Generic Version Of Truvada Approved For Overseas Sales

Mylan Inc. said Monday its generic version of Gilead Science Inc.'s HIV drug Truvada has received tentative marketing approval.

The company said its version was granted tentative approval under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Truvada is a combination of two drugs, emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, and total sales of the product grew to $2.11 billion in 2008. That made Truvada Gilead's best-selling product.

Mylan's generic is made by its Indian subsidiary, Matrix Laboratories. (Truvada still has patent protection in the U.S. The generic product will most likely be sold only in overseas markets).

India And Living With HIV

Mysore, India: The very thought of AIDS may seem awfully frightening. But meet this bunch of people tested positive with HIV and chances are you will end up feeling that HIV can be overcome and the patients too can lead a contended life. However, what keeps them going is the sheer determination to live.

Meet S Noori, 60, managing trustee of South India Positive Network (SIPN) and Asylum for AIDS orphaned children from Chennai, who is living with the disease for 22 years. If anybody asks her age, her cryptic reply is: "you are asking my age or my my AIDS age?" It is an indication that she has taken the disease in her stride and conquered it.

She has a sordid saga of entering into prostitution at a tender age of 14 after she was orphaned following the untimely death of her parents. "With no alternative left for survival I took up the profession and got afflicted with this deadly disease," she says, adding initially it was tough to face the people. "But later I realized that I should face the people and live along with the AIDS," she says advising other patients to treat this deadly disease as any other disease and live with it. Noori also visits foreign countries to create awareness among the sex workers on HIV.

Laksmi and Rashida, sex workers from Gujarat, are living with the disease for six years, but they were reluctant to disclose it. "After coming here to participate in the Positive Habba Festival, we have decided to disclose about our suffering. Our only worry is about our children getting the right life partners. All that we tell the society is `Live and let the AIDS patients live harmoniously'," they say. Over 500 HIV positive sex workers from seven states are participating in the festival. Courtesy Times Of India

Vets May Have Been Exposed To HIV Virus Via Colonoscopy

Worried military men and women flooded Miami Veterans' Hospital telephone hot lines Tuesday after Monday's announcement that improperly cleaned colonoscopy equipment might have exposed them to hepatitis and HIV.

The hospital received 2,662 telephone calls, and 351 veterans visited VA clinics in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to ask about their status and to schedule testing, said Dr. John Vara, the Miami VA's chief of staff.

On Monday, the VA disclosed that water tubes and reservoirs used in colonoscopies and endoscopies were being rinsed between procedures, but not disinfected as required by manufacturer's specifications. About 3,260 South Florida veterans had medical procedures since May 2004 using the faulty procedure.

Vara said Tuesday there was a ''very small but more than negligible chance'' the veterans could have been exposed to viruses that cause Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV.

In a colonoscopy, he said, a flexible tube called an endoscope carries a light and camera into the intestines to look for possibly cancerous tumors or polyps.

The endoscope also has a channel that carries water to clear the vision for the camera.

In these cases, the pump and reservoir that are used to move the water were rinsed after being used but were not disinfected as required, Vara said.

That creates a slight chance that back-flow from the pump could carry tiny amounts of virus into the patient, he said.

Dr. Mark Larson, gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, N.Y., said the infection would be unlikely to spread unless a cut or tear inside the intestine allowed the virus to enter the bloodstream.

Even so, he noted, ``it doesn't take a lot of virus to spread things like hepatitis and HIV." Courtesy Miami Herald.

RIse In HIV Rates Alarms Canadian Health Officials

An alarming rise in the number of HIV-positive cases in Saskatchewan has the province's chief medical officer examining all elements of transmission of the virus, including prostitution.

Dr. Moira McKinnon told CBC News that prostitutes who are infected with HIV and have unprotected sex are contributing to the spread of the virus.

On Monday, CBC News broke the story that McKinnon viewed 174 new cases of HIV in Saskatchewan last year — a 40 per cent jump from 2007 — as a "crisis" in public health.

McKinnon identified drug users, particularly those who share needles, and HIV-positive prostitutes as two groups that need attention.

"It's intertwined," McKinnon said. "The sex industry and the drug industry. We know that there are sex workers out there that are infected."

She said prostitutes pose a particular challenge.

"They've been ordered to change their behavior," McKinnon said. "We have to monitor compliance with that behavior and that's difficult to do."

McKinnon said one option is to charge prostitutes who knowingly engage in unprotected sex, without disclosing their HIV status, although she acknowledged such a charge could be difficult to prove.

