HIV Testing Blog

Vermont CARES (Committee for AIDS Resources, Education and Services) is a non-profit, federal- and state-funded organization that provides support and care for people infected with HIV/AIDS, as well as doing screening testing for over 1200 people a year for the disease and conducting HIV/AIDS educational programs at businesses and schools.

For more than 20 years, the Burlington nonprofit has helped provide Vermonters with HIV/AIDS everything from a ride to the doctor’s office to a new home. Vermont CARES also will pay the rent for an infected individual, if the need arises. The organization held a rally Saturday to show support for more than 450 Vermonters diagnosed with the disease. People at the rally wore red shirts and stood in a ribbon formation at the University of Vermont’s Redstone Campus.

*For the complete article, please refer to http://hivtestingblog.com/original-articles/

A Cincinnati man, who is thought to be homeless, has been charged with assaulting Cincinnati Police Officers. His weapon of choice… spit. 48-year-old Ronald Crawford was arrested during a fight on East McMillan Street, where he spit at officers, telling them he “had AIDS”.

While the officers believe that Crawford is HIV-positive, they aren’t at any major risk, seeing as how studies have shown that HIV/AIDS is not carried in saliva. Crawford is being charged with two counts of harassment with a bodily substance — a felony.

*To view this article in it’s entirety, please visit http://hivtestingblog.com/original-articles/

Health Horizons, an East Texas health care organization, has seen more HIV-positive people this year than it did all last year. As of July, eight people out of 800 had tested positive; whereas for all of 2008 they had only six positives out of more than 1,000 testers. The majority of these HIV-positive people were African-American men. Health Horizon’s Executive Director, Wilbert Brown, is associating the spike in numbers to their effective advertising which targets high-risk groups.

For the complete article, please visit http://hivtestingblog.com/original-articles/

A report from the Chicago Public Health Department (CDPH) has found higher rates of HIV infection in Black men who have sex with men (MSM) than in white or Latino MSM.

The report comes from a survey that was conducted across all of Chicago, in places where MSM often congregate. These places include gay bars/clubs, bathhouses, social organizations, and others. Participants were asked about their sexual preferences and practices, and then also tested for HIV antibodies. Although other surveys similar to this have been performed in the past, this was the first where the people were actually tested.

The survey found that African Americans had around three times the prevalence rate of HIV than that of white and Latino participants. However, the survey also found that Black MSM do not necessarily engage in riskier behavior, and usually engage less frequently than whites or Latinos. Half of the people who tested positive in the survey were unaware of their HIV-positive status. Once again, Black MSM had higher rates in this category. 66% of Black HIV-positive MSM did not know their status, 50% of Latino HIV-positive MSM, and 23 % of white HIV-positive MSM did not know their status.

While many efforts are being made to address this epidemic, such as condom distribution and affordable HIV testing, much more still needs to be done.

* For the complete article, please visit http://hivtestingblog.com/original-articles/

The Illinois attorney general on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Center for AIDS Prevention for unlawful fundraising and falsifying official documents, ProPublica reports (Weaver, 7/27). Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the state revoked the organization’s registration 20 years ago, but its director, Steve Neely, also known as Morrell Neely, has continued to solicit donations in the state. “The state says the group tried to reregister as a nonprofit using a phony Chicago address, though its boss, … lives in Riverside, Calif.,” Courthouse News Service reports (Freeland, 7/27). “If the suit is successful, Illinois could seize money illegally raised there, bar Neely and others involved with the center from future charitable work in the state, freeze their assets, force them to pay back donations they may have ‘misused and/or wasted’ with interest, and attempt to shut the group down for good by revoking its corporate status,” ProPublica reports (7/27).

For the complete article, please refer to http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159165.php

Westchester County residents can now access local HIV/AIDS resources online thanks to the launch of a new Facebook page, Project WAVE Westchester (PWW).

PWW is a partnership of public and private agencies that provide HIV/AIDS-related services including prevention, testing, counseling, and treatment, with a special focus on communities most affected by the disease. An offshoot of the Project WAVE national effort, PWW is a collaboration of the state Department of Health, the county health department, community groups, area health centers, and hospitals.

Outside of New York City, Westchester County has the state’s second-highest AIDS case rate and third-highest HIV infection rate. The county is also home to the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, excluding the city.

PWW’s Facebook page contains information about upcoming HIV testing events as well as prevention videos and public service announcements that focus on the importance of testing. To visit the page, go to www.facebook.com and register for a free account. Members then enter “Project Wave” into the search function to access PWW.

“I think it’s great that Project WAVE is using this popular Web site to provide valuable information about HIV/AIDS services to Westchester residents,” said Dr. Joshua Lipsman, the county’s health commissioner. “Many people spend a lot of time on these social networking Web sites, and this is another way for the public health community to reach out to residents and help them get the services, support, and resources they need. It also enables residents to find others who share their interests and concerns.”

For the complete article please refer to http://www.cdcnpin.org/news/NewsList.asp

On Wednesday, the Palm Beach County Health Care District board unanimously approved a planned $400,000 cut to the Comprehensive AIDS Program’s case management services despite testimony from 10 patients and providers that the services are vital.

