Condolences

Our condolences to the family of Kanna (staff member of Crisis Home) who went home to be with his God - 08 April 2010. Yet we are comforted that he had gone home to be with God in a far better place.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.”

Peer education is effective at any age and would be a good alternative to HIV education. Young people should undergo training to become peer educators, because they are more likely to get the attention and investment of other youth; far more than adult educators would. After all, teens identify with other teens more than anyone - it makes sense peer education may be the best way to teach HIV prevention.

The more people take anti-HIV treatment, and the sooner they start, the more new infections are averted

Expanded use of antiretroviral therapy - accompanied by good adherence - has the potential to significantly reduce the spread of HIV, according to the results of a mathematical model developed by Canadian researchers and published in the July 1st edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

They calculated that over two-thirds of all projected new HIV infections by 2030 in British Columbia would be averted if all individuals eligible for antiretroviral therapy started such treatment when their CD4 cell count was in the region of 350 cells/mm3 - the current recommended threshold for initiating anti-HIV treatment.

There is unlikely to be an effective vaccine for HIV for some time and current prevention work is only partially effective. Treatment with anti-HIV drugs can mean a longer, healthier life for HIV-positive individuals, and access to antiretroviral therapy is expanding across the globe.

As well as having benefits for the individual patients, antiretroviral therapy may also have public health benefit. Treatment with anti-HIV drugs lowers the amount of HIV in the body, significantly reducing the infectiousness of HIV-infected individuals. In a recent controversial statement, leading HIV physicians in Switzerland suggested that patients taking anti-HIV treatment who have had an undetectable viral load in their blood for at least six months, who take their treatment properly, and who do not have a sexually transmitted infection, should not be considered infectious to their sex partners.

Even in countries with universal access to antiretroviral therapy, large numbers of patients do not start treatment, even when their CD4 cell count suggests that they are at risk of developing an AIDS-defining illness. Very high levels of adherence to anti-HIV treatment are needed to obtain the best results and to avoid the development of drug resistance, but many patients find this difficult to achieve and maintain.

Investigators in the Canadian province of British Columbia, which has universal free access to antiretroviral therapy, developed a series of mathematical models to assess how increasing access to antiretroviral therapy, the early initiation of anti-HIV treatment, and improved levels of adherence would affect the spread of HIV in the province by 2030.

At the moment only 50% of HIV-positive individuals in British Columbia start antiretroviral therapy before their CD4 cell count falls to below 200 cells/mm3, and patients on treatment take approximately 78% of their doses – well below the 95% target and at the level which involves the greatest risk for the development of drug resistant virus. The investigators calculated that this level of treatment coverage and adherence would lead to a modest increase in the annual number of new HIV infections every year – from 421 in 2006 to 462 in 2030.

They then calculated the potential impact of more patients starting anti-HIV treatment before their CD4 cell count fell to the 200 cells/mm3 threshold. Their calculations showed that if 75% of eligible patients had started treatment by this stage it would yield a 37% reduction in the total number of new HIV infections, and if 100% of patients had started treatment by the time before they reached a CD4 cell count of 200 cells/mm3, then 62% of onward transmissions would be averted.

HIV treatment guidelines around the world now recommend that patients should start antiretroviral therapy when their CD4 cell count is in the region of 350 cells/mm3 and the investigators included this earlier initiation of therapy into their models.

Once again, they found that the current coverage rate of 50%, accompanied by 78% adherence would mean a modest increase in the number of annual HIV infections.

But they found that greater coverage of anti-HIV treatment would result in substantial reductions in the number of new HIV infections. Their calculations showed that if 75% of patients started treatment when their CD4 cell count was 350 cells/mm3, then 40% of the projected new infections by 2030 would be averted, and this increased to 67% of anticipated infections if all patients started treatment when their CD4 cell count was around 350 cells/mm3. Increasing patient adherence would further modestly increase the number of averted infections.

Faster expansion of anti-HIV treatment would result in faster decreases in the numbers of new infections, according to the investigators’ model. Furthermore, immediate expansion of access to anti-HIV treatment would save a total of Canadian $95 million, or Canadian $368,000 per patient.

“Our results indicate that higher HAART coverage consistently leads to a decrease in the number of individuals testing newly positive for HIV”, write the investigators. They conclude, “expansion of HAART coverage should lead to a substantial reduction of the growth of the HIV epidemic and related direct treatment costs. Our model supports a powerful and as-of-yet little appreciated additive preventative value for expanding HAART coverage.”