Barb Lawrence, of Regina's Street Workers Advocacy Project, said criminal prosecution is the wrong approach.

"We're facing a really significant problem in this community and demonizing one small group is not the answer," Lawrence said.

McKinnon said she will be working with officials in the Ministry of Justice and police services to look for ways to push HIV-positive prostitutes off the streets.

They will also examine how other jurisdictions have dealt with the problem, McKinnon said Courtesy CBC

WHO Report: HIV Patients 20 Times More Susceptible To Tuberculosis

A new report by the World Health Organization shows a close link between tuberculosis and HIV.

The World Health Organization reports nearly 9.3 million people became ill with tuberculosis in 2007, of these new cases it says 1.4 million or 15 percent were linked to HIV.

The TB Control report finds one out of four TB deaths, or nearly one-half million deaths, is HIV related. That is twice as many as previously recognized.

WHO HIV/AIDS Department Director Kevin De Kock says the burden of HIV-TB is unequally distributed. "About 79 percent of all HIV-associated TB cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa - 79 percent and about 11 percent in Southeast Asia," said Dr. De Kock.

"Of the five countries in the world with the greatest number of new tuberculosis cases annually, two of them have generalized HIV epidemics. And, that is South Africa, a country with a large population and very high HIV prevalence rate and Nigeria," he added.

Dr. De Kock notes Nigeria has a lower prevalence of HIV than South Africa, but because of its very large population, many people are infected with the disease.

He says people living with HIV have a risk of developing tuberculosis that is about 20 times higher than that compared with people who do not have HIV. He says it is important that people with HIV be tested for tuberculosis so they can get the proper treatment to cure the disease and prevent it from spreading.

"HIV-infected people are highly vulnerable to getting TB and if they get a variety of TB that is resistant against drugs, they have very high case fatality rates, very high death rates," said Dr. De Kock. "We have seen outbreak of such events in South Africa, in other countries related to hospitals, anti-retroviral therapy clinics, prisons and so on. Just to point out, this is a reflection of weak TB programs and inadequate health systems that these situations arise."

The WHO report reveals a sharp increase in HIV testing among people who have tuberculosis, especially in Africa. As a consequence, it says more people are receiving the treatment they need, although the numbers remain small.

The World Health Organization warns drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis are growing and pose some of the greatest problems. In 2007, it estimates 500,000 people had multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, but less than one percent of them were receiving treatment.

The World Health Organization says great progress against both tuberculosis and HIV has been made in the past few years. But, it notes tuberculosis still kills more people with HIV than any other disease. It says more work and money is needed to scale up effective interventions for the prevention, treatment and care of TB worldwide. Source Voice Of America

Condoms: HIV Stopper Or Waste Of Rubber?

The Vatican Wednesday defended Pope Benedict’s opposition to the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS as activists, doctors and politicians criticised it as unrealistic, unscientific and dangerous.

Benedict, arriving in Africa, said on Tuesday that condoms “increase the problem” of AIDS. The comment, made to reporters aboard his plane, caused a worldwide firestorm of criticism.

“My reaction is that this represents a major step backwards in terms of global health education, is entirely counter-productive, and is likely to lead to increases in HIV infection in Africa and elsewhere,” said Prof Quentin Sattentau, Professor of Immunology at Britain’s Oxford University.

“There is a large body of published evidence demonstrating that condom use reduces the risk of acquiring HIV infection, but does not lead to increased sexual activity,” he said.

The Church teaches that fidelity within heterosexual marriage and abstinence are the best ways to stop AIDS.

Asked about the criticism, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope was “maintaining the position of his predecessors”.

The Vatican also says condoms can also lead to risky behaviour but many contest that view.

Kevin De Cock, director of the World Health Organisation’s HIV/AIDS department, said there is no scientific evidence showing that condom use spurs people to take more sexual risks.

But there are those with differing opinions.

Edward Green, the director of Harvard University's AIDS Prevention Research Project, says Pope Benedict XVI was correct when he said that condoms not only don't reduce incidences of AIDS and HIV, but can exacerbate them.

Green said: "Theoretically, condoms ought to work, and theoretically, some condom use ought to be better than no condom use, but that's theoretically."

In 25 years of researching the spread of AIDS on the African continent, he said, "We just cannot find an association between more condom use and lower HIV reduction rates."

