Immunodeficiency Virus

BERLIN -- The ninth international meeting on AIDS ended yesterday after 5,500 presentations that showed little more than incremental gains in scientific knowledge about the disease."

Researchers at Baltimore's Institute of Human Virology have announced plans to begin human tests of an oral AIDS vaccine that they say would be cheaper and easier to administer than injectable vaccines now being tried. Testing of a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, should begin within 18 months. Testing will be done on volunteers in Baltimore and in Uganda, one of the many African nations ravaged by the fatal disease. The first trial will determine whether the vaccine is safe, and could give way to further studies measuring effectiveness.

An article yesterday about the governor's AIDS Advisory council misstated Mr. Schaefer's reference to opposition to legislation that would require many health care workers and patients to undergo testing for the AIDS virus. Actually, he said he realized that some members objected to testing and that it was generally controversial among the council.+ The Sun regrets the errors.Gov. William Donald Schaefer told his new AIDS Advisory Council yesterday that he intends to propose legislation requiring many health-care workers and patients to get tested for the AIDS virus -- even though he realizes that most of the council members disagree.

Wasting little time, the state medical society yesterday denounced Gov. William Donald Schaefer's call for the mandatory testing of many health-care workers and patients for the AIDS virus, calling it a pointless move that plays into unfounded public fears.The medical society first went on record two years ago opposing any mandatory testing for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. But Dr. Marvin Schneider, chairman of the group's governing council, said that the society decided to respond to the governor's statements Monday that he hopes to make widespread testing the law of Maryland.

ANNAPOLIS -- A state health department bill requiring certain doctors and patients to be tested for the virus that causes AIDS may be sinking under the weight of its own cost.An official at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore said the legislation is a "financial disaster" that could cost Maryland's health care system $74 million a year."These costs would obviously be borne by the consumer, meaning higher health care costs," according to Dr. John G. Bartlett, infectious diseases division chief at Hopkins.

NEW YORK -- This was a scene out of a movie, confused only because it was out of time and place. With cameras clicking and the media buzzing, there was Earvin Johnson gamely dribbling the basketball and swishing jumpers with that funny right-handed push and Pat Riley working him with hard passes that forced him to react."

Stirred by the death of a prominent Baltimore surgeon who had AIDS, a group representing some of the city's leading surgeons has called for laws to require the routine testing of all health-care workers and patients for antibodies to the AIDS virus.Routine testing would give doctors and patients the information they need to protect themselves, the Baltimore Academy of Surgeons' executive council said in a position adopted two weeks ago but just made public. The organization represents about 150 surgeons, including the chief surgeons at all of Baltimore's hospitals.

After 12 years of debate and hesitancy, the U.S. government's three leading public health agencies were to jointly declare today that latex condoms, when properly used, are highly effective in blocking the spread of the AIDS virus.The pronouncement is expected to reignite a controversy between AIDS activists and other groups favoring widespread condom distribution, and religious and parental interests, who say that condom promotion gives tacit approval to promiscuous behavior and could lead to HIV infection of those who think condoms are 100 percent effective.

An article in Saturday's editions of The Sun incorrectly identified Julia Doyle Bernhardt, the assistant public defender who handled the appeal of Dwight R. Smallwood.The Sun regrets the error.A man who tried to rape a woman, knowing he is infected with AIDS, is guilty of attempted murder, Maryland's second highest court has ruled.The Court of Special Appeals upheld the conviction of Dwight R. Smallwood, who was found guilty of second-degree attempted murder after he admitted that he knew he had AIDS when he attempted to rape a woman in Prince George's County on Sept.

A 16-year-old Towson girl, fresh from her high school prom and a weekend at the beach two years ago, came home to the horrifying news that she had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS."