The CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: "Free Female Condoms Are New Tool in City's Battle Against HIV/AIDS"

AUSTRIA: "Eastern Europe in Spotlight at Vienna AIDS Conference"

CANADA: "HIV Cases in Manitoba Jump More than 20 Percent"

CANADA: "Tuberculosis Strikes Hard Among Canada's Inuit"

INDIA: "AIDS Rise May Force India to Spend More: World Bank"

MALAWI: "Pfizer Pneumonia Shot Helps HIV-Infected Patients"

CALIFORNIA: "San Francisco Gets AIDS Research Center Funds"

TEXAS: "Tuberculosis Cases Fall 11 Percent in 2009"

AFRICA: "7 Percent of Sub-Saharan's Older People Living with HIV"

 About the Prevention News Update
 Subscribe to the Prevention News Update
 Locate more News
 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA:
"Free Female Condoms Are New Tool in City's Battle Against HIV/AIDS"   back to top
Washington Post , (03.06.2010)   Darryl Fears

Under a program rolling out in the next three weeks, Washington will become the first city in the United States to distribute free female condoms. Officials said the effort will target sections of wards 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 where research indicates many African-American heterosexuals engage in risky sexual behavior.

“Anywhere male condoms are available, female condoms will be available,” said Shannon Hader, director of the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration (DCHAA). Male condoms have been distributed across the city for a decade. A 2008 report indicated that 3 percent of Washington residents are HIV-positive, though Hader and other officials believe the real prevalence rate is closer to 5 percent.

The initiative, which will make 500,000 female condoms available in beauty salons, convenience stores, and high schools, is funded through a $500,000 grant from the MAC AIDS Fund. A subsidiary of MAC Cosmetics, the fund already contributes to other District programs, including two needle exchanges.

Hader pointed out several troubling facts from the city’s “HIV Heterosexual Behavior Study.” In that report, 75 percent of respondents said they were in a committed relationship. However, 45 percent admitted to sex outside the relationship, and 46 percent believed their partner was not being faithful. More than 70 percent reported not using condoms, and only 60 percent had been tested for HIV.

Hader said workers with community organizations are learning how to demonstrate the proper use of the female condom.

The watchdog group D.C. Appleseed has criticized DCHAA in the past, but Executive Director Walter Smith praised the new initiative. “On this one, they’re cutting edge. The very fact that they’re doing this says to women of the city that this is important to you. This is important to your families. Get with the program.”

AUSTRIA:
"Eastern Europe in Spotlight at Vienna AIDS Conference"   back to top
Agence France Presse , (03.10.2010)   

In Vienna on Wednesday, UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe previewed the 18th International AIDS Conference being held there this summer. “AIDS 2010 will be the conference for people without a voice,” he said at a press briefing.

“The rapidly growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in Eastern Europe, fueled primarily by unsafe injecting drug use, are topics under the spotlight at AIDS 2010,” to be held July 18-23, UNAIDS and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a joint statement.

Vienna is a gateway to Eastern Europe and Central Asia - regions where HIV prevalence has nearly doubled since 2001, largely due to unsafe drug injection. An estimated 1.5 million people are living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. By holding the conference in the Austrian capital, organizers hope to highlight the regions’ marginalized groups like drug users, said Robin Gorna, head of the International AIDS Society.

“To break the trajectory of the HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe, we must stop new infections among injecting drug users and their partners,” Sidibe said. “People who use drugs have a right to access the best possible options for prevention, care, and treatment.”

“We can and must reverse the HIV epidemic, first of all by preventing the spread of drug use, and then by providing treatment to addicts. In this comprehensive program, HIV-targeted measures include providing clean injecting equipment, opioid substitution, and antiretroviral therapy,” said UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa.

For more information on the conference, visit www.aids2010.org.

CANADA:
"HIV Cases in Manitoba Jump More than 20 Percent"   back to top
Canadian Press , (03.08.2010)   

Newly released figures from Manitoba Health show 108 new HIV cases were recorded in the province last year, an increase of more than 20 percent from the 88 cases logged in 2008.

The spike comes two years after health officials warned of a potential HIV epidemic among Manitoba’s aboriginal population. The previous provincial report, released in 2007, showed HIV was spreading faster in First Nations heterosexual populations than other groups. The data showed roughly one-third of all new cases recorded in the province were among natives. Statistics also indicated Manitoba had one of Canada’s highest per-capita HIV rates.

Most HIV cases in the province are reported in Winnipeg; demographic information on the 2009 cases is still unavailable.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joel Kettner said experts are studying the latest figures to determine whether HIV transmission is increasing and to examine a possible link to other STDs and factors such as injecting drug use. “It’s definitely a concern,” he said. “We know intravenous drug use is becoming a more important risk factor for HIV and of course [high-risk] heterosexual activity has increased.”

“It’s not immediately clear,” Kettner said. “It could just be we’re getting better and more people are coming forward for testing.”

The rise in HIV cases mirrors that of other STDs, including chlamydia and gonorrhea. In 2009, more than 6,300 Manitobans tested positive for chlamydia, up from approximately 4,200 in 2007.

CANADA:
"Tuberculosis Strikes Hard Among Canada's Inuit"   back to top
Agence France Presse , (03.10.2010)   

From 2004 to 2008, TB rates among Canada’s Inuit increased from 80.4 cases per 100,000 people to 157.5, even as TB prevalence declined in the general population, an Inuit advocacy group said Wednesday. New TB cases among Canada’s Inuit, who number 50,000, doubled during the period, from 41 to 88, according to federal surveillance data cited by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK).

