Subject: CDC Summary 2/23/93 Date: Tue 23 Feb 1993 16:21:22 GMT (222 lines) Archive-Number: 271 From: igc.apc.org!bigoldberg (Billi Goldberg) Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed. is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold. Copyright 1992, Information, AIDS Daily Summary February 23, 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 ====================================================================== "Uganda, Scarred by AIDS, Turns to Its Youth" New York Times (02/23/93), P. A1 (Lorch, Donatella) Due to the rampant spread of HIV infection in Uganda, about 1.5 million to 2 million children have been left without fathers. Most of these have also lost their mothers. Many orphans survive and educate themselves on their own. A 1991 census of the Rakai and Masaka districts showed that one child in four was an orphan. The Ugandan government has been reluctant to establish orphanages because it believes this to be economically and socially impractical. The aim in such a poor country, where more than 85 percent of the residents farm, is to keep the AIDS orphans on their land--their only insurance for the future. After grandparents die, community residents take care of the orphans. But AIDS orphans are only one devastating aspect of the epidemic in Uganda. The Ugandan government predicts that 9 percent of Uganda's 16.7 million people are infected with HIV. The Ugandan AIDS Control Program projected in December a total of about 38,500 cases of AIDS--up 17,000 from the year before. Godwill Asiimwe-Okiror, an epidemiologist for the program, said the figure might be closer to 380,000. However, only 30 percent of Ugandans are in regular contact with health-care professionals. The disease has changed much of Uganda's social life. Kampala's brothels have been closed, and truck stop hotels on the main highways where prostitutes were abundant are now hurting for business. The Agency for International Development expects to distribute five million condoms in Uganda in 1993, which actually is not a lot when the statistics are considered. ====================================================================== "Tortuous Route to an AIDS Vaccine" USA Today (02/23/93), P. 4D (Painter, Kim) Although there are several AIDS vaccines currently in clinical trials, it could be 10 to 15 years before one could be used in large numbers of people. Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of Health, said at a recent New York Symposium on AIDS vaccines, "I think it's fair to say no one of these vaccines in early testing ... appears to stand out." However, she says she is optimistic about the prospects for therapeutic vaccines, which help people who are already HIV-positive. Most vaccines being studied--for both preventative and therapeutic uses--are made with pieces of HIV that cannot cause illness. These vaccines appear to be safe and boost immune responses in volunteers. Yet no one knows whether these responses can protect humans from actual HIV infection. Moreover, scientists don't know what an effective response is. One promising method was tested in a recent monkey study. Harvard Medical School researcher Ronald Desrosiers gave healthy monkeys live simian immunodeficiency virus, the monkey form of HIV, weakened by the removal of one gene. The monkeys contracted HIV but did not become ill. Subsequently, they received massive doses of real SIV and stayed healthy--indicating that the altered virus allowed their immune systems to resist infection. While the finding may be promising, no other approach is so risky. The worst-case scenario is that a live weakened virus could quickly switch to a deadly form. Desrosiers is more concerned that weakened viruses might cause cancer or a delayed form of AIDS several years after vaccination. He said the first human trial would have to be small and might take many years. ====================================================================== "AIDS and the Changing Face of Pneumonia" Washington Post (Health) (02/23/93), P. 12 (Colburn, Don) The AIDS epidemic has had a dramatic impact on the pattern of pneumonia cases in hospital intensive care units. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), once one of the rarest types of pneumonia, is currently the most common AIDS-related condition. Frederick L. Ruben, a lung specialist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and University Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh, said, "Before, the only time it was seen was in severely malnourished children or kidney transplant patients. Even infectious disease specialists wouldn't see a case in five years. Now you can't go a week without seeing a case." According to a recent study at a community hospital in San Francisco, the AIDS epidemic "has profoundly affected the spectrum of pneumonia in intensive care units." Of the 1,854 patients treated in the hospital's ICU over a three-year period, one out of seven had pneumonia. Of those, 29 percent were HIV-positive. PCP accounted for more cases--28 percent--than any other type of pneumonia in the San Francisco ICU study, which was published in the Western Journal of Medicine last December. In all 74 cases of PCP, the patient was also infected with HIV. But four previous studies of pneumonia in ICUs during the 1980s had no reported cases of PCP. The study demonstrated a sharp contrast in the age pattern, also. Before the AIDS epidemic, fatal pneumonia struck mainly the elderly or very young children. But in the San Francisco study, older pneumonia patients had a much higher survival rate. The difference is the direct impact of the AIDS epidemic, which affects mostly young and middle-aged people. ====================================================================== "Two Firms Collaborate on Hemophilia Project" Baltimore Sun (02/23/93), P. 11D (Bowie, Liz) Genetic Therapy Inc. and CytoTherapeutics Inc. have signed an agreement to collaborate on research to discover a new way to deliver a treatment for hemophilia B. CytoTherapeutics has made a semipermeable polymer membrane that could be implanted in a patient's body to deliver a drug. Genetic Therapy has genetically modified cells that produce a protein called Factor IX to treat hemophilia. The two companies seek to combine the technologies, which will allow Genetic Therapy's protein to be slowly released through CytoTherapeutics' membrane. ====================================================================== "Dr. Condom Gets Scant Protection From Critics" Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (02/23/93), P. C5 (Drogin, Bob) President Fidel Ramos of the Philippines unexpectedly named a little-known rural health expert as his secretary of health last summer. Juan M. Flavier has since evoked controversy throughout the country. The reason for opposition against Flavier in a predominantly Roman Catholic country is his unprecedented aggressiveness in attacking the AIDS epidemic and promoting birth control. Consequently, Flavier has been condemned by the nation's churches. He has been labeled "condom pusher" and "moral pollutant" in editorials. But Flavier says he welcomes the criticism because it may publicize his campaign