A scientist who is helping to treat thousands of people living with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa was awarded the Royal Society Pfizer Award at a ceremony last night (27 October). Dr Linda-Gail Bekker’s research looks at how TB epidemiology has changed in the HIV era. Researchers estimate that more than one in ten of all South Africans over 2 years old were living with HIV in 2008. South Africa has also seen a six fold increase in tuberculosis rates in the last 20 years.

The Royal Society Pfizer Award includes a £60,000 award grant which aims to encourage medical research in Africa by supporting young scientists. Pfizer, the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical company has been supporting the awards for the last four years and has so far granted £240,000 core funding for research work in Africa.

Dr Bekker is deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town and chief operating officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. Her doctoral work focused on the host response to TB both with and in the absence of HIV co-infection. Subsequently her research interests have expanded to include programmatic and action research around antiretroviral roll out, TB integration and prevention of HIV.

The funding provided by this award will help with research being carried out at Nyanga Primary Health Clinic in Cape Town. Bekker’s team will collect positive tuberculosis cultures obtained from sputum samples in the clinic with the specific aim of describing the diversity of TB strains among HIV-positive individuals receiving Highly Active Anti-Retrovir al Treatment (HAART), HIV- positive individuals not receiving HAART and HIV negative individuals. They will also explore healthcare-associated transmission of tuberculosis in the clinic and test drug sensitivities of all cultures. It is hoped the research will have lessons for how TB/HIV and ART services are designed and run in southern Africa as well as giving further information on host susceptibility and organism virulence.

Dr Bekker said of her award:

“In 2005, the World Health Organization declared a regional emergency and called for extraordinary measures to be implemented to curb the unprecedented increase in HIV/TB currently occurring in South and southern Africa. I am so honoured to be a recipient of the Royal Society Pfizer Award this year- it will help me and the great team I work with to do our part in investigating urgently what those extraordinary measures should be. More than ever before this public health crisis requires innovative thought and research to find novel answers and effective strategies to turn these numbers around.”

Professor Ralph Kirsch, a colleague of Dr Bekker’s at the University of Cape Town, said:

“Linda Gail marries science and humanity in her approach to patients with HIVAIDS. She is constantly looking at how to provide better care and how to make compliance easier. Her relationship with her patients and with those recruited into her various studies is an important role model to us all.”

Professor Lorna Casselton, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, said:

“The Royal Society Pfizer Award recognises the valuable research already taking place in Africa, whilst aiming to expand research capacity. We hope that this award will continue to boost the careers of its winners and the individuals working around them. This year’s winner, Dr Linda-Gail Bekker, has done outstanding research into tuberculosis and HIV co-infections in Africa. Her contribution to several innovative and successful health delivery platforms and capacity building opportunities has been invaluable. We congratulate her and hope that this funding will help her continue her research to its full potential.”

Dr Freda Lewis-Hall, Chief Medical Officer of Pfizer Inc, said:

“Defeating infectious disease means making advances in both prevention and treatment. Pfizer is proud to be a partner with the Royal Society in creating this award, which recognizes essential and inspiring medical and public health research from a new generation of African scientists. Support like this translates into new knowledge, lives extended and saved, and less human pain and suffering.”

The award grant and a £5,000 personal prize were presented to Dr Bekker at a ceremony at the Royal Society in London last night.

Source
The Royal Society

Federal health officials are preparing to study the “test and treat” strategy in an effort to curb the spread of HIV in high-incidence communities, the New York Times reports. The three-year study will focus on Washington, D.C., where as many as 5% of adults are HIV-positive, and the Bronx, which has the highest rate of AIDS-related deaths of any New York City borough. Both communities have some of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the U.S. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, 20% to 25% of people in the U.S. are unaware of their HIV-positive status. CDC recommends voluntary HIV testing as part of regular medical care for people ages 13 to 64, but experts say that many hospitals, clinics and medical practices are not following the recommendations.