March 11 (Bernama) — Executive Director of the joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS) Michel Sidib said Wednesday here that the current global AIDS epidemic is still very severe and the international community should pay sufficient attention on AIDS prevention and control.

In his speech at a news conference at the United Nations Center, China’s Xinhua news agency cited Sidib, as saying that everyday there are 7,000 people being infected with HIV in the world, of which 1,500 are in the southern African region.

Due to lack of effective treatment for pregnant women, about 400,000 babies are born with HIV each year, he said.

According to him, the global annual funding needed to fight against AIDS has exceeded US$16 billion.

About 4.7 million AIDS patients across the world are receiving treatment. Although this figure is already 10 times as much as five years ago, there are still 11 million HIV-infected people who are not properly treated.

Executive Director of the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, said drug consumption contributes to the spread of AIDS.

Currently the global injection drug users reach about 3 million. In some countries, even 40 percent of injecting drug users is HIV infected, said Costa.

During the news conference, the President of the International AIDS Society (IAS), Julio Montaner, urged the international community and governments to further strengthen the research and capital investment for more effective prevention and control of AIDS.

The international AIDS conference “AIDS 2010″ will be held from July 18 to 23 in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Some 25000 delegates from all over the world are expected to attend the meeting. — BERNAMA

UNAIDS believes that drug users can be protected from becoming infected with HIV if comprehensive, evidence-informed and human-rights-based interventions are made accessible to all drug users.

“Effective harm reduction approaches include access to clean needles, opioid substitution therapy for opiate users, access to antiretroviral therapy and reducing sexual transmission of HIV from drug users to their sexual partners through condom promotion,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé. “But current coverage of these services is appallingly low.”

People live with HIV; they live full and healthy lives. People have families, have careers, have dreams and ambitions all while living with HIV. People no longer have to view HIV as a death sentence; people live with HIV. One of the reasons people are living healthier lives with HIV is the fact that they are learning more and more about their disease. Understanding HIV is one of the keys to a long healthy life.

One of the most common questions we get is regarding HIV and how long it lives outside the human body. People get concerned about touching someone or something and getting HIV-infected blood on their hands and becoming infected with HIV. Fortunately, HIV just doesn’t infect the human body in that way.

Answer: Studies have proven time and time again that HIV does not survive well outside the human body. In artificially high concentrations produced in the lab, HIV drying that occurs outside of the body reduces the number of infectious viral particles by 99 percent in just a few hours. Since the concentration of HIV in blood or other bodily fluids is much lower, HIV drying outside the human body virtually eliminates all infectious HIV particles therefore making the risk of HIV infection from blood or bodily fluids outside the body essentially zero.

Keep in mind that while HIV infection from infectious bodily fluids outside the human body is essentially zero, other diseases like hepatitis B and C can and do occur. Therefore, any blood or bodily fluid outside the body should be considered a health risk and cleaned up using universal precautions and cleaning fluids that are known to kill viruses on contact. About.com Guide

There are a number of important reasons to be tested for HIV. For those who think they may have been exposed to the virus, having a test and receiving a negative result (which means they are not infected with HIV), can put their mind at rest.

If the HIV test is positive, there are a number of things that can be done to help a person cope with the result and lead a healthy life.

* A person who tests positive will at some point need to take antiretroviral treatment to slow down the virus and maintain a healthy immune system. The longer a person remains unaware of their infection, the less likely it is that the treatment will work. Doctors can monitor an HIV positive person’s health in order to provide the right treatment regimen at the right time.

* If a person is aware of their HIV infection they can take steps to protect other people. They can practice safer sex and inform previous sexual partners that they may have been at risk of infection.

* Those who test positive who were thinking of starting a family can learn about ways to protect their child from becoming infected with HIV through mother-to-child transmission

A total of 315 people died of AIDS in the first six months of the year.

Most of the HIV infection cases were in Kelantan (297), followed by Pahang (240), Terengganu (191), Selangor (151), Perak (108), Kedah (98), Johor (90), Sarawak (74), and Penang and the Federal Territory with 51 cases each.

Malaysian AIDS Council exco member Pax Tan gave the figures at a media sensitisation workshop here yesterday.

“Selangor had the most AIDS cases at 71, followed by Sarawak with 46, the Federal Territory, 39, and both Terengganu and Negri Sembilan at 33 cases each,” he said.

Factory workers, fishermen, private sector workers, lorry drivers and housewives were the top five groups infected with HIV, Tan said.

NST Online http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/20aid/Article/