Part of the reason, he said, may be a phenomenon known as "risk compensation." If people use a certain technology to reduce risk, this may lead them to take on greater risk. Examples: People put on sun block, then think they can stay out longer in the sun. People wear seat belts, then think they can drive faster.

In sex, too, he said, people may be willing to engage in more risky behaviors because of the availability of condoms. This can "disproportionally erase" the benefits of condom use.

Oops: Hospitals Share Insulin Pens Putting Patients At Risk For HIV

More than 2,000 people may have been put at risk of AIDS and hepatitis by sharing insulin pens and cartridges in two Army hospitals, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.

The FDA posted a warning Thursday against sharing the disposable insulin shots after the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, last month said 2,114 diabetic patients may be at risk “as a result of incorrect procedures.” The sharing occurred from 2007-2009, the FDA said in a statement issued today.

The shots carry multiple doses of insulin intended for a single patient. The hospitals reportedly replaced the needle for each shot as indicated, though they may have improperly used the same pens for multiple patients, according to the FDA. Even with a fresh needle, the pen reservoir or cartridge can still be contaminated with blood, the FDA said.

“They were changing pens and weren’t following the manufacturer’s procedures,” said Clarence Davis III, a spokesman for the hospital, today in a telephone interview. “There is an ongoing investigation to determine how it happened. It wasn’t cost-cutting.”

The Army identified a second hospital that may have been sharing the shots as Fort Polk’s Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital in Louisiana. “Less than 10” patients may have been exposed there, Davis said. Two types of insulin pens were used, he said, declining to identify the brands.

“Current instructions for use for all insulin pens already state that the pens are not to be shared among patients,” the FDA said.

The Associated Press reported March 10 that 16 patients from William Beaumont may have tested positive for hepatitis C as a result of the practice. The FDA said that while “some” patients may have tested positive, it isn’t known whether they had the disease previously and weren’t diagnosed.

The Army Surgeon General ordered a service-wide review, the Texas hospital said in its Feb. 5 statement. The type of pen was used in nine facilities. The pens were used correctly at seven, according to the statement.

Courtesy Bloomberg

In Symbolic Move, ELCA BIshops Tested For HIV

The ELCA Conference of Bishops is an advisory body of the church, consisting of bishops who lead the 65 synods of the ELCA, plus the ELCA presiding bishop and ELCA secretary. The conference met March 5-10 in Chicago and in Itasca, Ill.

At least 56 members of the conference were screened, said the Rev. Andrea DeGroot-Nesdahl, ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop. One or more bishops were screened prior to the meeting, and a few were not able to attend, she said.

Staff with Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, Ill., supervised the screening, done with an oral swab. Results will be reported to members' physicians.

The conference agreed to the screening last October. Through screening, members said they could raise awareness about AIDS-related issues including prevention, testing, treatment, care, stigma and discrimination. The conference also wanted the testing to call attention to a proposed churchwide HIV and AIDS strategy, to be considered by the ELCA Church Council later this
month.

Native Group To Perform at HIV/AIDS Native Day Of Remembrance

A Native American youth theater group performs Friday in Minneapolis to mark a national day focused on HIV and AIDS among Native Americans.

The performance by the Ogitchi-dag (oh-git-CHEE'-dah) Players from the Indigenous Peoples Task Force takes place at the Minneapolis American Indian Center.

American Indians have the third-highest rate of HIV and AIDS among all ethnic groups.

State officials say there have been 193 cases of HIV infection and 81 deaths among Native Americans in Minnesota since the AIDS epidemic began.

Currently, about 100 HIV-infected American Indians live in the state.

State minority health office director Mitchell Davis Jr. is urging frequent HIV testing and safe sex practices and warning against sharing needles used for drug use or body art.

The Minneapolis American Indian Center is located at 1530 East Franklin Ave. For Source Star Tribune.

Washington D.C. HIV/AIDS Rates At Alarming Rates

Alarming news about the HIV epidemic and it's coming from America's capital city. At least 3 percent of District of Columbia residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a "generalized and severe" epidemic, according to a report scheduled to be released by health officials Monday.

That translates into 2,984 residents per every 100,000 over the age of 12 -- or 15,120 -- according to the 2008 epidemiology report by the District's HIV/AIDS office.

"Our rates are higher than West Africa," said Shannon L. Hader, director of the District's HIV/AIDS Administration, who once led the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's work in Zimbabwe. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."

"We have every mode of transmission" -- men having sex with men, heterosexual and injected drug use -- "going up, all on the rise, and we have to deal with them," Hader said.

