Keepingitreal

Online map details HIV prevalence in each state

(06-21) 17:35 PDT -- It's not surprising that San Francisco is among the top 20 counties with the highest AIDS and HIV prevalence, but a new national online map shows the Georgia counties of Fulton and DeKalb as well as Virginia's Petersburg County also make the list.County-level data on the intensity of AIDS and HIV cases, as well as statistics by age, gender and ethnicity, can be found through a new HIV/AIDS Atlas being launched today by the National Minority Quality Forum, a Washington, D.C., group.The online tool, available at www.mapHIV.org, contains detailed information about HIV and AIDS in all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The information becomes available to the public for the first time in a single location, according to the group, which helps track death and disease in minorities and other special populations."For the first time, we actually know where the patients are," said Gary Puckrein, chief executive officer of the National Minority Quality Forum, which has created online atlases for other diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular conditions.The information helps improve data collection and analysis, prevention initiatives, early diagnosis and routine testing efforts in the hardest-hit communities, he said."With all this talk about health care and access, we've done a very poor job of measuring things," he said. "Because you don't measure, you make lots of assumptions about where the disease is."Using the HIV/AIDS Atlas, people can search by county and narrow their field by gender, age and ethnicity. The results will come up on color-coded maps, with the hot spots in red and regions with the lowest prevalence in green.The atlas counts the number of patients relative to the population, not the overall number of patients."When you do this, you begin to see the disease in different ways, and communities pop up on the radar screen we haven't noticed," Puckrein said.The level of information varies, with eight states providing state-level information and 29 states offering data at the county level.While New York City is the only region with ZIP code-level data, users can view many counties by congressional and state legislative districts. The atlas' creators stressed that it is an evolving tool and they will incorporate new data when available."This, in a very graphic way, helps decision-makers to see what is happening in their jurisdictions," said Dana Van Gorder, executive director of Project Inform in San Francisco, who previewed the map. He said San Francisco has data available by ZIP code that are not yet included in the atlas.SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

Rare Disease Treatment Could Deliver AIDS Breakthrough

EXCERPT FROM KTUV.COM ~ At Children's Hospital in Oakland, researchers searching for the cure to a rare disease afflicting a pair of twin girls have discovered a startling ray of hope that may lead to a breakthrough treatment for AIDS. Five-year-old Addison Hempel and her twin sister Cassidy are both stricken with Niemann Pick Type C Disorder, a rare and deadly disease that disrupts the metabolization of cholesterol. The brain cells die because of it. They can't process cholesterol, explained the twin girls' mother Chris Hempel. They end up in wheelchairs. They can't swallow. It's fatal and there's no treatment. The first symptom was a swelling of their spleens. It was a cancer specialist who first noticed signs of Niemann Pick Disorder. The girls also started having symptoms of weakness and clumsiness similar to very early onset Alzheimers'. Niemann Pick is often referred to as "childhood Alzheimer's" because of these similarities. The lack of available treatment for the disease led the Hempels to search for a cure on their own. They went on the Internet and found a study that said it cured mice that were genetically modified to have Niemann Pick Disorder. The treatment was a simple inexpensive sugary compound made from starch called Cyclodextrin. The Hempel family took that research to their Doctor Caroline Hastings of Children’s Hospital in Oakland. With the twins' condition rapidly getting worse, the Hempels knew there was no time to lose. "We wanted to take the risk now, because our kids are deteriorating," said Chris Hempel. "We don't know what will happen. But I know it's not going to hurt them, and we know in our mice that have the disease, it provides a big benefit. So why not?" CONTINUE READING.

