Infected With Hiv

African-American gay men are more than twice as likely to be infected with the AIDS virus than their white counterparts, but the reasons aren't abundantly clear, federal researchers said yesterday. "Men who have sex with men account for almost half of all people estimated to be living with HIV in the United States, and African-Americans are the most heavily impacted," said Kevin Fenton, director of HIV prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Researchers at a national prevention conference yesterday said they were somewhat perplexed by the disparity.

Scientific advances, increased federal money for research, and Third World countries finally waking up to the fact that AIDS has ravaged their populations is creating optimism for a milestone that could save millions: a vaccine for the deadly AIDS virus.Just two years ago, when President Clinton pledged to Morgan State University graduates that scientists would find a vaccine for AIDS within a decade, there was plenty of cynicism. Today, there is much less."It is possible that the components for a reasonably successful vaccine are almost there, in our hands, but we don't know it yet," said Dr. Robert C. Gallo, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus.

A decade ago, says the Rev. Welcome Khumalo, a Methodist minister from South Africa, many skeptical Africans thought of AIDS as "an American idea to prevent sex."Today, in his district of 20,000 people in the province of KwaZulu Natal on the Indian Ocean, he and his fellow clergy preside at funerals of young AIDS victims nearly every day.An average of one person per household is infected with HIV, including 29 percent of pregnant women."It's a monster that swallows young and old, rich and poor," Khumalo told a gathering of AIDS experts yesterday at Morgan State University.

Women infected with HIV may be at a more advanced stage of infection and at a higher risk of developing AIDS than men with identical results on certain blood tests, researchers are reporting.The researchers suggest that treatment guidelines, used for both sexes even though they are based on research involving only men, should be changed to recommend earlier treatment for women. But other researchers say changing treatment guidelines at this point would be premature.The recommendations are based on a study conducted at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, published today in the British medical journal Lancet.

Cel-Sci Corp., which is developing treatments for diseases affecting the human immune system, said yesterday that it hopes to begin enrolling patients late this month or early next month for a small-scale human trial to test its drug Multikine on people infected with HIV.Cel-Sci, which has its research offices in Baltimore, said Food and Drug Administration clearance for the trial was received Dec. 26. The trial is to be conducted in West Hollywood, Calif.,...

Maryland will create a housing information service for people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, under a $976,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros announced the grant yesterday, along with $7 million in awards to 10 other cities and states.The Maryland grant will go to the state's AIDS Administration and will be used to give notice of available public and private housing on a toll-free phone line and on the Internet.The funds will be administered by a private, nonprofit group, the Low Income Housing Information Service.

The message about AIDS delivered to 250 high school students at Towson State University yesterday was simple but potent: It can happen to you.The one-day AIDS conference, sponsored by the Baltimore County Health Department, offered workshops on AIDS prevention, sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, safe sex and testing for the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS."

WASHINGTON -- Praising Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke for his leadership on the issue, Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros yesterday awarded Baltimore nearly $1.1 million for a city program that helps people infected with the AIDS virus find homes."

"Before we brought Shanice home," Iris Thorpe is saying, "we told all our friends that we were going to adopt a little girl and that she [might have] the HIV virus. We wanted to know their reactions, you know?"So all of my friends were saying things like, 'We know you're not going to let that stop you!' And, 'All kids need love.' And things like that. And I'm saying, 'Hey! We're still going to do it. We were just trying to check you out.' ""So, you didn't get any negative reactions at all?

The attorney for an HIV-positive Carroll County man who is accused of assault with intent to murder in alleged sexual assaults on two boys was scheduled to argue today that prosecutors improperly obtained evidence in the case.At issue at a pretrial motions hearing in Carroll Circuit Court is whether prosecutors properly obtained evidence during the execution of two search warrants, said defense lawyer Judith S. Stainbrook.The defendant is charged with the rape -- and, because he has the AIDS virus, assault with intent to murder -- of his two stepgrandsons.

After 15 years of futile search for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease. They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one. A team headquartered at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego reports today in the journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many different strains of HIV, the virus responsible for the AIDS pandemic.

