Pregnancy May Slow -- Not Accelerate -- Progression To AIDS

A new study may help put to rest fears that pregnancy accelerates progression to full-blown AIDS in women with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy. The study, published in the October 1st issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases and now available online, revealed that pregnancy may, in fact, slow disease progression in these women.

Before the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), many women with HIV infection or AIDS were told that becoming pregnant would be unwise because there was thought to be a 25 percent risk of transmitting the virus to the child and that the effects of pregnancy on disease progression were unclear. It is now clear that the use of HAART in pregnancy can reduce the HIV transmission to the newborn to approximately 1 percent, but the effects of pregnancy on the HIV-infected woman remain unknown. read more

HIV/AIDS Program May Be Named for Former First Lady

To ensure that one of the issues Effi Barry championed will not be forgotten, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) introduced legislation this week to name the city's east-of-the-river HIV/AIDS initiative after the District's beloved former first lady.

"She is the only coordinator we ever had for that program, and it is fitting that we name this program in her memory and in her honor to make sure that it continues," Gray said after Barry's funeral service Friday. "We will be asking for more money in the FY '09 budget, and we are going to make sure that they are investing in Effi's legacy." read more

South Florida bills billions for HIV

Doctors and clinics in three Southern Florida counties account for most of the billions of dollars charged to Medicare nationwide for HIV and AIDS drugs and services, billing records show.

Federal health care regulators call the lopsided billing patterns "egregious" and warn that South Florida — particularly Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties — is a potential hotbed for health care fraud, waste and abuse.
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Nigeria: Country Ranks Third in HIV Infection - NACA

Nigeria ranks third among most infected countries with the Human Immuno deficiency Virus (HIV), coming after South Africa and India in that order.

This was disclosed yesterday in Abuja, by Ekeoma Uwaoma, Relationship Manager, National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), at a one-day capacity workshop organised by the Federal Ministry of Energy in collaboration with NACA.

Uwaoma, in a paper titled, Basic Facts on HIV/Aids, alerted the nation that there were increasing cases of Nigerian ladies who, in their desperate desire to get back at the society, especially because of the stigmatisation which is still very prevalent, dress up provocatively and seek for lift from men, only to end up raping them and gleefully taunt their victims: "Welcome to the club, you are now HIV-positive." read more

Phase III Study In Treatment-naive Adults With HIV Evaluates Efficacy And Safety Of Once Daily PREZISTA/RITONOVIR Vs. KALETRA

Results from an ongoing Phase III ARTEMIS study that examines an investigational 800mg* once daily dose of PREZISTA® (darunavir/ritonavir) versus KALETRA®1 (lopinavir/ritonavir) 400 mg/100 mg twice daily (or 800 mg/200 mg once daily depending on the local licence) in treatment-naïve adults** with HIV-1, successfully met the primary end point of non-inferiority (95% confidence internal with the lower limit for the difference in treatment response -12% or greater for HIV RNA of less than 50 copies per mL in plasma at week 48). Of the patients taking darunavir/r, 84% reached an undetectable viral load (<50 copies/mL) at week 48, compared with 78% taking lopinavir/r. read more

Statistics vital for crusade against HIV’

Health Minister S. Chandrasekhar on Thursday said Government was doing everything it could to motivate people to come forward and get themselves tested. Only when clear statistics were available could the crusade against the dreaded virus be more focussed, he said.

He was addressing a gathering of voluntary action representatives at a workshop ‘Reducing HIV stigma & Gender-based Violence”, organised by International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) and Bhoruka Foundation. Releasing a toolkit for healthcare providers, he symbolically handed over the first one to Achampet MLA Vamsee Krishna. He said Government’s efforts were aimed at improving awareness among people on prevention and management with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to improve quality of everyday life. Government was going forward with concerted plans that involved the coordinated effort of every department down to the mandal-level and not just the Department of Health and Andhra Pradesh State Aids Control Society (APSACS), he said. Nata Duvvury from ICRW, Washington narrated how the toolkits were finalised after field testing by frontline healthcare providers, including traditional birth attendants and registered medical practitioners in Ichapuram of Srikakulam district. read more

EU Experts: Lift Ban on Roche HIV Drug

European Union medicine experts on Thursday recommended lifting a temporary EU-wide ban on the sale of a Roche Holding AG anti-HIV drug that had been contaminated with a substance that can be harmful to health.

The European Medicines Agency, or EMEA, said it backed allowing Roche to sell Viracept again because the company had fixed manufacturing problems that saw some batches contaminated with too much ethyl mesilate. The substance can damage DNA and may trigger cancer. read more

HIV/AIDS cases soar in Beijing in first half year

The number of new HIV/AIDS cases reported in Beijing in the first half of the year was almost as high as the total for 2006, a spokesman for the Beijing Association of STD and AIDS Prevention and Control said Thursday.

Guan Baoying, deputy director of the association, said 563 new cases had been reported in the first six months, taking the total in the capital to more than 4,200.

The number of new HIV/Aids cases being reported in Beijing has been growing by an average of 50 percent a year, he said. read more

George Michael HIV interview is cut for being ‘too personal’

The BBC has agreed not to screen an interview with George Michael after the pop star complained that an admission that he refuses to take an HIV test was “too personal”.

BBC bosses bowed to pressure from the gay singer to pull the interview, given to Stephen Fry for a BBC Two documentary about HIV in Britain.

The capitulation raised new concerns about the influence of celebrities over BBC editorial decisions. A recent report criticised the BBC for pandering to celebrities in its coverage of public policy issues.

Programme-makers had leaked details of the revealing interview Michael gave for the two-part programme, Stephen Fry: HIV And Me. Fry asks why HIV has “fallen off the radar” even though 70,000 people live with the virus in Britain today.
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