According to the Times, the test and treat strategy involves routinely testing nearly every adult in a community and immediately beginning treatment for those found to be HIV-positive. The goal of the study’s first phase is not to determine if the strategy can slow an epidemic, but rather if it can be carried out effectively given the number of barriers to HIV testing and treatment, the officials said. For example, only about 50% of Washington, D.C., residents who tested HIV-positive in 2006 saw a physician about the diagnosis within six months (Okie, New York Times, 10/27).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Two Yale School of Medicine physicians have been awarded a $4.1 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study a new pharmacological treatment for newly released HIV-positive inmates with alcohol dependence who are transitioning back into the community.

The U.S. prison population is disproportionately impacted by HIV and by alcohol and drug abuse. A majority of HIV-positive inmates also have substance abuse disorders. Though many are treated successfully for both HIV and substance abuse while incarcerated, they face enormous challenges when released.

“Released HIV-positive inmates who relapse to alcohol and drug use are less likely to adhere to HIV treatment, including antiretroviral drugs, and more likely to engage in high-risk behavior,” according to Frederick L. Altice, M.D., professor at Yale School of Medicine, director of clinical and community research at the Yale AIDS Program and one of the two principal investigators.

The prestigious NIH grant is the first of its stature for Sandra Springer, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and co-principal investigator - a junior investigator whose career has already benefited from a career development award from the NIH. In the clinical trial led by Springer and Altice, 125 HIV-positive prisoners with alcohol dependence who are transitioning back into society will receive subcutaneous (depot) injections of naltrexone. Though the medication has been previously shown to benefit those with alcohol dependence, HIV-infected individuals were never previously included in clinical trials.

All subjects in the trial, whether getting naltrexone or the placebo, will receive comprehensive case-management services and 24 weeks of counseling. “This is the first time that depot naltrexone will be formally tested in HIV-infected patients,” says Springer. She adds, “We hope to learn whether a medication known to benefit those with alcohol problems will also help assist with HIV treatment and prevent a relapse to high-risk behaviors. Our study could confirm that treating one disease, alcohol dependence, can actually fight two life-threatening conditions.”

Source
Yale University

View drug information on Naltrexone Hydrochloride Tablets.

Mobile phones are on the verge of becoming powerful tools to collect data on many issues, ranging from global health to the environment.

Computer scientists at the University of Washington have used Android, the open-source mobile operating system championed by Google, to turn a cell phone into a versatile data-collection device. Organizations that want a fully customizable way to, say, snap pictures of a deforested area, add the location coordinates and instantly submit that information to a global environmental database now have a flexible and free way to do it.

UW computer scientists were already working on mobile tools for the developing world when Android, the first comprehensive open-source platform for mobile devices, was announced two years ago by the Open Handset Alliance, a group of companies of which Google is a member. For the past year UW computer science and engineering doctoral students Carl Hartung, Yaw Anokwa and Waylon Brunette have worked at Google’s Seattle office using Android to create a data-collection platform for use in developing regions.

Their free suite of tools, named Open Data Kit, is already used by organizations around the world that need inexpensive ways to gather information in areas with little infrastructure. Seattle’s Grameen Foundation Technology Center is using it to evaluate its Ugandan text-messaging information hotline; D-Tree International, a Boston-based nonprofit, is using it in Tanzania to guide health workers treating children under 5 years old; the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center is using it to record human rights violations in the Central African Republic. This fall the Jane Goodall Foundation in Tanzania and the Brazilian Forest Service signed up to use it to monitor deforestation.

“Many organizations need to be able to make evidence-based decisions, and to do that they need data,” Anokwa said. “We hope our toolkit enables organizations to gather the data quickly so they can analyze it quickly and make the best decisions for the communities they serve.”

They tool is described in an article published this month in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Computer magazine. Gaetano Borriello, UW professor of computer science and engineering, and Adam Lerer, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are co-authors.

In the past some researchers have harnessed individual cell phone models to collect data in the field. But when the phone gets outdated, so does the software. Instead of creating a tool for a single phone, or even a single purpose, the UW team built something that would provide a reusable platform to collect all types of mobile data.

“We found a lot of organizations were building a lot of one-off tools that were very similar,” Hartung said. “We’re trying to make ours as compatible and flexible as possible.”

Open Data Kit’s versatile suite of tools can collect data; store, view and export data on remote servers; and manage devices in the field from a central office. The output is compatible with emerging data standards such as the Open Medical Records System, which aims to coordinate health records in the developing world.

