SOUTH CAROLINA: Money Allocated to Treat HIV/AIDS

Thu, 08 May 2008 - http://www.thestate.com/

The South Carolina Legislature has approved a $2.4 million allocation to the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program. This raises the state’s contribution to 19 percent of the federally funded program’s budget, up sharply from 5 percent in 2007, but still below the proportion neighboring states pay into their ADAPs. Last year, reacting to a waiting list that had grown to 567 patients in the wake of federal cuts, the state contributed $4 million to ADAP. About 100 more South Carolinians apply for ADAP assistance each month, said Sonya Bayone, the state’s ADAP director. The state’s HIV infection rate has ranked in the top 10 among US states for the past 10 years. “We have finally, as a state, come to grips with HIV/AIDS and are willing to put resources to stem the spread of this disease,” said Rep. Joe Neal (D-Richland), an advocate of increased funds for HIV prevention and treatment. “In all honesty, we had a lot of catching up to do,” said Dr. Helmut Albrecht, chief of infectious disease at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. “This is just bringing us up to where we should be.” In 2002, HIV/AIDS cost South Carolina’s economy $6.5 billion in treatment and lost wages, according to a study by infectious-disease specialist and researcher Dr. Kent Stockwell. The S.C. HIV/AIDS Care Crisis Task Force, a community group formed in 2006 to press lawmakers for money to end the waiting list, is now looking ahead to other challenges, including the increased demands for help that will likely result from expanded HIV testing efforts.

GLOBAL: Eli Lilly to Help Train Doctors on Drug-Resistant TB

Tue, 13 May 2008 - http://www.reuters.com

US-based Eli Lilly will donate $1 million for an interactive online refresher course for doctors on how to diagnose, treat, and prevent TB, the drug maker recently announced in a joint statement with the World Medical Association (WMA). “This will allow more physicians around the world to acquire the basic knowledge on standard TB treatment at a time when there is a resurgence of the epidemic,” the statement said. Diagnostic and treatment errors contribute to the development of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB. The World Health Organization reports that 5 percent of global TB infections are resistant to first-line antibiotics. Standard treatment is inadequate for XDR-TB, which is much rarer than MDR-TB but has been found in 41 countries, including the United States, South Africa, Russia and India. “The knowledge and handling of tuberculosis treatment is still inefficient,” and incomplete treatment “is responsible for the occurrence of [XDR-TB],” the joint statement said. WMA said it is also considering an ethics policy on “whether and how patients can be encouraged to contemplate their treatment regimen and where the autonomy of a patient ends in order to safeguard public health.”

CANADA: City Clinic Offers Total Care for Hepatitis C

Mon, 12 May 2008 - http://news.guelphmercury.com/

The Sanguen Health Center, which opened last fall, is positioning itself to provide a full range of services for patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV). The clinic would be the first incorporated hepatitis C agency in Ontario, and perhaps the first in all of Canada. “It’s a tough treatment, and unless we address a lot of other issues, including non-health social issues, it is difficult to complete this treatment,” said Dr. Chris Steingart, the director of the center housed in Guelph’s Masai Center for Local, Regional and Global Health. Patients infected with the virus may also confront a range of related challenges, including housing needs, mental health care and addiction management, he said. In the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph area, almost 1 percent of the population, some 1,000 people, are believed to be infected with HCV, and about 30 percent are unaware they carry the virus. Steingart said the absence of HCV-focused care in the community “is what prompted us to not just open this clinic, but to expand it and make it more than a clinic.” He said he hopes Ontario’s provincial government will step up with financial support for the effort. “As far as I know, we would be the first in Ontario, and maybe in Canada,” Steingart said, adding that a satellite clinic is being established in Kitchener-Waterloo. Pamela Billings, who contracted HCV more than 20 years ago, credits the center and its director with helping her stick with the difficult treatment regimen. “I don’t know if I would have been able to make it without Dr. Steingart,” she said. “No matter how hard the treatment was going to be, what I had to know and believe was that no matter where I was, no matter what time of day, if I needed support, I would be able to get it.”

