Subject: CDC Summary 1/27/93 Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 07:08:37 PST (218 lines) Archive-Number: 44 AIDS Daily Summary January 27, 1993 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National AIDS Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a public service only. Providing this information does not constitute endorsement by the CDC, the CDC Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold. Copyright 1992, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ======================================================================= "Japan Plans Gene Therapy Research for AIDS" Reuters (01/26/93) Tokyo--Japan will launch a long-term research effort into gene therapy as part of its anti-AIDS campaign, according to a health ministry official. Shigeki Shiiba of the ministry's health science division said the group will allot 150 million yen ($1.2 million) this year to begin basic research on gene therapy. "Gene therapy is a highly promising area ... but it will take a long time, say more than 10 years, before it becomes practical," said Shiiba. The therapy is a controlled experimental treatment which involves the introduction of new genes into the body to correct an inherited or acquired condition. In a separate announcement, the ministry's AIDS Surveillance Committee said Tuesday that Japan reported 10 newly diagnosed AIDS cases and 59 new HIV-positive individuals in the November-December period. The committee said that Japan's reported cases of full-blown AIDS totaled 543, in addition to 2,551 people infected with HIV during the period that ended on Dec. 31, 1992. Japan's cumulative death toll from AIDS is 298. Among the 69 new cases diagnosed in November-December, more than 40 were women from Southeast Asia working in the entertainment industry, said a committee spokesman. Previously, most Japanese viewed AIDS as a disease that primarily affected foreigners, especially homosexuals and IV-drug users. Now, most of the Japanese that contract HIV do so through heterosexual contact. ======================================================================= "BRF--AIDS-Watches" Associated Press (01/25/93) Washington--AIDS activists gave members of Congress broken wristwatches on Monday to signify that time is running out for aggressive action against the disease. A letter delivered to the 540 members of Congress by ACT-UP said, "For the past 12 years, Congress has collaborated with the Reagan-Bush administrations in their criminal neglect of the AIDS crisis." In addition to the letter, about two dozen ACT-UP members who had driven from New York delivered broken wristwatches to the congressional offices. The organization is requesting that Congress form a "Manhattan Project" for AIDS research and spend another $500 million for prevention and education, said Scott Sawyer, an ACT-UP spokesman. ======================================================================= "Iran Says 219 Infected With HIV, 45 Died of AIDS" Reuters (01/25/93) Nicosia--Iran revealed Monday that there have been 219 reported cases of HIV infection, and 45 AIDS patients have already died of the disease. The Iranian news agency (IRNA) cited an official from an anti-AIDS group who told a seminar in Tehran that if the Iranians were not educated about the risks of the disease, the "problem would be much greater in the future." Deputy Health Minister Saeed Namaki said in December that 42 people had already died of AIDS, and 169 others had the disease. The official said, "Restricting sex to its religiously established forms would offer the surest way for harnessing the epidemic in Iran." Previously, Iranian officials said AIDS was not a severe problem in the country, which has a population of 60 million people. Clerical leaders said Islamic ethics helped control the spread of HIV in Iran. In December, Iran said it was introducing mandatory HIV testing for foreigners wishing to stay in the Islamic republic for more than three months. ======================================================================= "HemaCare Begins Construction of Plasma ..." HealthWire (01/25/93) Los Angeles--HemaCare Corp. announced Monday that it has taken a significant step in furthering its efforts to develop a series of hyperimmune, gamma globulin, pharmaceutical products to treat AIDS and other conditions. The company has leased a building in Valencia, Calif., which will house a plasma fractionation facility. The first application of the facility will be to transform the human plasma being used in the company's Passive Hyperimmune Therapy (PHT) AIDS therapeutic research project into intravenous gamma globulin or antibody concentrate. Dr. Joshua Levy, HemaCare's medical director and principal investigator of its PHT clinical research, said, "The construction of the fractionation facility is a major step in HemaCare's development of a safe and effective AIDS therapy. The gamma globulin concentrate obtained by fractionation will have greater drug purity and stability and be more widely accepted by the medical community than the current whole plasma product." He added, "We expect that the pilot plasma fractionation facility will be completed in six months and that intravenous gamma globulin may be produced by the end of 1993. By utilizing self-contained, modular, independent, manufacturing units, other plasma products in addition to the initial HIV antibody plasma product may be produced in this facility." ======================================================================= "Israel-AIDS" Associated Press (01/26/93) Jerusalem--The Israeli government will require immigrants from Western nations and all foreign workers to be tested for HIV before entering Israel, the Health Ministry announced Tuesday. A ministry statement indicated that HIV-positive immigrants would have their cases reviewed but did not say whether they would be rejected. The new policy, developed by the health and interior ministers, will be instituted Monday. Critics claim that the mandatory tests are unfair because they single out groups from certain countries when Israel is supposed to be a haven for all Jews around the world. However, Yehuda Weinraub, a spokesman for the Jewish agency that deals with immigration, said the country's policy of citizenship to Jews can exclude those who are a threat to public health. The statement by the ministry did not list the countries included in the category "Western nations." It said immigrants from the former Soviet Union and developing countries, in addition to tourists, foreign embassy staff, and journalists, are exempt from the mandatory tests. Those individuals account for most of Israel's immigrants. Since 1989, more than 400,000 Jews have come from the former Soviet Union, and about 50,000 have come from Ethiopia since the mid-1980s. Weinraub said about 1,500 Jews a year immigrate from France and England, but did not have any figures for other Western European nations. Ira Cohen, a spokesman for the Association for Americans and