Many organizations are using Open Data Kit, but the biggest project so far is a major effort to track and treat HIV patients in Kenya. Led by the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare, a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded partnership between Indiana University and Kenya’s Moi University, it is one of the most comprehensive HIV treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa. AMPATH trains Kenyan community health workers who conduct door-to-door testing in rural areas for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and offer ongoing personalized health counseling.

Hartung and Anokwa traveled to Kenya this summer to meet with AMPATH’s community health workers and do a trial run with 10 phones. They spent two weeks working with Kenyan collaborators, then accompanied community health workers on home visits to see the phone being used in the field.

“It’s a pretty amazing experience to be sitting in a mud hut seeing someone get counseled, maybe for the first time, on HIV, and the counselor is using your tool to record information,” Hartung said. “It gives a whole new perspective on the need for reliable software.”

For the past two years AMPATH workers have conducted field visits using a Palm Pilot and separate GPS unit. This required workers to key in a 10-digit identifier for each patient, stand outside and wait up to two minutes to get location coordinates, and at the end of each day return to the main office to upload their information to a central database, which adds travel time and expense.

Phones running Open Data Kit can record location in seconds, scan a barcode rather than requiring the numbers to be entered by hand, and upload the data automatically using a cellular network. AMPATH plans to deploy 100 Google-powered phones by the end of this year. Ultimately, it aims to use 300 phones powered with Open Data Kit to reach 2 million people.

“Adopting this technology was kind of a win-win-win in terms of direction for our organization,” said Dr. Burke Mamlin, an assistant professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine and research scientist with the nonprofit Regenstrief Institute, which supports AMPATH. “This opens doors by allowing us to bring data collected in the field directly into our medical records system. And now we have a phone, all the personal digital assistant capability, the ability to read barcodes, and the ability to capture images or video, all in one unit.”

The device also opens up new possibilities for the future. If one family member is absent during a site visit health workers can schedule a follow-up visit and have it automatically appear in their calendars. Health workers could cue up public-health videos if they thought the family could benefit. Program managers in a central office could track data in real time and send updates to field workers without them having to come back to the base.

Building technology for use in the developing world offers new challenges for computer scientists. Power and connectivity may be intermittent, and users may have poor eyesight or literacy.

There are also other issues specific to mobile devices. Web developers in the Western world generally create white text on a dark background, but it turns out dark text on a white background works better in bright sunlight, where most of these devices will be used. And touch-screen phones rely on an electrical signal from users’ fingers, but that signal gets blocked by calluses. UW students found some rural users needed to use a softer part of the finger pad, and this meant designing bigger buttons.

The team is now back at the UW, where they are part of a group called Change that studies technology in the developing world. Funding for the project comes from Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the company. The code is freely available and ongoing research will be based at the university. Hartung and Anokwa are co-teaching a new course this fall, Mobile and Cloud Applications for Emerging Regions (http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse599y/09au/), in which undergraduate computer science and engineering students learn skills and then apply them by creating new features requested by Open Data Kit users.

“We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the types of applications we can run that are really customized to the person who’s holding the device,” said Gaetano Borriello. “For places where resources are constrained, where data is unavailable and where large problems exist, this technology is very powerful.”

More information on Open Data Kit is at http://change.washington.edu/projects/odk. Watch a demonstration of the tool on YouTube at http://tinyurl.com/lttrqj

Source: Hannah Hickey

University of Washington

At any given time, over two million people are imprisoned in penal
institutions in Europe. Prisons are extremely high-risk environments for
the transmission of infectious diseases because of a high number of risk
factors, such as overcrowding, poor nutrition, limited access to health
care, continued illicit drug use and unsafe injecting practices,
unprotected sex and tattooing. If prisons are not to become a breeding
ground for infectious diseases, health and medical care, and prevention
and treatment must be an integral part of the penal system. Prison health
policy should be integrated into national policy and prison health should
be closely linked to the public health service. This applies to all health
issues but is particularly important in the case of communicable diseases.