Eyes on Obama this World AIDS Day

EXCERPT FROM ADVOCATE.COM -- Monday, December 1 marks the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, and on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration, AIDS educators and health professionals the world over are looking forward to a new direction and renewed dedication to fighting the world epidemic.Though much of the focus on AIDS has shifted to Africa over the past several years, stateside, after years of making great strides toward reducing new infections, in 2006, the Center for Disease Control reported a 40% increase in new infections. Fifty-three percent of cases were among men who have sex with men -- the rate of new infections in the African American community rose by more than 40 percent.AIDS educators -- perhaps predicting a dramatic shift in leadership in this country -- got off to an ambitious start toward turning those numbers back around in June when the second annual “Test 1 Million” event in Los Angeles vowed to test one million black Americans for HIV before World AIDS Day.That number caught on with educators around the globe. Earlier this week, the AIDS Healthcare foundation -- which provides services to nearly 100,000 people in the U.S., Africa, Asia and Latin America -- launched their campaign… one million tests on World AIDS Day alone.Countries worldwide will take place in this year’s World AIDS Day in various ways.South Africans will observe a 15 minute moment of silence to reflect on the estimated 70,000 children who are born in Africa each year with HIV.In San Francisco, General Hospital -- home to the oldest AIDS treatment program in the United States -- will gather speakers and politicians to commemorate the 25 years the hospital has spent fighting the disease, and announce a renewed commitment to finding a cure.Carol Bergman, acting director of the Global AIDS Alliance, said that this year, all eyes are on Obama to see if he can stand behind the $50 million over five years he promised to fight AIDS on a global level.“Obama comes into office having made a number of specific commitments, including on HIV prevention. He, along with Vice President-Elect Joe Biden and Senator Hillary Clinton, the likely next US Secretary of State, signed a pledge on this issue,” Bergman said in a statement. For more on World AIDS Day and events around the world, visit www.WorldAIDSCampaign.org.

U.S. Blacks, if a Nation, Would Rank High on AIDS

If black America were a country, it would rank 16th in the world in the number of people living with the AIDS virus, the Black AIDS Institute, an advocacy group, reported Tuesday.The report, financed in part by the Ford Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, provides a startling new perspective on an epidemic that was first recognized in 1981.Nearly 600,000 African-Americans are living with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, and up to 30,000 are becoming infected each year. When adjusted for age, their death rate is two and a half times that of infected whites, the report said. Partly as a result, the hypothetical nation of black America would rank below 104 other countries in life expectancy.Those and other disparities are “staggering,” said Dr. Kevin A. Fenton, who directs H.I.V. prevention efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency responsible for tracking the epidemic in the United States.“It is a crisis that needs a new look at prevention,” Dr. Fenton said.In a separate report on Tuesday, the United Nations painted a somewhat more optimistic picture of the worldwide AIDS epidemic, noting that fewer people are dying of the disease since its peak in the late 1990s and that more people are receiving antiretroviral drugs.Nevertheless, the report found that progress remained uneven and that the future of the epidemic was uncertain. The report was issued in advance of the 17th International AIDS Conference, which begins this weekend in Mexico City.The gains are partly from the Bush administration’s program to deliver drugs and preventive measures to people in countries highly affected by H.I.V.The Black AIDS Institute took note of that program in criticizing the administration’s efforts at home. The group said that more black Americans were living with the AIDS virus than the infected populations in Botswana, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Namibia, Rwanda or Vietnam — 7 of the 15 countries that receive support from the administration’s anti-AIDS program. SOURCE:NYT.COM

Newfound genetic clue to HIV rate in blacks

(07-16) 09:04 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- An international team of AIDS scientists has discovered that a gene variant common in blacks protects against certain types of malaria but increases susceptibility to HIV infection by 40 percent. Researchers, keen to find some biological clues to explain why people of African descent are bearing a disproportionate share of the world's AIDS cases, suspect this subtle genetic trait - found in 60 percent of American blacks and 90 percent of Africans - might partly explain the difference. Ten percent of the world's population lives in sub-Saharan Africa, but that region accounts for 70 percent of the men, women and children living with HIV infection. In the United States, African Americans make up 12 percent of the population but account for half of newly diagnosed HIV infections. "The cause of this imbalance is not necessarily driven by behavior," said Phill Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. "Gay black men do not engage in riskier behavior than gay white men, for example. African people with this gene may have a higher vulnerability."Based on their analysis, the researchers estimated that this gene variant alone may account for 11 percent of the estimated 25 million HIV infections that have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa - roughly 2.7 million cases.The gene study was led by Dr. Sunil Ahuja, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and published Wednesday in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. Finding the Duffy protein Working in collaboration with renowned virologist Robin Weiss of University College in London, the group zeroed in on a protein found on the surface of red blood cells. It is known in laboratory circles as the "Duffy antigen."Certain species of malaria parasites latch on to the Duffy protein and use it as a gateway to enter red blood cells. Africans overwhelmingly carry a gene that disables this gateway - and Weiss believes this may have been the result of an evolutionary battle between humans and malaria. The genetic trait is also prevalent among African Americans, who typically carry a mixture of African and European bloodlines."If there is no Duffy there, the malaria parasite can't get in," said Weiss. In the 20th century, however, the Duffy protein appears to have taken on another role, seeming to absorb HIV particles, like a sponge, the researchers said. By sopping up the virus, the protein hampers the virus' chances of invading vulnerable white blood cells - the first step in HIV infection. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