VIETNAM: Vietnam May Decriminalize Drug Use

Fri, 09 May 2008 - http://www.dpa.de/

On Friday, a National Assembly legislator said her committee recommends downgrading the personal use of illicit drugs from a crime punishable by a prison sentence to an administrative violation. Most drug use involves heroin, which contributes to the nation’s HIV epidemic through needle-sharing. “Being addicted to or using drugs should be considered a disease, and should only be subject to administrative fines,” said Truong Thi Mai, who chairs the Committee on Social Affairs. “We cannot jail hundreds of thousands of [drug users], can we?” Almost no drug users are convicted under Vietnam’s Criminal Code Article 199, which carries a prison sentence of up to two years. Typically, users are sent to detoxification camps, said Le Minh Loan, a police chief in Son La province. Dealing or smuggling drugs, however, can be a capital crime. In 2007, 85 people were sentenced to die for drug crimes, and nine have received death sentences so far this year. “I think it makes sense to drop the article,” Loan said. “Few countries in the world sentence drug addicts to prison terms.” However, Loan said, “The rate of relapse into drug use is very high.” In mandatory drug detoxification centers, users are confined typically for up to two years, though there are some five-year facilities. Local officials keep a list of drug addicts in their district and can send users to a center at their discretion. About 90 percent of inmates who are released from the sites eventually relapse, according to Phung Quang Thuc, director of a center in Hanoi.

MOZAMBIQUE: Corruption and AIDS Curb Mozambique’s Development

Sun, 11 May 2008 - http://www.reuters.com

The government of Mozambique is making progress toward macro-economic stability and public finance management, but AIDS, corruption and bureaucracy continue to block progress towards eliminating poverty, according to the head of the European Union’s delegation to the country. “HIV and AIDS is a big problem, despite the fact that the government is fully aware about this, while corruption is a problem that the government is trying to face with strong support from the international community,” Glauco Calzuoloa said in an interview. Since 1992, when its 17-year civil war ended, Mozambique has grown from being one of the world’s poorest countries to having one of southern Africa’s fastest-growing economies. This expansion, however, has been largely driven by foreign aid, and the local economy has been slow to develop. “While recognizing the government’s efforts to fight corruption and AIDS, we encourage [the government] to redouble those efforts,” Calzuoloa said. At least 16 percent of the country’s economically active residents ages 14 to 29 have HIV/AIDS, the Health Ministry says. Each day, another 500 people contract HIV in Mozambique. Calzuoloa called on the government to continue attracting foreign investment and to promote political stability by supporting small- and medium-size enterprises, not just “mega projects which largely contribute to growth, but [whose impact] is not felt by ordinary people.”

UNITED STATES: Oral Cancer in Men Associated with HPV

Tue, 13 May 2008 - http://www.nytimes.com/

Two new reports shed additional light on the link between human papillomavirus and oral cancers. HPV can enter the mouth during oral sex, and an earlier study estimated that 38 percent of oral squamous-cell cancers were HPV-associated. But in a bit of good news, the researchers reported that HPV-related oral cancers were among the most responsive to chemotherapy and radiation. The clinical trial included 51 men and 15 women with advanced cancers of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue. Among 42 patients whose tumors were examined through biopsy, 27 tumors were HPV-positive, nearly two-thirds. Among the 51 men, 22 were HPV-positive. Patients were initially given a course of induction chemotherapy to shrink the tumor. Patients whose tumor did not shrink by at least 50 percent, 12 patients, were then given surgery, though most did not survive their cancer. Among the remaining 54 patients, 49 responded to a further course of chemotherapy combined with radiation. Among responders, 78 percent did not need further surgery and 70 percent lived more than four years. Almost half were positive for HPV, and all but three of the 24 were men. Patients in the small study whose tumors were HPV-positive were significantly more likely to respond to treatment, survive cancer, and survive overall, researchers reported. In addition, the researchers found four genetic markers in the biopsies that were predictive of successful treatment. Treatment was less successful for smokers and women. “The high risk of HPV-associated cancers in men suggests that vaccinating all adolescents is something that should strongly be considered,” said lead author Dr. Francis P. Worden of the University of Michigan. The studies, “Chemoselection as a Strategy for Organ Preservation in Advanced Oropharynx Cancer” and “EGFR, p16, HPV Titer, Bcl-xL and p53, Sex, and Smoking as Indicators of Response to Therapy and Survival in Oropharyngeal Cancer,” were published online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (2008;doi: 10.1200/JCO.2007.12.7597 and doi:10.1200./JCO.2007.12.7662, respectively).