for contraceptives. The Philippines has 368 confirmed cases of HIV infection, including 89 cases of full-blown AIDS. However, Flavier said the actual total is probably at least 10 times higher. He said a full-scale epidemic is "still preventable." Therefore, he decided to implement an anti-AIDS program that involves the distribution of condoms and safe-sex information. Catholic leaders have condemned condoms as a "simplistic and evasive" approach to AIDS that creates a "false sense of complacency." The anti-AIDS program will focus on the country's urban red-light districts, military camps, universities, returning overseas workers, and truck drivers. And blood banks will soon be registered. Flavier said, "Times are changing. No matter what they say, AIDS is a reality ... My message is be good. If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, use a condom." ====================================================================== "In the Nation: 10 Sites Tentatively Set for New AIDS Therapy" Baltimore Sun (02/23/93), P. 9A Federal health officials announced yesterday that 10 research sites were tentatively named to host human trials of the AIDS therapy which uses a combination of three drugs to inhibit the spread of HIV. Research has demonstrated that the therapy can block a key enzyme in the development of HIV, although the treatment's safety and efficacy in humans is undetermined. The sites being considered for the trials are Albert Einstein University in Bronx, N.Y.; Cornell University in New York; the Harvard University consortium of Boston, Mass.; Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill.; the University of Alabama in Birmingham; the University of California--San Diego; the University of Colorado in Denver; Florida's University of Miami; the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the trials are expected to begin in the spring. ====================================================================== "Chronicle: A Death From AIDS Inspires a Book and Activism" New York Times (02/23/93), P. B4 (Brozan, Nadine) A book will be published next week that addresses the author's feelings about her brother's death from AIDS. Barbara Lazear Ascher wrote "Landscape Without Gravity: A Memoir of Grief," based on her feelings about the death of her brother, Robert Allen Lazear Jr., in 1989 at age 31. But writing the book did not seem enough for her. She said, "I tried to think over a long period of time how I could somehow use the book to do something bigger for the AIDS effort." She said she would not donate proceeds from the sales of the book. "The first printing goes to pay the advance and there would be nothing left for AIDS," she said. Lazear Ascher made a donation to the Gay Men's Health Crisis, and in return 10 days ago she received a red metal pin that was a replica of the AIDS ribbon. "As soon as I saw it, I knew what I was going to do." She added, "I bought $500 worth of pins from GMHC, and when my publishers heard what I was doing, they said they would match it." When 160 people who buy the book in any of six shops in Manhattan--Books and Company, the Corner Bookstore, Madison Avenue Bookshop, Burlington Books, Endicott Booksellers, and Shakespeare & Company--they will receive a pin, also. When the pins run out, regular red ribbons will be given to purchasers of the book. ====================================================================== "The AIDS Disaster Unfolding in Asia" Business Week (02/22/93) No. 3306, P. 52 (Barnathan, Joyce) The rampant spread of HIV in Thailand may soon be representative of Asia and could have an acute effect on economic development. It is common for men in Thailand to routinely visit prostitutes, but they are contracting HIV in large numbers as a result. As many as 600,000 Thais are infected with HIV already out of a population of 57 million, and up to 1,200 new cases are expected daily. Thailand may be a model for the rest of Asia. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 40,000 adults already have developed symptoms of AIDS in Asia. WHO also projects that more than 1 million adults in Asia will become infected with HIV each year, exceeding the infection rate in Africa. But there are still a lot of misconceptions of AIDS. People in China have reportedly burned money and paintings handled by people with AIDS. And a study of 1,000 Asian employees of a large international bank demonstrated that 20 percent believed AIDS was a disease that only affected homosexuals or Westerners. But today most governments understand that their own cultural and social habits, such as prostitution, have formed a breeding ground for what is now an overwhelmingly heterosexual disease. However, most governments avoid implementing aggressive anti-AIDS programs for cultural, religious, and political reasons. Companies in Asia are expected to be hit hard by the epidemic if they suddenly begin to lose experienced workers to AIDS, and they may have to rethink the entire operating climate in the Asian Pacific region. ====================================================================== "Students: If School Won't Distribute Condoms, We Will" American Medical News (02/15/93) Vol. 36, No. 7, P. 20 Students in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wis., say that if their school does not distribute condoms on demand, then they will do it themselves. Kathryn Lounsberry, a freshman at Shorewood High School, said, "All of us have friends who are not virgins anymore, and that's why we're doing this. This is a serious problem. Kids are having unprotected sex." Lounsberry, as well as five other students, came before a school board committee in December 1992 to request that the school health office provide condoms to students who want them. If their proposal is approved, the school would be the first in Wisconsin to make condoms available to students. If it is rejected, the students expect to ask Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin for free condoms and then distribute them. Later this month, the school board's Health and Human Relations Committee will consider the students' request. An alternative proposal by the students will be discussed by the Shorewood Board of Health that requests that the Shorewood Health Department distribute the condoms. ====================================================================== "Seattle Plans Distribution" American Medical News (02/15/93) Vol. 36, No. 7, P. 20 The Seattle School Board recently voted to allow condoms to be distributed in three high school health clinics starting in April. Unanimous support was also given toward distributing condoms at two other high schools where health clinics are scheduled to open this spring, and to put condom dispensers in its seven other high schools without clinics. In addition, an updated health and sex education program that stresses abstinence for grades nine through 12 was endorsed by the board. Condoms will be provided the first year by the county health department. But after that, the district will work with King County and outside companies to obtain supplies. The Seattle public school district is the first in Washington to implement a condom distribution program.