Among the reports findings: Almost half of those who had connections to the parts of the city with the highest AIDS prevalence and poverty rates said they had overlapping sexual partners within the past 12 months, three in five said they were aware of their own HIV status, and three in 10 said they had used a condom the last time they had sex.

So urgent is the concern that the HIV/AIDS Administration took the relatively rare step of couching the city's infections in a percentage, harkening to 1992, when San Francisco, around the height of its epidemic, announced that 4 percent of its population was HIV positive. But the report also cautions that "we know that the true number of residents currently infected and living with HIV is certainly higher."

The District's report found a 22 percent increase in HIV and AIDS cases from the 12,428 reported at the end of 2006, touching every race and sex across population and neighborhoods, with an epidemic level in all but one of the eight wards. Black men, with an infection rate of nearly 7 percent, carry the weight of the disease, according to the report, which also underscores that the District's HIV and AIDS population is aging. Almost 1 in 10 residents between the ages of 40 and 49 has the virus.

Men having sex with men has remained the disease's leading mode of transmission. Heterosexual transmission and injection drug use closely follow, the report says. Three percent of black women carry the virus, partly a result of the increase in heterosexual transmissions.

The study is the most precise count to date, according to the authors. The document is an update of a breakthrough 2007 report, which brought into clearer focus a picture of a city in the grip of a complex and "modern epidemic" that had traveled from a mostly gay population to the general one and disproportionately hit blacks.

For years, District HIV/AIDS workers depended on estimates that put the rate at 1 of 20 living with HIV and 1 of 50 living with AIDS.

The current study notes that its tracking occurred as the city made a switch from a code-based counting system to a name-based one. The surveillance unit interviewed medical providers to find unreported cases, pressed providers who did not consistently report to the administration and searched databases for unreported cases.

More than 4 percent of blacks in the city are known to have HIV, along with almost 2 percent of Latinos and 1.4 percent of whites. More than three-quarters -- 76 percent -- of the HIV infected are black, 70 percent are men and 70 percent are age 40 and older.

Heterosexual sex was the principal mode of transmission for blacks with the disease, 33 percent. Men having sex with men was the chief mode of transmission for white residents, 78 percent; and Latinos, 49 percent. Black women represent more than a quarter of HIV cases in the District, and most, about 58 percent, were infected through heterosexual sex. About a quarter of black women were infected through drug use.

There is good news in the AIDS office's report: More people are getting HIV diagnoses early, while they are still healthy, as a result of a policy of routine testing implemented by the city in mid-2006. Publicly supported HIV testing expanded by 70 percent.

Source: Washington Post

HIV Funding Fight Hits Congress

Following a battle on the Senate floor, San Francisco may once again receive a disproportionate amount of HIV/AIDS funding if the omnibus appropriations bill passes. U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., introduced an amendment to stop that funding shift and ensure rural and southern states with increasing HIV/AIDS populations are properly funded. The Senate voted against the amendment by a vote of 42-53.

The omnibus package includes a provision to overturn funding formulas that the Senate and House carefully negotiated in the reauthorization of Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act in 2006. Enzi worked on those funding formulas to ensure all states were treated fairly, especially rural areas and the South, where the disease is spreading most rapidly. Enzi’s 2007 amendment, identical to this year’s omnibus amendment, passed the Senate by a vote of 65-28. House Democratic Leadership inserted a provision in the omnibus appropriations bill, H.R. 1105, that would put funding for Ryan White at levels prior to the 2006 changes. Those formulas favor cities like San Francisco that have a longer history of AIDS infections over states where the disease is now spreading.

“This exact amendment passed the Senate two years ago and now it was voted down by strict party lines. If this is bipartisanship and change in action then we’re in trouble. It is unfortunate that HIV/AIDS patients are turning into pawns for leadership to score political points,” said Enzi.i.

Enzi’s amendment funding formula numbers were based off of non-partisan GAO figures. Courtesy Little Chicago Review

Doctors Use Hair To Determine HIV Drug Adherance

Scientists have discovered that examining the levels of antiretroviral drugs in "hair samples" of HIV patients on therapy can strongly predict the success of the treatment.

Typically, clinicians rely on either self-report by patients, pill counts or expensive medication dispensing devices to monitor how well patients are taking their pills as directed. These methods are highly patient dependent.

Now, a US team, led by scientist Monica Gandhi MD, has found that the levels of antiretrovirals in hair of patients on treatment correlated strongly with levels of HIV virus circulating in patients' blood, the AIDS journal reported in its latest edition.