Canadians in Israel, said about 3,000 immigrants come to Israel from North America every year. ======================================================================= "Ohio Officials Fear TB Increase" United Press International (01/26/93) Cleveland--Ohio health officials are monitoring a nationwide rise in tuberculosis cases and believe the state might be on the brink of a similar increase. For the third consecutive year, Ohio has reported a constant rate of TB cases. There were 378 identified TB cases in Ohio during 1991, the most recent statistics available. Dr. Frits van der Kuyp, director of the Cuyahoga County tuberculosis control service at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, said that Ohio doctors may also be increasingly confronted with multi-drug-resistant TB. Eight cases of drug-resistant TB transpired statewide in 1991. However, state public health officials said the number could be higher because only half of the total tuberculosis cases were examined for resistance. As many as 500,000 Ohioans may be infected with TB bacteria, but for most, the disease remains dormant. Dr. George Hurst, assistant chief of the Ohio Department of Health's division of preventive medicine, said, "There is a direct link to declining resources and increases in TB cases. In Ohio, we have the opportunity to avoid the epidemic increase the others are experiencing." Ohio uses a $350,000 federal grant for TB tracking, education, and for four nurse outreach workers who manage all the TB patients and guarantee that those patients take their medications, said Hurst. However, he projects that it will cost as much as $1.5 million to attack Ohio's TB problem. ======================================================================= "Senate Committee Approves Family Leave, NIH Reauthorization" United Press International (01/27/93) Washington--The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee has approved the National Institutes of Health reauthorization bill. The legislation was vetoed by former President Bush because it allowed the use of fetal tissue in medical research. But President Clinton, by executive order, has already approved the use of fetal tissue for such research. The bill supports women's health research, funds cancer and heart research, provides support for fighting AIDS, and guarantees freedom of medical research. ======================================================================= "Data, Doubts Emerge From D.C. TB Tests" Washington Post (01/26/93), P. D1 (Goldstein, Amy) One homeless resident out of four in Washington, D.C., is believed to have been exposed to tuberculosis, according to District health officials. However, advocates for the homeless claim that the aggressive testing of more than 1,200 residents at homeless shelters does not accurately portray the dimensions of the public health threat. D.C. Public Health Commissioner Mohammad Akhter said that two weeks after the campaign began, which is the first systematic attempt by any large American city to detect and treat TB among the homeless, only half of the 248 people who have tested positive for exposure to the disease have gotten the chest X-rays necessary to confirm whether they have active cases. Operators of the 15 shelters and other advocates for the homeless said they are unsure how the city expects to track down those exposed people, or how it plans to find more than 200 other homeless people who were given TB skin tests but never returned to a shelter to learn the results. Akhter conceded that the health-care workers, in planning the effort, had not been sensitive enough to clients. They failed to plan ahead for some people who would be afraid--and refuse--to board vans to get X-rays at hospitals. City health officials plan to reach as many as 5,000 men and women in all 43 shelters. New statistics show that 25 percent of the 983 shelter residents whose test results have been read so far are infected with TB. Among those who tested positive, 129 have gotten X-rays, which show only three men have active cases and thus are contagious. Janelle Goetcheus, medical director of Health Care for the Homeless, a nonprofit group, said that the low infection rate reported may reflect problems in the tests. ======================================================================= "AIDS Czar Issue: Report to President or Report to HHS?" AIDS Treatment News (01/15/93) No. 167, P. 6 ACT-UP/New York started a letter writing effort after reports revealed that Donna Shalala, the new Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants the new "AIDS czar" promised by Clinton to report to her, rather than directly to the president. Many believe that such a position should report directly to the president because there are many facets involved in the AIDS epidemic other than just those of the HHS. A quote from the ACT-UP/New York letter read, "The rationale for the position requires the immediate attention and direct access to the president, with special powers to coordinate, across all governmental agencies and branches, the federal government's response to AIDS. It also requires the full commitment of the president to use his office as a 'bully pulpit,' to ensure a timely response to AIDS." United for AIDS Action has also joined the campaign to have an AIDS czar in the Clinton administration. ======================================================================= "National Institutes of Health: Top AIDS Official to Leave" Science (01/15/93) Vol. 259, No. 5093, P. 303 (Cohen, Jon) Daniel Hoth, head of the AIDS unit at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced that he will soon resign after serving 5 years with the unit. Hoth told his staff and superiors at the Division of AIDS (DAIDS), a branch of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), that he feels he has achieved what he set out to do at NIH. Hoth, an oncologist, came to DAIDS from the National Cancer Institute in 1987. Since his arrival, the DAIDS staff has increased from 24 to 135 and the budget has tripled to $325 million. Moreover, Hoth's unit monitors more than 35 percent of the entire NIH AIDS budget. Many fellow researchers commend Hoth for expanding the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), a nationwide network of researchers who test new treatments. Hoth has also held a primary role in the decision to enhance the NIH's AIDS vaccine effort, both in the United States and abroad. However, Hoth has been widely criticized by AIDS activists. They say he allowed the ACTG to concentrate too much attention on AZT while ignoring other encouraging treatments. Activists have also accused DAIDS of footdragging, of not involving women and children in trials, and of ignoring the regions hardest hit by the epidemic. Derek Hodel of the Washington-based AIDS Action Council said, "Hoth presided over a tremendous and very painful growth period in DAIDS. Now we have the chance to solidify and address the problems with the organization we've identified."