Nearly 30 years after the discovery of HIV and AIDS, the epidemic is still ravaging black neighborhoods in Baltimore and across the nation. Unfortunately, complacency about HIV and the continued stigma associated with the disease are hindering progress by preventing too many African-Americans from seeking either HIV testing and treatment or support from their friends and family. But this is a challenge that can be overcome. At a White House event last month, the Obama administration took an important step in confronting the United States' HIV epidemic, which threatens the health of African-Americans more than any other racial or ethnic group.

A new treatment for infants of HIV-positive mothers could prevent hundreds of thousands of infections a year in the developing world, according to a report in today's New England Journal of Medicine. The study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health tested whether an extended regimen of anti-AIDS drugs could protect infants from becoming infected by their mothers' breast milk. The treatment cut transmission of HIV from mothers to infants by 50 percent. "This is a landmark study," said Charles van der Horst, an AIDS researcher at the University of North Carolina.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The good news on AIDS: Nearly a million people began life-prolonging drug treatment in developing countries last year. The bad news: 2.5 million people were newly infected with HIV. As new infections continue to far outstrip efforts to treat the sick, the United Nations released a progress report yesterday that highlighted both the notable gains in combating the AIDS epidemic and the daunting scale of what remains to be...

African-American gay men are more than twice as likely to be infected with the AIDS virus than their white counterparts, but the reasons aren't abundantly clear, federal researchers said yesterday. "Men who have sex with men account for almost half of all people estimated to be living with HIV in the United States, and African-Americans are the most heavily impacted," said Kevin Fenton, director of HIV prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Researchers at a national prevention conference yesterday said they were somewhat perplexed by the disparity.

MOSCOW -- Every Wednesday afternoon, Petya Nikitenko invites into his office some of the men and women Russia usually tries to ignore. Some have spent time in jail or have sold sex. All have abused drugs. Now that they have come for help, Nikitenko counsels them on the dangers of using intravenous drugs. One of the risks is that, by sharing needles, they will become infected with HIV. What he does not do - and what HIV-prevention programs in Russia often cannot do without bringing unwelcome attention from the government - is distribute clean needles that could help prevent the spread of the virus.

World AIDS Day today is an opportunity to bow our heads in remembrance of the more than 25 million men, women and children who have died of HIV/AIDS. It also is a chance to renew our resolve to end this deadly scourge. More than two decades after experts first recognized the threat posed by this disease, 40 million people worldwide - a nearly incomprehensible number - are living with HIV/AIDS, and 14,000 people are newly infected with HIV each day. To beat back this modern plague, we must collectively recommit ourselves to global efforts to care for HIV-infected individuals and their families and to redouble our efforts in HIV prevention.

Nelson Mandela has endorsed it. The film academy saluted it with an Oscar nomination this year for best foreign film. HBO describes it as the first major international release made in the Zulu language. Yet the movie Yesterday will premiere tonight not in U.S. movie theaters, but on HBO. The premium cable channel bypassed the big screen to reach a wider audience via the small screen. HBO's timing is excellent. This tender drama about a rural South African family will debut just before World AIDS Day on Thursday.

LILONGWE, Malawi -- Choice, often elusive in life here, is all too abundant in death. A person who dies in this sleepy southern African capital can go off to his rest in a handmade casket from the SAP Coffin Workshop ("Makers of the Last Home"), the Wodala Casket and Coffin Shop ("Now open 24 hrs"), the Tayamba company, the Kalimba company or any of a dozen other purveyors. One after another, they line a dusty quarter-mile stretch of road like a funeral train for Malawians dying of the toxic brew of poverty and infectious disease, especially AIDS.

Mirroring a nationwide trend that has encouraged public health officials, the rate of HIV transmission from mothers to their babies in Baltimore fell sharply over the past decade. Officials attributed the 85 percent drop - from 14 mother-to-child transmissions in 1994 to two in 2003 - in large part to stepped-up HIV screening and better medications. "There is good treatment to prevent the spread of the virus from mother to baby," Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the city health commissioner, said at a news briefing yesterday.