Cookie and Magic Johnson and Spike Lee help fight HIV among blacks

"Ladies," said Cookie Johnson, looking straight into the camera, her husband's arm draped across her shoulders. "Have you been tested . . . "" . . . for HIV?" finished Lakers basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson. As the most prominent African American face of HIV, Johnson, whois now a businessman and philanthropist, has long used his fame toraise public awareness of the virus that causes AIDS. But the appearance of his usually camera-shy wife in the public service announcements that began airing last month on cable TV and YouTube is asign of a growing outspokenness among African Americans about the community's disproportionately high HIV rates."We've got to get the word out about HIV and AIDS to minority communities," Johnson said during taping at the Beverly Hilton earlier this year. "Cookie's taken on the battle."Local activists have worked for decades to draw attention to thetoll of HIV in the black community. Now they are being joined by a growing number of African American celebrities and leaders nationwide.In 2006, the heads of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation's largest civil rights group, took HIV tests in public and made testing available at their annual convention. That same year, 16 mainstream black organizations, including 100 Black Men of America, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the National Council of Negro Women, pledged to fight the epidemic."The black community is where the gay white community probably was in the late 1980s or early 1990s," said Dr. Wilbert C. Jordan, medical director of the OASIS Clinic at the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center. "But we're not where we need tobe still."The numbers provide ample reason for alarm. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks make up almost half the estimated 1.2 million Americans living with HIV today, though they are just 13% of the U.S. population overall. Nearly 17 years after Johnson, with his wife at his side, announced toa stunned sports world that he was HIV-positive, blacks account for most of the country's new HIV and AIDS cases and of deaths from AIDS-related causes.Among the reasons cited by public health experts is poverty, which can lead both to trouble finding healthcare and to high depression rates that sap the will to be careful.Widespread distrust of the health system feeds conspiracy theories,such as one that holds that black people are deliberately infected with HIV when they get blood transfusions or have blood drawn. Many African American leaders have come to believe that their early silence played a role in the spread of HIV.Among many blacks, the early perception of AIDS as a disease particular to whites and gays created not only a sense of complacency but a stigma in a community with a strong tradition of denouncing homosexuality from the pulpit.Blacks resist getting tested because they fear being outcasts in their community, Johnson said. Or they get tested and "run scared," often not telling their families."We African Americans can be homophobic," said moviemaker Spike Lee,who directed the public service ads. "There's a whole lot of re-education that needs to get started."The "I Stand With Magic" campaign, a five-year, $60-million project financed by the drug firm Abbott, which makes HIV and AIDS drugs, urges blacks to be tested for HIV. Its goal is to halve the rate of new infections among U.S. blacks. SOURCE:LAT.COM

Team studies how HIV hides in body

WASHINGTON (AP) — The AIDS virus has hideouts deep in the immune system that today's drugs can't reach. Now scientists finally have discovered how HIV builds one of those fortresses — and they're exploring whether a drug already used to fight a parasite in developing countries just might hold a key to break in.Researchers have long struggled unsuccessfully to attack what they call reservoirs of dormant HIV, and the new work is in very early stages. But University of Rochester scientists say it may be fairly straightforward to attack one of these reservoirs, blood cells called macrophages that HIV hijacks and turns into viral hideaways. The new discovery shows the exact steps that HIV takes to do that — and found that some existing drugs, including a long-used treatment for leishmaniasis called miltefosine, can block the main step and thus cause these cells to self-destruct. "It's a very smart virus," said lead researcher Dr. Baek Kim. "They have to have a very good fence to protect their house for a long time. ... Get rid of the fence, and now their house is gone."FIND MORE STORIES IN: National Institutes of Health | Scientists | University of Rochester | AIDS | HIV | Akt | Dr. Baek Kim | Dr. Kuan-Teh Jeang Today's drugs have turned HIV from a quick death sentence into, for many, a chronic infection. Yet those drugs don't eliminate HIV because they can't reach the two known pools of cells where the virus can lie dormant, ever ready to resurface. So-called memory T cells form one such pool. As the name implies, these are the cells that ensure if you get, say, measles as a child, you're forever immune. They live for years, even decades, making them a logical HIV hideout, and one that scientists have repeatedly sought to dismantle to no avail. SOURCE OF THIS STORY