The unintentional punishment

A prison sentence is not always over on release from prison. Individuals
who are healthy on entry have a high risk of leaving prison infected with
HIV or tuberculosis (TB) or with an addiction to drugs. Added to the
stigma of a prison sentence, this hampers their reintegration into society
and makes a normal family and social life difficult. The post-release
period is very important, as ex-prisoners are at greater risk of dying
within the first weeks after release from prison, primarily as a result of
an overdose of illicit drugs. An effective throughcare plan must be
developed between prisons and public health systems.

“Rather than rehabilitating inmates, a prison sentence often makes matters
worse,” says Dr Marc Danzon, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “It is
unacceptable that we allow prisons to encourage unhealthy practices,
meaning that people leave prison in poorer health than when they arrived.
This lowers their chances of reintegrating into society and spreads
infectious diseases beyond the prison walls. Work by countries to protect
the health of prisoners helps not only individuals but the whole of
society.”

The health of prisoners affects the rest of society

Overcrowding, the high turnover in the prison population and the intensive
interaction between prison and society encourages the spread of
communicable diseases. Neglecting the health of prisoners impacts on the
wider public, putting them at risk of infection from diseases like TB and
HIV.

The Madrid Recommendation

An international conference on prison health protection is taking place in
Madrid from 29 to 31 October 2009. Health experts from over 50 countries
have agreed on a set of recommendations to tackle the issue of
communicable diseases in prisons. The aim of the Madrid Recommendation is
to ensure that, rather than making matters worse, prisons are a setting
where health and health behaviour are improved and the risk of reoffending
is reduced. These cost-effective measures include:

— treatment programmes for infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS,
hepatitis C and TB;
— treatment programmes for drug users;
— harm reduction measures;
— guidelines on hygiene requirements;
— guaranteed throughcare for prisoners on entry to and after release from
prison, in close collaboration with stakeholders;
— mental health support for prisoners suffering from communicable
diseases; and
— training for all prison staff in the prevention, treatment and control
of communicable diseases.

Source
World Health Organization

Researchers have shown how an antiviral protein produced by the immune system, dubbed tetherin, tames HIV and other viruses by literally putting them on a leash, to prevent their escape from infected cells. The insights reported in the October 30th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, allowed the research team to design a completely artificial protein — one that did not resemble native tetherin in its sequence at all — that could nonetheless put a similar stop to the virus.

“Tetherin is essentially a rod with anchors at either end that are critical for its function,” says Paul Bieniasz of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at The Rockefeller University. Either one of those anchors gets incorporated into the envelope surrounding HIV or other viruses as they bud through the plasma membrane of an infected cell. “One anchor gets into the virus and the other in the cell membrane to inevitably form a tether.

“We showed we could design a completely different protein with the same configuration - a rod with lipid anchors at either end - and it worked very well,” he continued. The finding helped to confirm that tetherin is capable of acting all on its own, he added.

They also explain tetherin’s broad specificity to protect against many viruses. “It is just targeting lipids,” Bieniasz said. “It’s not about viral proteins.” That’s conceptually important, he continued, because there is no specific interaction between tetherin and any viral protein, which makes it a more difficult problem for viruses to evolve resistance. Rather than tweaking an existing protein-coding gene, “the virus has to make the more difficult adjustment of acquiring a new gene antagonist [of tetherin].”

Unfortunately, many viruses have managed to do just that. In the case of HIV, a protein called Vpu counteracts tetherin. They now show it does so by sequestering the host protein, which prevents its incorporation into the virus. The new insight into tetherin’s and Vpu’s modes of action, however, may lead to the development of Vpu blockers that could free up the innate host defense and inhibit HIV’s spread, Bieniasz suggests.

Bieniasz said there is some possibility that tetherin exists in different forms that might explain differences among people in the progression of HIV or other viral infections. However, the only common variation they’ve seen in the tetherin gene so far does not appear to affect its function. The tetherin sequence does vary quite a lot from one species to the next, he added, as is often the case due to strong selection when host defense genes meet viral inhibitors.

To place the findings in context, Bieniasz says it is worth noting that tetherin is encoded by just one of more than 900 genes that get switched “on” in response to interferon, a cell signaling protein of the immune system.

“There are hundreds of interferon-induced genes,” he said. “The functions are known for only a very small number - less than a dozen. There are potentially a large number of antiviral mechanisms we still know nothing about.”

Going forward, his team intends to look more closely at many of those others, and Bieniasz suspects more surprising mechanisms will be in store.