"Clinicians can draw blood and then measure plasma levels of medications, but since a single plasma level represents medication exposure hours prior to the blood draw, this method hasn't been a good predictor of viral suppression.

"High levels of antiretrovirals in hair correlated with success in HIV viral suppression in treatment and did so better than any of the other variables usually considered to predict response," Dr. Gandhi of California University said.

In fact, according to the scientists, hair, which grows at a rate of about a centimeter a month, gives a reading of drug levels which reflects the rate of pill consumption sustained by patients over weeks, not days.

Assessing an average level of drug exposure over time may be more predictive of treatment response than the "snapshot" of exposure provided by a single plasma level of medication, Dr. Gandhi said.

In their study, the scientists took 10 strands of hair from 220 female patients on HIV therapy from the back of the head. They cut the hair sample close to the scalp underneath the top layer of hair, marked the part farthest from the scalp with tape and wrapped the strands in aluminum foil. The sample was stored at room temperature in plastic bag till it's analysis.

"This is a painless, bloodless, bio hazard-free, method of collecting a stable specimen from HIV patients that may allow for the monitoring of levels of antiretroviral drugs absorbed over time and the prediction of treatment success.

"Our next step is to test this method in resource-limited settings where blood collection and viral load monitoring may be expensive and difficult.

"Not only could this method help in measuring pill-taking, but its strong correlation with viral suppression could allow its use as an inexpensive, non-invasive method of monitoring treatment success," Dr. Gandhi said. Courtesy The Hindu.

Man Bites Cop And Other Non Stories

The incident took place in Jehangirpuri of North-West Delhi on March 3d when the officer went to the residence of the driver after his wife called police and complained that she was being beaten up by him.

After receiving the call, two officers went to the residence of the truck driver where they saw the man beating up his wife, sources said.

One officer attended to the woman while the other tried to stop the truck driver from creating a scene, they said, adding it led to a scuffle between the two.

Both of them fell on the ground and the driver bit both legs of the officer. The bite was so hard that the officer's legs began bleeding, they said.

The next day the officer went to the residence of the driver where his wife "confirmed" that her husband is HIV- positive.

The officer is reportedly on leave from the police department. Courtesy The Times Of India

Articles like this are interesting as there is no verified proof the man is HIV Positive nor is it noted that the odds of being infected by a bite is extremely small as saliva is a poor carrier of HIV. Articles like this only fan the flames of fear about HIV and causes ostracization of HIV victims. Editor.

Death To HIV

Scientists at major medical centers in the United States, the drug industry and AIDS advocates are calling for a new research effort to defeat, once and for all, the viral infections that have caused the global AIDS epidemic that kills more than two million people each year worldwide, despite the antiviral drugs that are keeping other millions alive even now.

The goal - admittedly a longshot - is to find a path that would free every infected patient in the world from both the AIDS-causing virus and from life-long dependence on the drugs that can hold the virus at bay, but are far too costly for most of the underdeveloped nations of the world.

As successful as they are in combatting the AIDS virus, the drug combinations now available cannot eliminate every virus particle from the bodies of those who are infected. Those dormant particles - latent is the medical term - pose an ongoing threat of renewed infection without lifelong use of those antiviral drugs.

By killing virtually all the latent viruses in the cells of infected people - even in those who live in good health while taking the anti-viral drugs, the researchers hope the immune systems of those who are infected would be empowered to cope with any few virus particles that remain without ever requiring more antiviral drug therapy.

The idea for the new approach had its origin in 1996, at the sixth International AIDS Conference in Vancouver, B.C., when combinations of then new drugs called protease inhibitors were shown to be highly effective in suppressing virus infections and returning even sick AIDS patients to apparently healthy lives - as long as they continued the drugs.

Since then expensive "cocktails" of three or more drugs have become standard in what is known as HAART, for Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy, and only two years ago three of those drugs were combined into a single pill taken once a day. But the cost remains high, and few if any nations in the developing world can afford them for their millions of people living with HIV infections or with AIDS itself.

More than 33 million people around the world are now living with HIV infections or AIDS, according to the United Nations, but only 4 million are receiving the HAART drugs - of whom 1 million are in the United States.

Courtesy SFgate.com

Obama Pick For AIDS Czar Hailed By HIV/AIDS Community

The appointment of Jeffrey S. Crowley as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy has drawn praise from a wide spectrum of AIDS advocates. The position has sometimes been referred to as the "AIDS czar."

