Immunodeficiency Virus

MIAMI, Fla. -- The state of Florida believes Ignacio Perea Jr. tried to kill three young boys. The alleged weapon? The AIDS virus that has infected his body.The 31-year-old son of Cuban immigrants, Mr. Perea sits in a Dade County jail today, charged with attempted first-degree murder in the alleged kidnapping and sexual assault of the boys in separate attacks. When police arrested him in late 1991, they found a receipt in his wallet indicating that he was being treated for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

Karen Feldman helps people with AIDS obtain food stamps, find housing, apply for financial assistance and make doctor's appointments.Now the case manager at Baltimore's Health Education Resource Organization (HERO) finds herself telling people that she no longer can assist them."No more appointments?" asks one homeless man visiting her office."Not for now," Ms. Feldman says. She gives him a hug and arms him with a letter to help ease his way through the bureaucracy of city agencies.Until last month, HERO, a nonprofit agency, offered referrals and support of many kinds -- financial,emotional, administrative -- to anyone who tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

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."

The popcorn bowl was making the rounds and the air was filled with giggles as a question-and-answer party game hit full swing.Then someone blew up a condom like a balloon.But this was a party with serious overtones. The man and three women seated comfortably in this Towson apartment's small living room had gathered to participate in an HIV-AIDS outreach program run by Baltimore County's Office of Substance Abuse.Called Project Hope, the effort to deliver information about HIV -- thehuman immunodeficiency virus -- to black women began last year and by next month will have reached nearly 550 people.

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."

An article in yesterday's editions about a court ruling on lawsuits filed against Johns Hopkins Hospital and a surgeon who had AIDS misstated on second reference the name of a Hopkins official.The hospital's vice president for medical affairs is Dr. Hamilton Moses III.The sun regrets the errors.Maryland surgeons who are infected with the AIDS virus must disclose that fact to patients before performing operations if they are to avoid lawsuits, the state's highest court ruled yesterday.The ruling said that physicians infected with the human immunodeficiency virus may be held liable if they fail to disclose their conditions.

An article in yesterday's editions about a court ruling on lawsuits filed against Johns Hopkins Hospital and a surgeon who had AIDS misstated on second reference the name of a Hopkins official.The hospital's vice president for medical affairs is Dr. Hamilton Moses III.The sun regrets the errors.Maryland surgeons who are infected with the AIDS virus must disclose that fact to patients before performing operations if they are to avoid lawsuits, the state's highest court has ruled.Yesterday's ruling says physicians infected with the human immunodeficiency virus may be held liable if they fail to disclose their conditions.

A legislative proposal to establish a needle-exchange program in Baltimore to help prevent the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users won some heavyweight support yesterday -- and some heavyweight opposition as well.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. backed the plan to spend $50,000 in city funds for a three-year pilot program for up to 700 addicts that would be over- seen by the Baltimore Health Department.But Gov. William Donald Schaefer said yesterday that he opposed the idea, fearing it would encourage drug use.The proposed program, modeled after those in seven states, Washington, D.C., and eight foreign countries, would require an intravenous drug user to turn in a dirty hypodermic syringe in exchange for a clean one at a designated site.

Alarming statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and the Baltimore City Health Department show that acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is the leading killer of Baltimore men and women of all races between 25 and 44.We've known for a decade that the disease is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which weakens the body's ability to fight a group of infections that eventually lead to death. We also know that, unlike many other diseases, this one is completely preventable.

PARIS -- Two prominent scientists have cast doubt on the significance of a report that a possible new virus causes an AIDS-like disease.The report, which is being published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was submitted by Dr. Sudhir Gupta of the University of California at Irvine, has stirred fear that a potentially fatal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be transmitted from person to person and through the nation's blood supply.Dr. Ludwik Gross, the 88-year-old National Academy of Sciences member from New York who sponsored Dr. Gupta's report in the science academy's proceedings, now questions the wisdom of having done so.Dr.