. "We're taking some extra steps ... because this is potentially a very serious situation," she said Thursday.

Unlikely tragedy

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Transplant patient a ‘mess’ after HIV diagnosis
Woman was not told her kidney was high risk, attorney says
Nov. 16, 2007

A woman in her 30s who is one of the four organ transplant patients infected with HIV and hepatitis was not told that the infected donor was high risk, and had previously rejected another donor "because of his lifestyle," her attorney said.

Attorney Thomas Demetrio filed a petition Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the woman, asking officials to keep a hospital and an organ procurement center from destroying or altering any records involving the donation.

"She's really a mess right now," Demetrio said of the Chicago-area woman. "She's still in shock." The patient, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, received a kidney transplant at the University of Chicago Medical Center on Jan. 9, Demetrio said.

Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network in Elmhurst and the University of Chicago both knew the kidney donor was high-risk and did not inform the patient, Demetrio said. University of Chicago spokesman John Easton responded in an e-mail: "We believe we follow guidelines, and of course with the patient's consent we will provide necessary records and documents, as is consistent with our open process."

More Infected transplant patient a ‘mess’ - Health care - MSNBC.com

Granny says "But now don't nobody go stigmatizin' or discriminatin' against gays for spreadin' AIDS to begin with - dat wouldn't be PC!"

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Cooking the numbers for more funding?...

AIDS Cases Drop; Bad Data to Blame
Monday, Nov. 19, 2007 —The number of AIDS cases worldwide fell by more than 6 million cases this year to 33.2 million, global health officials said Tuesday. But the decline is mostly on paper.

Previous estimates were largely inflated, and the new numbers are the result of a new methodology. They show AIDS cases in 2007 were down from almost 39.5 million last year, according to the World Health Organization and the United Nations AIDS agency. Although the decline is largely due to revised numbers, U.N. officials said it still showed the AIDS pandemic was losing momentum. "For the first time, we are seeing a decline in global AIDS deaths," said Dr. Kevin De ****, director of WHO's AIDS department. The two agencies will issue their annual AIDS report Wednesday after convening an expert meeting last week in Geneva to examine their data collection methods.

Much of the drop is due to revised numbers from India — which earlier this year slashed its numbers in half, from about 6 million cases to about 3 million — and to new data from several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Previous AIDS numbers were largely based on the numbers of infected pregnant women at clinics, as well as projecting the AIDS rates of certain high-risk groups like drug users to the entire population at risk. Officials said those numbers were flawed, and are now incorporating more data like national household surveys. U.N. officials could not rule out future downward corrections. WHO and UNAIDS experts reported 2.5 million newly infected people in 2007. Just a few years ago, that figure was about 5 million.

While the global AIDS numbers are falling, there are huge regional differences. Sub-Sarahan Africa remains the epicenter of the epidemic. AIDS is still the leading cause of death in there, where it affects men, women and children. Elsewhere in the world, AIDS outbreaks are mostly concentrated in gay men, intravenous drug users, and sex workers. But the U.N. said progress was being made, and that the global epidemic peaked in the late 1990s. "There are some encouraging elements in the data," said De ****. He said the dropping numbers were proof that some of the UN's strategies to fight AIDS were working. Not everyone agrees. Some critics have accused the U.N. of inflating its AIDS numbers, and say the revised figures are long overdue.

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Drug resistant TB breakthrough...

Scientists decode genes of resistant TB
Tues., Nov. 20, 2007 WASHINGTON - Finding could lead to development of better treatments, researchers say

Researchers have decoded the gene map of a strain of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis and said on Tuesday their work has identified mutations that may help develop better treatments. They also sequenced the genome of another dangerous strain called multidrug-resistant TB, as well as run-of-the-mill tuberculosis bugs, and found a few mutations may explain how the mutant strains evade antibiotics.

“By looking at the genomes of different strains, we can learn how the tuberculosis microbe outwits current drugs and how new drugs might be designed,” said Megan Murray of the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. The team at Broad, well known for its genome sequencing work, decided to make its findings public immediately instead of waiting to publish the study in a scientific journal.

“It is important that genomic data be made immediately available, particularly to researchers in areas most heavily burdened by disease,” said Broad’s Eric Lander. Tuberculosis, or TB, is a disease caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It infects up to 2 billion people, one-third of the world’s population, although most have latent, or inactive infections.

In 2005, 8.8 million people became infected with TB and 1.6 million died of it. It takes months of careful antibiotic treatment to clear the infection. The microbe can mutate and now an estimated 500,000 people globally have multidrug-resistant, or MDR TB, according to the World Health Organization. Standard antibiotics do not affect MDR TB, and patients need special drugs.

More Scientists decode genes of resistant TB - Infectious diseases - MSNBC.com

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South Africa has world's most AIDS cases
November 21, 2007 - MORE than three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and South Africa is now officially the country with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world, a new UN report said overnight.

Improved monitoring of the pandemic has led the United Nations to revise its estimates, particularly in Southern Africa and Asia, resulting in a major revision in the assessment of India's epidemic, the country previously thought to be worst-hit. "South Africa is the country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world," reads the UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) annual report on the epidemic for 2007.

While the report did not give a figure, the South African government currently estimates some 5.5 million of the country's 48 million population are living with the disease. While AIDS continued to be the leading cause of death in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa was the worst affected region.

"More than two out of three (68 per cent) adults and nearly 90 per cent of children infected with HIV live in this region, and more than three in four (76 per cent) AIDS deaths in 2007 occurred there, illustrating the unmet need for antiretroviral treatment in Africa." Women in the region bear the brunt of the disease. "Unlike other regions, the majority of people (61 per cent) living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women," the report found.

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Maybe the HIV epidemic in D.C should be top priority...

Capital has severe HIV epidemic, report finds
Mon Nov 26, 2007 - Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of AIDS in the United States, and more babies are born with the AIDS virus in Washington than in other U.S. cities, according to a report released on Monday.

People living in Washington also are not getting tested for HIV and show up with advanced infections that progress quickly to AIDS, the report by city health officials found.

The report found that Washington, with a population of around 600,000 people, has a rate of 128 AIDS cases per 100,000 people in 2006, compared with a national rate of 14 cases per 100,000. The city accounted for 9 percent of all pediatric AIDS cases in the United States during 2005.

"The District's rate for newly reported AIDS cases is higher than rates in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit and Chicago," the report said. Of the 12,428 people infected with HIV in Washington, 80 percent are black, the report found. More than 8,300 had fully progressed to AIDS and 224 died of AIDS in 2006.

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Russia has almost one million HIV-positive: Report
27 Nov 2007, Between 900,000 and one million people in Russia have the HIV virus, the head of an international AIDS lobby group said on Monday.

Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund for to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a private-public group which has injected substantial funds into research, said the UNAIDS agency has completed substantial work "in order to obtain objective figures." The Interfax and Ria Novosti news agencies quoted him as saying: "According to their estimates, between 900,000 and one million people in Russia are HIV-positive."

The Global Fund was created with public and private funds in 2002 with former UN secretary general Kofi Annan taking a leading role. Last week, top Russian health official Gennadi Onishchenko accused UNAIDS, the UN agency charged with coordinating the fight against AIDS, of publishing "incorrect" figures regarding the number of HIV-positive people in Russia.

UNAIDS said in a report published November 21 that Russia currently represents 66 percent of the number of new HIV cases in the former Soviet Union. According to official figures released by the Russian AIDS agency in October, 403,100 HIV-positive people were counted in Russia since the virus appeared in the country, of which 19,924 people died. Russian experts say the true number of HIV-positive is close to 1.3 million.

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Swiss to test new AIDS vaccine...

Swiss to launch trials of anti-AIDS vaccine
November 29, 2007 - SWISS firm Mymetics will next year start Phase 1 trials of a possible anti-AIDS vaccine that seeks to produce mucosal antibodies that can resist HIV.

The trials will take place in Belgium on a sample of between 30 to 40 women, Mymetics' scientific director Sylvain Fleury said overnight. Over 85 per cent of HIV infections are the result of genital or intestinal mucosa (membrane in body passages) being exposed to the disease, he said.

Any HIV vaccine that could successfully achieve antibody production into both genital and intestinal tracts might open the door to a new HIV vaccine approach, Mymetics claimed on its website.

The Swiss-based company, which is quoted on the Nasdaq stock index in New York, said it hopes to take its research further, and then either enter into a partnership with a larger company, or sell the product technology, in order to move to Phase III trials targeted at between 15,000-20,000 people.

The cost of such trials is too much for Mymetics to afford on its own, company chairman Christian Rochet said. Mymetics estimates the vaccine could produce annual sales revenue of between $US2 billion to $US4 billion ($2.29 billion to $4.57 billion).

Swiss to launch trials of anti-AIDS vaccine | NEWS.com.au

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Indian drugs help Africa battle AIDS
Thursday 29th November, 2007 - A joint venture between India's Cipla and a local pharma company that has just opened in Uganda is all set to provide relief to millions in Africa suffering from HIV infection and AIDS.