The openly-gay Crowley is a policy wonk with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Medicare, Medicaid and other government reimbursement programs that pay for HIV services. That background should prove crucial during the coming debate on health care reform, where some may seek to end current HIV programs and roll coverage into programs of general medical care.

He built his expertise over 14 years working at places like the National Association of People With AIDS and, most recently, at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute.

It's a "brilliant" selection, said David Munar, a policy advocate with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and chairman of the board of NAPWA. "The administration made a strategic choice about someone who knows health care above all else, so they got a two-fer; he is passionate about HIV and he knows health care systems."

The President's budget, released the same day as the appointment, pledged "to detect, prevent and treat HIV/AIDS domestically, especially in underserved populations." The details of what that means will not be released until April.

The pledge follows a year in which President George W. Bush and Congress decided to flat fund domestic HIV prevention programs and increase Ryan White CARE programs by only 3.4 percent, far less than what is needed. Courtesy Pridesource.com

Study: Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Not As Effective In HV Positve Patients

One of the largest studies to date to assess the safety and usefulness of cholesterol-lowering drugs in HIV-infected people shows that the drugs produce clinically meaningful improvements but that these drugs may not be quite as effective in this group as they are in HIV-uninfected individuals.

But the study authors, led by Dr Michael J Silverberg, emphasized that the difference in efficacy among HIV-infected subjects was small, particularly for LDL cholesterol, and may in some cases be overcome by adjusting doses of cholesterol medications or changing the HIV-treatment regimen.

However, reductions in triglyceride levels were substantially greater in the non-HIV-infected group for the population as a whole, a difference of 15%. But the stuides noted that patients whose HIV was being treated with a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), instead of a PI or combination therapy, and who were taking gemfibrozil for their cholesterol experienced reductions in triglycerides that were no different from the reductions seen in non-HIV-infected subjects.

"We're not saying that everyone who has high triglycerides, who is HIV positive, needs to be on NNRTIs, because treating their HIV disease really needs to take priority," Silverberg commented. "But if it's possible to have patients on an NNRTI, then that's a good therapeutic approach to have them on an NNRTI and treat with the fibrate, because then they are likely to have responses to treatment that are identical to the HIV- patient.

Elevated cholesterol and associated heart problems are known side effects of HIV medications, most notably protease inhibitors (PIs) and nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) , but may also be related to other metabolic factors or even the virus itself. As such, whether standard lipid-lowering drugs produce the same benefits in HIV-infected people as they do in the general population remains unclear.

The study is published in the March 3, 2009 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

HIV'ers Text Their Way To Better Health Care

Healthcare professionals at the University of Virginia Infectious Disease Clinic have found a modern way to improve contact with HIV patients who live in rural areas. According to a report on NewsVirginian.com, HIV patients in rural settings missed appointments and had treatment disruptions more often than their urban counterparts. So the clinic's personnel, as part of a pilot program, gave cell phones to rural patients. The phones can only receive text messages, call healthcare workers, or call emergency contacts.

The study, which will run through 2009, is hoping to prove the phones are a good way to remain in better contact with rural patients, who would benefit by keeping up with appointments and treatments. Courtesy Nurses.com

China To Import New HIV Drugs To Combat Drug Resistance

China will provide two imported HIV drugs to patients who develop resistance to cheaper, domestic alternatives, state media said on Monday, going some way to meeting a key demand of AIDS treatment activists.

The decision to hand out the new drugs means that nine of 20 drugs to combat AIDS are now available to patients in China, the official China Daily said, citing senior Health Ministry official Hao Yang.

Treatment with Tenofovir, marketed by Gilead Sciences Inc under the brand Viread, and Kaletra, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, cost over $1,500 a year each.

In comparison, the other drugs already available in China cost as little as $730, the report added.

The new offerings come after a nationwide survey released last year showed that more than 17 percent of HIV patients in China had developed resistance to available drugs.

China estimated at the end of 2007 that about 700,000 people were infected with HIV, up from an earlier estimate of 650,000.

Nearly 60,000 people had received free HIV drugs since they were first offered in 2003, cutting the mortality rate in China from over a quarter in 2002 to just 5.8 percent in 2007, the China Daily said.

Drug-resistant HIV strains are turning up in parts of China as the virus stretches beyond high-risk groups and gains a stronger foothold in the general population, a leading Chinese AIDS researcher said late last year. Courtesy Reuters