Infected

OXFORD -- A parasite that has been killing crabs from the Gulf of Mexico to Long Island Sound for more than a decade is a suspect in the decline of the commercial crab catch in Maryland's coastal bays.The parasite, known as Hematodinium (he-mat-a-DIN-ee-um) sp, threatened Georgia's $4-million-a-year crab industry this year and shut down crabbing on the Atlantic Ocean side of Virginia's eastern shore in 1991-1992. The commercial catch in Maryland's coastal bays was cut in half last year, the most recent year for which figures are available, and apparently declined again this year.

DALLAS -- The AIDS virus is quickly developing an ability to outmaneuver the potent drug cocktails that have helped many patients return to their daily routines, evidence from five cities suggests.According to the research, about one in every 100 people who become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus will contract a disease that may defy all types of known medicines. The research represents the first broad tests of the spread of resistant infection in the United States.People who contract these mutant HIV strains may not benefit from dramatic recent gains in AIDS treatment.

The virus that caused the outbreak of West Nile encephalitis in the New York City region this summer is very similar to one isolated last year in Israel, scientists reported yesterday.The finding, reported in the Dec. 4 issue of the Lancet, a journal published in London, does not unravel other mysteries, such as how and when the virus entered the United States. But it is the strongest evidence yet that the virus that killed seven people and infected 52 others in the metropolitan region originated in the Middle East.

A new computer virus named Melissa continued to infect electronic-mail systems worldwide yesterday, shutting down some companies' e-mail networks and raising concerns about future damage.Locally, Bethesda aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin Corp. had to shut its 110,000 e-mail users off from outside networks after Melissa paid a visit Friday afternoon.As of yesterday, the company was preventing all outside e-mail transmissions except for critical communications with the government and other customers.

IN THIS country, major medical news usually consists of high-technology advances in treating big killers like cancer or heart disease. In many parts of the world, it takes far less sophistication to have lifesaving results."

IT'S past time for Americans to start treating the AIDS epidemic more like a deadly disease and less like a political problem.The worldwide AIDS epidemic is outstripping all predictions by health experts at the World Health Organization and the U.N. AIDS program.A costly epidemicEven in the United States, where more than $600 million has been spent on federal prevention programs, the rate of new infections has stayed at 40,000 or so per year. A new, alarming study reports that four of 10 Americans infected with HIV refuse to tell their sexual partners that they are carriers of the deadly human immunodeficiency virus.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The number of AIDS-related deaths among New York state's prison population hit a 14-year low last year, according to a report by the state's Department of Correctional Services.The report showed that 60 inmates died as a result of AIDS in 1997. The trend has continued this year, with 18 deaths in the first six months. Those figures are a striking contrast to the 181 AIDS-related deaths in 1996 and the 258 the year before. The 60 inmates who died of the disease last year were the fewest since 1984, when there were 57 AIDS-related deaths.

State and local health officials are working to contain an outbreak of hepatitis A at the Baltimore County Detention Center and authorities said yesterday they suspect the virus was spread by an infected food service worker."

ONE OF the nice things about the growth of the Internet is that it helps me keep in touch with readers.Every week I get e-mail from users with problems or questions. While I can't always respond personally, I often use the issues they raise as subjects for my column. This week brought a note from a reader who's spending a lot of time browsing the Web. He's starting to worry about contracting viruses and wants to know which anti-virus program is the best.The answer is good news and bad news.

BOSTON -- Imagine if it were happening here. Imagine if our government were sponsoring research in the poorest pockets of our country where masses of pregnant women are infected with HIV.The researchers know that AZT could save many of their babies from being born infected. Without AZT one in four babies is infected by the mother, with it only one in 10.But AZT is expensive, $1,000 a mother as it is prescribed now, and the need for a cheaper regimen is critical. So with the best of motives, they set up a study to see if lower, less costly doses are as good as higher doses.