The researchers include David Perez-Caballero, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY; Trinity Zang, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, NY; Alaleh Ebrahimi, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY; Matthew W. McNatt, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY; Devon A. Gregory, University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, MO; Marc C. Johnson, University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, MO; and Paul D. Bieniasz, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, NY.

Source: Cathleen Genova

Cell Press

Researchers in New York City are reporting their work uncovering a new epidemic of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) who have HIV infection. These authors have previously reported unusually rapid fibrosis progression due to new HCV in MSM who have HIV infection and now expand on their findings, demonstrating that sexual transmission rather than injection drug use is the route of infection. Treatment is highly successful if started early in the course of infection, however, they report ominous news about liver disease progression. “This epidemic represents a new clinical syndrome for HCV infection that turns much of our knowledge on its ear: a new risk group becoming infected through a previously rare route of transmission resulting in unprecedented progression of liver fibrosis,” said Daniel Fierer, MD, principal investigator on this study.

In an analysis of 21 HCV-infected patients matched with uninfected controls, unprotected receptive anal and oral sex were significantly associated with new HCV infection. Neither current nor prior injection drug use was associated with HCV infection. In addition, treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, initiated within 6 months of diagnosis, was completed in 16 patients with genotype 1 HCV infection; 12 (75%) achieved sustained viral response (SVR), compared to the 15-30% SVR rate expected with chronic genotype 1 HCV infection. Of significant concern, however, 30 patients underwent liver biopsy during the early infection period and 23 (77%) already had moderate fibrosis, making early curative treatment even more important to prevent further progression of liver fibrosis.

Because of these findings, study authors recommend routine screening for acute HCV for all MSM patients with HIV, using a simple and inexpensive algorithm of ALT measurement every 3 months and HCV antibody measurement every 6 to 12 months. “Changing the perception and behavior of physicians and patients is difficult,” said Dr. Fierer, “One of the main barriers to early detection is the lack of recognition by physicians and patients alike that HIV-infected MSM are at risk for HCV infection. This lack of perception of the problem results in lack of screening of HIV-infected MSM and therefore lack of timely diagnosis and treatment.”

Dr. Fierer thinks the next steps in battling this epidemic are educating HIV providers about the existence of this world-wide epidemic, educating patients at risk that unprotected sex among HIV-infected men is a significant risk for HCV infection, and changing the official recommendations by the US national authorities such as the CDC, HIVMA, etc, as has already been done in Europe and more recently at the state level in New York.

Abstract title:

Characterization of an epidemic of sexually-transmitted acute hepatitis C infection in HIV-infected men in New York City

About the AASLD

AASLD is the leading medical society focused solely on advancing the science and practice of hepatology and represents more than 3,300 practitioners, researchers, and allied health professionals worldwide. Founded by physicians in 1950, AASLD has upheld the standards of the profession and fostered research that generates treatment options for the millions of patients with liver diseases.

Source: American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $75 million to Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science and three other historically black institutions to establish a medical research consortium to combat health disparities in minority and underserved populations.

The award by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), part of NIH, will support clinical and translational research focusing on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, HIV/AIDS and other conditions.

“We are going to create a clinical and translational research center by building partnerships among institutions and communities,” said Dr. Eric G. Bing, Charles Drew University’s Endowed Professor of Global Health & HIV, who will direct the NIH grant-funded program: Accelerating Excellence in Translational Science (AXIS).

“Our goal is to develop innovative solutions that transform the health of underserved communities,” he added.

Under the terms of the award, Charles Drew University in Los Angeles, Meharry Medical College in Nashville and Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta will each receive about $4 million a year for up to five years. Xavier University in Louisiana will receive $2 million a year for five years to establish a cancer research center.

Charles Drew, Meharry and Morehouse will each be funded through Research Centers in Minority Institutions, an NCRR program designed to enhance research capacity and infrastructure in minority institutions.

“The three inaugural RCTR institutions already have an exemplary record of transforming basic research into positive outcomes at the doctor’s office and in the community,” said Dr. Barbara Alving, director of NCRR. “The increased efficiency and partnerships that come out of the RCTR program will accelerate this progress to improve the health of minority communities.”