Aggravating factors include the vast, desolate remoteness of Canada’s far north. Only one hospital serves all 26 communities in the Nunavut territory, which is about the size of France or Texas. It also lacks enough staff coverage, said Gail Turner of ITK.

“In Nunatsiavut, where I live, Inuit must fly to Goose Bay to receive a chest X-ray,” said Turner. “Recently, that meant a group of patients was stranded for 15 days because of weather.”

Poverty is exacerbated due to the high price of imported foods, while local hunting has been made more dangerous by the disappearing ice cover. Entire extended families sometimes live in single-room houses - ideal conditions for TB transmission.

These unique community characteristics make TB diagnosis and control difficult, said Turner. “Tuberculosis is challenging because there’s a perception that it’s gone,” she said.

“It is imperative that a separate strategy be created now for Inuit,” Turner said. “TB will never be eliminated until housing is improved, food security is improved, and access to health care for Inuit is closer to what other Canadians take for granted.”

INDIA:
"AIDS Rise May Force India to Spend More: World Bank"   back to top
Reuters , (03.07.2010)   Bappa Majumdar

Unless India steps up efforts to prevent HIV, it will have to devote an increasing proportion of its health budget to treat those infected, the World Bank said on Sunday.

India currently spends about 5 percent of its health care budget on AIDS treatment. With signs of infections rising in the capital of New Delhi, in the financial hub of Mumbai, and in the north and northeast, treatment costs could rise to $1.8 billion in a decade. India’s total health budget today is $5.4 billion.

Under this scenario, HIV/AIDS would strain both the health care budget and services, experts said.

More than 15 percent of injection drug users (IDUs) in India are infected with HIV, compared with a global average of 10 percent. However, in some regions of India prevalence among IDUs is as high as 50 percent, according to ongoing surveys cited by health ministry officials.

“What we are worried about are the concentrated epidemics in the country among vulnerable groups in districts,” said Mariam Claeson, World Bank HIV/AIDS program coordinator. “Those concentrated epidemics can act as wildfires and therefore need to be targeted with effective prevention efforts.”

In addition, those infected potentially face economic losses that are a cumulative drag on national development, the bank noted. About 36 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS in India report income loss and increased expenditures related to treatment.

MALAWI:
"Pfizer Pneumonia Shot Helps HIV-Infected Patients"   back to top
Reuters , (03.03.2010)   Kate Kelland

A Pfizer vaccine against Streptococcus pneumoniae prevented 74 percent of re-infections in HIV patients, a new study finds. The bacteria can cause invasive pneumococcal disease, leading to often-fatal septicaemia and meningitis. HIV patients, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have 30 to 100 times greater risk of developing IPD, noted Neil French, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and colleagues.

An existing 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine, which consists of long chains of sugar molecules isolated from pneumococcal bacteria, does not adequately prevent the infection among HIV-positive adults and is not recommended for African patients. In the study, researchers used Pfizer’s Prevnar 7 vaccine, a seven-valent conjugate vaccine that uses the sugar molecules but binds them to a “carrier” protein that amplifies the immune response.

In the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, researchers followed 496 Malawian adolescents and adults (88 percent HIV-positive) who had recovered from documented IPD. Two doses of vaccine were administered four weeks apart. Endpoints were re-infection by vaccine serotypes or serotype 6A.

In 798 person-years of observation, French and colleagues found Prevnar 7 had an efficacy of 74 percent.

“This is the first trial to use a conjugate pneumococcal vaccine in an adult group and find clinical benefits,” said French. “Since it works in patients with HIV infection, it is likely to work in other adult groups, including the elderly and other at-risk groups.”

The full study, “A Trial of a 7-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in HIV-Infected Adults,” was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2010;362(9):812-822).

CALIFORNIA:
"San Francisco Gets AIDS Research Center Funds"   back to top
Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco) , (03.11.2010)   Cynthia Laird

The AIDS Office of the San Francisco Department of Public Health is to receive $9.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding over the next five years, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced on March 9. The money will be used to renovate the AIDS Office’s facility at 25 Van Ness Ave., expanding its ability to conduct research. The construction project is expected to create 100 new jobs. “This grant will provide the AIDS Office with a research center commensurate with the world-class work that has gone on there for the past 20 years,” Newsom said. The grant is provided through the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health.

TEXAS:
"Tuberculosis Cases Fall 11 Percent in 2009"   back to top
Dallas Morning News , (03.10.2010)   Sherry Jacobson

The Dallas County Health Department reported Tuesday that the county’s TB case count fell from 219 in 2008 to 195 in 2009. “TB in Dallas is a threat under control,” declared Dr. Garry Woo, medical director of the department’s TB division. Health officials continue to recommend annual TB testing, which is offered on weekdays, except Thursday, for a cost of $30.

AFRICA:
"7 Percent of Sub-Saharan's Older People Living with HIV"   back to top
The Post (Lusaka, Zambia) , (01.27.2010)   Margaret Mtonga

The national coordinator of the Senior Citizens Association of Zambia announced recently that 7 percent of older people in sub-Saharan nations are living with HIV/AIDS. “The problem that the older people are facing right now is that they think HIV and AIDS is a disease that can only be contracted by the young in society,” Rosemary Sishimba said, noting that prevention efforts typically do not target seniors. She called on the media to work harder to provide HIV/AIDS information to seniors, who are often pressed by the epidemic into becoming caregivers for young children. “The non-governmental organizations need to collaborate with media to sensitize the public and government about the need and circumstances of older people in general and older caregivers,” Sishimba said. “It is however very unfortunate that the media houses hardly have interest in reporting on issues concerning the older people in society.”