CALIFORNIA: University of California-San Francisco Researchers Studying Cognition in Older HIVers

Thu, 08 May 2008 - http://ebar.com

With better treatments, many HIV/AIDS patients are now able to live longer lives. While data on older patients with HIV are not available, at least 1,059 AIDS patients age 60 or above live in San Francisco, according to March figures from the city Department of Public Health. With that demographic in mind, researchers in January began a three-year study on cognitive health in volunteers over age 60 who have HIV/AIDS. “We’d like to know if they’re likely to have more problems with memory and thinking, and if they are why,” said Dr. Victor Valcour, an instructor with University of California-San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center. Currently, one theory is that HIV and possibly the drugs used for treatment could cause more insulin resistance and other metabolic problems, Valcour said. That may lead to small changes in brain function, putting patients at risk for mild cognitive issues, such as difficulty concentrating, as well as severe problems, including dementia. Though dementia is not as prevalent in HIV/AIDS patients as it used to be, he said, it is not clear whether drug treatments, the virus itself, both, or pre-existing injuries cause it. Currently just five to 10 volunteers are enrolled in the study; it needs about 40 more participants, Valcour said. In the first year, the study volunteers undergo cognitive and neurological exams, a glucose tolerance test and an MRI. In later years, the participants will undergo the exams again, except for the MRI. Volunteers are compensated, and should be on stable antiretroviral therapy, and neither use illegal drugs nor have hepatitis C. For more information, telephone 415-476-1451 or e-mail InsulinStudy@memory.ucsf.edu.

KYRGYZSTAN: Kyrgyz President Orders Help for Children Infected with HIV Due to Apparent Negligence

Mon, 12 May 2008 - http://www.ajc.com

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan on Monday ordered one-time payments of $14,600 to each of the children who recently contracted HIV due to apparent medical negligence. In two hospitals in the southern part of the former Soviet nation, 72 children and 16 mothers have acquired HIV, health officials say. Fourteen medical personnel accused of causing the infections through negligent injection and transfusion procedures are due to stand trial this week.

UNITED STATES: Young and Tested

Mon, 12 May 2008 - http://www.usatoday.com

According to CDC, 21 percent of men and 44 percent of women ages 18 to 24 have been tested for HIV. Among 25- to 34-year olds, 43 percent of men and 63 percent of women have taken the test.

MISSISSIPPI: 'Just Wait’ Takes Aim at Teenage Pregnancy

Sun, 11 May 2008 - http://search.clarionledger.com

Some 5,000 teens are expected to attend the “Just Wait” abstinence summit on Saturday at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson. The Mississippi Department of Human Services first held the gathering in 1997, said Vera Butler, director of the department’s Abstinence and Healthy Marriage Unit. The conference is free and open to everyone age 12 or older; parents, teachers and community leaders are invited as well. In addition to the impact of teen pregnancy, topics covered will include STDs and how to talk to teens about abstinence. The most recent data put Mississippi’s teen birth rate as third-worst in the nation, after Arizona and Nevada. The summit takes place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. To register, visit www.mdhs.state.ms.us; telephone 800-590-0818; or e-mail justwait@mdhs.state.ms.us.