Xavier University, which suffered heavy damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina in2005, will be added to the pool of RCMI institutions with funds from the fourth award.

RCMI Awardees:

Charles Drew University
$20.9 million
Accelerating Excellence in Translational Science
Principal Investigator: Keith C. Norris, M.D.

Meharry Medical College
$21.4 million
Meharry Clinical and Translational Research Center
Principal Investigators: Ayman Al-Hendy, M.D., Ph.D. and James E.K. Hildreth, M.D., Ph.D.

Morehouse School of Medicine
$22.2 million
RCMI Infrastructure for Clinical and Translational Research
Principal Investigator: Eve J. Higginbotham, M.D.

Xavier University of Louisiana
$10.1 million
Xavier’s RCMI Cancer Research Program
Principal Investigator: Gene D’Amour, Ph.D.Contact:

Source: John L. Mitchell

Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science

The U.S.’ “recent experience with abstinence-only sex education is merely the latest chapter in our long, sometimes ridiculous … history of efforts to control humankind’s most basic drive,” Johannah Cornblatt writes in a Newsweek article examining the history of sex education. Organized sex education first gained attention during the urbanization movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, accordiong to Cornblatt. Later, “rampant” cases of sexually transmitted infections during World War I prompted the federal government to begin educating soldiers about syphilis and gonorrhea, she writes.

Over the next 30 years, sex education “exploded,” and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States was founded in 1964 “in part to challenge the hegemony of the American Social Hygiene Association (now called the American Social Health Association), which had dominated sex education curriculum development,” according to Cornblatt. She reports that “some of the greatest resistance to sex ed arose during the sexual revolution of the late ’60s and early ’70s,” when the issue became politicized “as religious conservatives built a movement based, in part, on their opposition to sex instruction in the public schools.” The Christian Crusade, the John Birch Society and similar groups began attacking “SIECUS and sex education overall for promoting promiscuity and moral depravity.” Janice Irvine, author of “Talk About Sex: The Battles Over Sex Education in the United States,” said that religious conservatives in the late 1960s “began using sex ed to their political advantage” through the use of “really scary rhetoric” on what students were being taught in classrooms. Cornblatt writes, “In school districts across the country, groups of parents started protesting sex ed programs.”

Advocates of comprehensive sex education “found their position strengthened” when the HIV/AIDS pandemic began in the 1980s. Every state had passed mandates for HIV/AIDS education, “sometimes tied to general sex ed and sometimes not,” by the mid-1990s, Cornblatt writes. Conservatives responded by “launch[ing] a movement to rebrand sex education as ‘abstinence education,’” and religious conservatives played a role in adding abstinence-education provisions to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, meaning that for the first time, the federal government “directed tens of millions of dollars to abstinence-education programs,” she says (Cornblatt, Newsweek, 10/28).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) today lauded President Barack Obama for lifting a 22 year-old ban prohibiting HIV-positive foreigners from traveling to the US. The US was one of only twelve countries with such a travel ban. Obama announced repeal of the ban after signing the legislation renewing the Ryan White CARE Act, the federal law that authorizes the primary source of funding for AIDS care and services nationwide. The updated CARE Act, which Obama signed earlier today in Washington with the mother of Ryan White in attendance, places a newfound emphasis on testing, calling for five million HIV tests to be done annually.

“President Obama deserves praise for lifting the 22 year-old ban on travel to the US by HIV-infected people or those living with AIDS,” said Michael Weinstein, President of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “This ban only served to reinforce stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS, and its repeal is long overdue. The travel ban was an enormous black eye on US humanitarian efforts such as PEPFAR, the US’ widely respected global AIDS program. With the repeal of this ban, major international AIDS conferences may once again be held here in this country, something that has not happened throughout the ban. In addition, the updated version of the Ryan White CARE Act that Obama signed into law today provides another watershed moment: the bill puts a newfound-and crucial-emphasis on HIV testing, with directives that five million HIV tests be done annually. At present, fully one-quarter of the 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the US are currently unaware of their HIV status. Stepped up testing, as this bill requires, with linkage to treatment when needed, should go a long way to help address the problem of people unaware of their HIV status unwittingly passing on their infection to others.”

Source
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)

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