In October, a month before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it to Kampala to attend the Commonwealth meeting, a 15-acre potato garden made way for a high-tech pharmaceutical factory. The factory is a joint venture between Quality Chemical Industries (QCI) of Uganda and Cipla of India. It will manufacture Triomune, the full triple therapy combination of anti-retroviral (ARV) necessary to treat HIV and AIDS. Once the trial runs end, the authorities say the unit will be able to start producing two million pills every day, rising to 1.8 billion a year. The surplus will be exported to neighbouring countries.

So important is the project that Uganda President Yoweri Musseveni is personally supervising the progress. Uganda is one of the worst AIDS-hit countries in Africa, says the health ministry. AIDS has led to the largest number of orphans, shorter life expectancy and rising poverty caused mainly by treatment. And although Uganda has achieved considerable success in battling AIDS, it has always relied on cheaper and effective Indian drugs, whose exports are now barred by New Delhi's accession to TRIPS (trade related intellectual property rights) pact of the World Trade Organisation.

Even now, Indian drugs are hugely popular in Uganda. 'Earlier, the reach of the Western medicines was very limited because of its cost,' explained Yasin Masani, director of the Kampala-based Astra Pharma, which imports pharmaceuticals and surgical products. 'Once Indian drugs started to come to Africa, around 1988-89, there was a near revolution,' Masani, who is from Gujarat and lives here, told IANS. 'Prices of AIDS drugs immediately dropped. Drugs costing $3,500 fell to $350-400.'

Agreed A. Shah, a doctor who studied in India, lives in Kenya and practises here: 'Thanks to affordable Indian medicines, life in Kenya has become very easy. I believe it is the same story everywhere in Africa. 'Even local doctors recommend the Indian medicines. It is really helping to take on AIDS,' Shah said in a telephonic interview.

More Indian drugs help Africa battle AIDS

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Chinese AIDS estimates...

Up to 50 million Chinese at risk from AIDS: UN
30 Nov 2007, Up to 50 million Chinese people are at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, United Nations officials warned on Friday, a day after the government said the spread of the disease has slowed.

Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu said on Thursday there were an estimated 50,000 new HIV infections in 2007 and China has about 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases. This compares with the estimated figure of 650,000 announced nearly two years ago based on work carried out by the Chinese government, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation.

But a day ahead of the World AIDS day, UN officials warned against complacency and cautioned that between 30 and 50 million people in China remained at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. "Thirty to 50 million are exposed to substantial risk of HIV infection today. It shows you the potential and magnitude of the issue for the future," said Bernhard Schwartlander, China coordinator of UNAIDS.

The fact that heterosexual contact was the top cause of new infections in 2007, accounting for 44.7 per cent, should also raise an alarm. "It is remarkable and important to recognise that, because that shows the potential of that spread is quite significant," he said. Schwartlander said although the current overall number of HIV/AIDS cases seemed relatively low for China's 1.3 billion population, infections were rising in more and more areas.

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Sex Now the Main Cause of HIV in China
November 30, 2007 : Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu has revealed that the rates of new HIV/AIDS infections in the country are declining, and that the disease is now being transmitted mainly through sex.

"At present, the AIDS epidemic in China is spreading at a slower rate. Sexual transmission is now the main route for the spread," the China Daily quoted him as telling a new conference in Beijing on Thursday. The conference was organised in the run-up to World AIDS Day, on 1 December. It saw Chen citing a joint report by the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS. The minister said that the country estimated to have 50,000 new infections in 2007, down from 70,000 new cases in 2005.

The report said that 44.7 per cent of the new infections came from heterosexual transmission, 12.2 per cent from men having sex with men, 42 per cent from intravenous drug use, and 1.1 percent from mother-to-infant transmission. It also revealed that by the end of October 2007, a total of 223,501 people had contracted HIV, including 62,838 people with fully blown AIDS. The Ministry, the WHO and UNAIDS, however, have also estimated that China will have as many as 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2007, including 85,000 AIDS patients.

The 38-page report said that the difference between the estimated figures and official figures was party because people were reluctant to come forward for treatment. "China's HIV epidemic remains one of low prevalence overall, but with pockets of high infection among specific sub-populations," the report said. Chen admitted that there was need to address a number of core issues like better advocacy, improved treatment and care, and more focused education and discrimination reduction.

He said that the Chinese leadership was strengthening its commitment to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment at different levels of the government. According to him, the amount spent in 2007 had risen to 126 million dollars, from 114 million dollars in 2006. Chen insisted that the Government would put more focus on traditionally marginalized groups, like the gay community and drug users. However, he acknowledged the fact that the use of condom by prostitutes had risen from 14.7 per cent in 2001 to 41.4 per cent last year.