Maryland's oysters, though ravaged by disease and loss of habitat, are showing some signs of resilience, state biologists reported yesterday. A survey last fall of Maryland's part of the Chesapeake Bay indicates that while most oysters are infected, fewer are dying from the parasitic diseases that have devastated them over the past 25 years, according to the Department of Natural Resources. "They're not out of the woods," said Chris Dungan, who tested the oysters for diseases at a joint state-federal laboratory in Oxford.

One in four teenage girls in the United States - and nearly half of African-American girls - has at least one sexually transmitted disease, according to a study released yesterday, providing the first national snapshot of infection rates among this age group. Those numbers translate into an estimated 3.2 million adolescent females infected with one of the four most common STDs - many of whom may not even know they have a disease or that they are passing it to their sex partners. "What we found is alarming," said Dr. Sara Forhan, a researcher with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the study's lead author.

WASHINGTON -- More people in the United States are infected each year with the AIDS virus than previously thought, according to federal health officials, in a finding that could roil the debate over how much money should be spent on prevention efforts. While the new numbers are sobering, no one is yet sure whether more people have actually been infected in recent years or the figures are simply a better estimate than the old ones. Two more years of data are needed to answer that question.

The United Nations has radically lowered years of estimates of the number of people worldwide infected by the AIDS virus, revealing that the AIDS pandemic is waning for the first time since HIV was discovered 26 years ago. The revised figures yesterday, which were the result of more sophisticated sampling techniques, indicate that the number of new infections peaked in 1998 and that the number of deaths peaked in 2005. The new analysis shows that the total number of people living with HIV has been gradually increasing - but at a slower rate than in the past.

The multicountry odyssey of Andrew Speaker, infected with an ultra-rare type of tuberculosis that resists some of our best drugs - and the first person placed under a federal quarantine order in more than 40 years - has raised concerns about biosecurity, infection control, personal responsibility and public health powers. The incident set off an international uproar; accusations about right and wrong behavior are still flying back and forth across the oceans. When someone like Mr. Speaker has a severe, contagious disease, when should we intervene with something as drastic as isolation?

Doctors and researchers almost never use the word "cure," but they came as close as they ever do this week describing a combination of drugs used to treat the severe liver disease hepatitis C. Among some patients, the drug cocktail of pegylated interferon and ribavirin completely kills the virus that causes hepatitis C, and keeps it from coming back, doctors reported at a Digestive Disease Weekly conference in Washington. The catch is, the drug combo does not work in about half of people with hepatitis C, and researchers still are not sure why it works so completely for some but fails in others.

CHICAGO -- Illinois is poised to become the first state to require hospitals to implement programs combating a dangerous, drug-resistant bacterium that kills thousands of people in the U.S. each year. Under a bill moving through the Legislature, hospitals would be required to test for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in all intensive-care and "at-risk" patients, such as those transferred from nursing homes. If it is detected, aggressive measures to prevent transmission would kick in. MRSA is a potentially virulent bacterium that has developed strong defenses against common antibiotics such as penicillin.

Federal health officials recommended yesterday that HIV testing become a routine part of medical care for everyone ages 13 to 64, reversing old guidelines that directed most tests to people considered at high risk. Under the policy, announced by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tests would be offered by primary care doctors and in emergency rooms, community health centers, substance abuse programs, prisons and other settings where patients receive care. Routine tests would reach many of the estimated 250,000 people in the U.S. who unknowingly carry the virus that causes AIDS, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the CDC director, said in a conference call.

Did you know?--At least 20 million Americans have been infected with human papillomavirus. - National Institutes of Health

Seven years ago, John McCarthy woke up from heart surgery with a smile on his face, drawing a puzzled expression from a doctor who expected to see a man in despair. "I never thought I'd live long enough to have a heart attack," McCarthy told the physician, a Johns Hopkins psychiatrist. An alcoholic and drug addict, McCarthy had tested positive for the AIDS virus in the late 1980s - when doctors could offer little effective treatment, and many of his fellow drug users were wasting away and dying.