Case management helps patients to stay on complex drug regimens, navigate insurance plans, and keep important appointments, advocates told the board. “If a person stops taking their medication, not only does their own health suffer, they become more infectious to other people,” said Yolette Bonnet, CEO of the AIDS program.

Anita Byrd of West Palm Beach said: “I was addicted to street drugs, and I have been clean now for 11 years because of case management. They found me in places where people never want to come.”

The HIV/AIDS grant was among a raft of cuts the board made in its tentative 2010 spending plan. Out of a $250 million budget, the special taxing district must slash $31 million due to increased demands on its insurance programs, which will serve nearly 40,000 people this year. School nurses’ hours were cut from 40 hours a week to 33 to save $3 million.

Jonathan Satter, the board’s chair, said he felt “darned if he did, darned if he didn’t” cut services or raise taxes to preserve them. “We cannot be the sole source for every program,” he said, noting he hoped the AIDS program was seeking foundation money.

For the complete article, and for more information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, please refer to http://www.cdcnpin.org/

1) Take Responsibility For Your Health and Your Life.
2) Get A Support Network To Be With You In Good and Bad Times.
3) Find A Health Provider With Whom You Can Build A Relationship.

4) Take HIV Medications When You Need Them.
5) Maintain Good Nutrition.
6) Get Up and Do Some Exercise.
7) Learn About Benefits and Services You Might Be Eligible For.

There are many benefits and services available to people living with HIV disease but you have to know about them and their requirements in order to get them. Benefits you might be eligible for include:

8 ) Get A Life Outside HIV.
9) Stop Stressing…So Much.
10) Ask For Help When You Need It .

Dutch-sponsored researcher Christian Althaus has used mathematical models to demonstrate that cells infected with HIV could die even sooner than was thought until now. If infected cells have a shorter lifespan then this increases the chances of the virus escaping the attention of the immune system.

Althaus used mathematical models and computer simulations to describe the dynamics of viral populations and immune responses. For example, he studied how chronic viral infections such as HIV are kept under control. The human immune system attempts to prevent the replication of viruses in various ways. The so-called cytotoxic T cells are capable of recognising and killing cells that have been infected with the virus. Althaus found that if cells are recognised and eliminated directly after infection before they start producing virus then the viral replication is considerably reduced.

Hiding from the immune response

Each time the virus infects a new cell it can change itself by mutating so that the newly infected cells are no longer recognised and destroyed. This process of ‘immune escape’ can reflect how strongly the immune system suppresses the virus. This is what led Althaus to study the speed at which these new and unrecognisable viral variants are generated and selected. He also found that HIV-infected cells might survive for a shorter period than expected until now, which means it is even more difficult for the immune system to recognise and destroy these cells.

This type of research is essential for an improved knowledge of viral infections. The models Althaus has developed provide a better understanding of why the immune system can sometimes effectively control viral infections and sometimes not. This opens up possibilities for further research into the immune system of people infected with HIV.

Christian Althaus has carried out this work as a member of Rob de Boer’s research group. De Boer received a Vici grant from the NWO’s Innovational Research Incentives Scheme in 2004. He aims to use this grant to set up a novel, quantitative approach to immunology.

For the complete article, please refer to http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090630163326.htm.

In a study looking at social and sexual mixing between ethnic groups in men who have sex with men, researchers show that social barriers faced by black gay men may have a serious impact on their health and well-being.

In the US, there is a disproportionate burden of HIV infection in Black Americans, who accounted for nearly half of all HIV/AIDS cases diagnosed in 2006 – four times the national average.

A total of 1,142 gay men took part in computer-assisted interviews. They were asked about their own ethnicity, the race of their sexual partners in the last six months, their perception of how easy it is to meet sexual partners of different ethnicities, where they meet sexual partners, their view of HIV infection risk and the predominant race of their network of friends.

Black gay men are the least preferred of sexual partners by other races. Black men are perceived to be riskier to have sex with, which can lead to men of other races avoiding Black men as sexual partners. They are also perceived as less welcome in the common social venues of gay men in San Francisco. As a result, Black men are three times more likely to have sexual partners that are also Black, than would be expected by chance alone.

The authors conclude: “The racial disparity in HIV observed for more than a decade will not disappear until the challenges posed by a legacy of racism towards Blacks in the US are addressed.”

For the complete article, please refer to http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090629114536.htm

Babies who were born with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s have defied initial expectations. No one expected them to live long.

Since the mid-1990s in developed countries, antiretroviral drugs have largely prevented mothers from transmitting HIV/AIDS to their babies.

Nearly 30 young adults and teenagers who were born with HIV/AIDS meet every week at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. “We don’t want to talk about HIV every day,” said Eric Koumbou, 19. “If you talk about HIV and you don’t have it and I do, sometimes it makes me angry or makes me sad.”

For the complete article, please see http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/22/hiv.children.generation/index.html?eref=ib_topstories.