Sex main cause of HIV prevalence in China today

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More Americans getting AIDS...

Number of new AIDS cases in U.S. seen as much higher
Dec. 1, 2007 • Sources say CDC scientists estimate that up to 60,000 people are infected yearly, not 40,000

New government estimates of the number of Americans who become infected with the AIDS virus each year are 50 percent higher than previously believed, sources said Friday. For more than a decade, epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have pegged the number of new HIV infections each year at 40,000. They now believe it is between 55,000 and 60,000.

The higher estimate is the product of a new method of testing blood samples that can identify those who were infected in the previous five months. With a way to distinguish recent infections from long-standing ones, epidemiologists can then estimate how many new infections are appearing nationwide each month or year.

The higher estimate is based on data from 19 states, including Texas, and large cities that have been extrapolated to the nation as a whole. The CDC has not announced the new estimate, but two people in direct contact with the scientists preparing it confirmed it Friday.

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Maybe something we should consider doing...

Chinese returning from abroad to be tested for HIV
1 Dec 2007, Chinese living overseas for more than a year will have to undergo an HIV test on their return as per a new regulation coming in force today, state media reported.

Likewise, foreigners wishing to live in China for more than a year are also required to take the HIV test and inform the public security departments while applying for a residence certificate. The new regulations adopted on the 'World AIDS Day' on Saturday comes close on the heels of government's recent announcement that it is revising 22-year old laws and regulations which ban foreigners with HIV from entering China.

China had issued Law on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens in 1985 which stipulated that foreigners with infectious diseases such as leprosy, HIV/AIDS and venereal diseases were not allowed to enter the country. "We are set to revise laws and regulations that ban HIV carriers entry into the country," a Health Ministry spokesman had said earlier this month.

The new regulation on the cross-border control and prevention of AIDS issued by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ), mandates that Chinese citizens take an HIV test at the border while entering or apply for a HIV test form at the border and take the test at qualified local hospitals within a month. Chinese employees with international transport services, such as airlines, cross-border bus and train services would also have to take HIV tests, according to official Xinhua news agency.

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Fearless W followin' the Chinese lead...

Bush proposal for HIV-positive visitors makes a bad rule worse
December 6, 2007 - The Bush administration’s proposed rule for waivers allowing some people with HIV to visit the United States is even more restrictive, burdensome, and arbitrary than the rule it is intended to replace, according to the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA).

Furthermore, it does nothing to address a fundamental flaw in U.S. policy barring people with HIV from entering the United States. “The law denying entry to people with HIV has no basis in science or public health and should be repealed,” said HIVMA Chair Arlene Bardeguez, MD, MPH, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. People with HIV have been barred from entering the United States since 1990, despite the fact that HIV infection is a manageable condition that is not transmitted through casual contact. Individual exceptions for short visits may be granted on a case-by-case basis, but only through an intrusive, stigmatizing, and unscientific waiver process.

On World AIDS Day last year, President Bush promised to revisit the waiver process. The appropriate remedy would be to repeal the law. Instead, what the administration has come up with does nothing to make the process easier and in some important ways makes matters worse.

The proposed rule imposes requirements on people with HIV that are not imposed on visitors with any other chronic medical condition such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer: Visitors applying for a waiver need to demonstrate to a consular officer in their home country that their HIV infection is under control and will not require medical attention; that they have ample supplies of medicines for the duration of their trip; and that they have sufficient financial assets or insurance to cover any medical expenses that may arise. How a consular officer with limited or no knowledge of HIV disease is supposed to make determinations about the state of the applicant’s HIV infection or the adequacy of his or her drug supply is not specified. Furthermore, by placing these extra burdens on those who disclose their HIV status, the proposed rule makes it less likely that visitors will do so.

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Huckabee stands by AIDS comment
Dec. 9, 2007 WASHINGTON -- U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday he stands by his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," the former Arkansas governor said that at the time he made the statement is was not known the virus was not spread by casual contact.

"But what I'm not going to do is to go back and now try to change every story I've ever had. I'm going to simply say that that was exactly what I said. I don't run from it, don't recant from it," Huckabee said. As a U.S. Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee had said if the federal government wanted to address the AIDS crisis effectively it would take steps to isolate its carriers.

"I didn't say that we should quarantine," Huckabee said Sunday. "I said it was the first time in public health protocols that when we had an infectious disease and we really didn't know just how extensive and how dramatic it could be, and the impact of it, that we didn't isolate the carrier." In 1992, Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, also called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle."

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