Estimates claim that more than one-half of all South African individuals aged 15 years in 2006 will not survive to 60 years of age. Hence, creating awareness about dangerous and risky sexual behaviors in youngsters may help reduce the number of HIV patients. In order to test the ability of a school-based prevention program in such an environment, experts triggered a cluster-randomized, controlled study. The analysis included 18 primary schools in Eastern Cape Providence, South Africa and two six-session behavior-change interventions based on extensive investigations.

Experts allege, “In conclusion, sexual transmission of HIV is a major risk faced by adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, and interventions are needed urgently to reduce their risk. This study provides the first evidence that a theory-based, contextually appropriate intervention can reduce sexual risk behaviors, particularly unprotected vaginal intercourse, vaginal intercourse and multiple partners, among young South African adolescents in the earliest stages of their sexual lives. Future research with more sexually experienced adolescents will have to explore whether such interventions can have an effect on condom use and STDs, including HIV.”

John B. Jemmott III, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues randomly assigned nine schools to participate in the HIV/STD intervention. This intervention aimed to teach students ways of avoiding HIV and other STDs. It created awareness about abstinence and condom use, and increase the skills and self-confidence required for choosing less risky behaviors. The intervention focused on behaviors associated with other disorders, like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

1,057 children with an average age of 12.4 years were questioned about sexual behaviors before and three, six and 12 months after the intervention. Having conducted three follow-ups, investigators noted a smaller percentage of students in the HIV/STD risk reduction group than the health promotion group. Unprotected vaginal intercourse was reported by 2.2 percent from the HIV/STD risk reduction group and 4.2 percent from the health promotion group. Vaginal intercourse was registered by 4.8 percent of HIV/STD risk reduction group and 7.2 percent of health promotion group. 1.8 percent of HIV/STD risk reduction group and 3.2 percent of health promotion group had multiple sexual partners.

The study is published in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

CDC: 20% of Gay Men Are HIV-Positive, but Nearly Half Don’t Know It
Really? How did the CDC even study “gay men,” since we’re a population that’s not all in one place and is hard to define (we still don’t have a good estimate of how many America Americans identify as gay because of the slipperiness around identity and the fact that not everyone will tell a pollster their sexuality). If one were to look at the study, which is linked at the bottom of the Time piece so one assumes the writer and editors had access to it, it doesn’t make that claim at all.

I won’t fault Time’s Meredith Melnick for that incorrect headline; she probably didn’t write it. And whoever did was probably more interested in shocking than in describing the truth. Melnick gets a little closer in her lede, but she still is several ball parks away:

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 1 in 5 sexually active gay and bisexual men in America are HIV-positive but that 44% of them don’t know it.
Interesting, since an earlier study this year in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases estimated that 11.8% of MSM were seropositive and the CDC estimated in 2006 that 79% of those who were poz knew it. That’s a pretty big change in numbers over a short amount of time.

But that’s just her first paragraph, where at least she now tells us that the study wasn’t just of gay men, but of MSM, which includes bisexual men and men who don’t identify as either gay or bi but who have sex with men (whether that makes them gay or bi is entirely up to you, but having sex with a man doesn’t automatically make someone gay). But that wasn’t the only problem.

Time’s Melnick says something different in the second paragraph, without acknowledging at all that her first two paragraphs contradict one another:

More than 8,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual men (or, as the researchers call them, MSM, for men who have sex with men) were tested by CDC workers in the 21 American cities with the highest infection rates. The gay population in Baltimore had the highest rates of HIV infection, at 38%, while Atlanta scored lowest, at 6%.
(A small quibble: 1% of those who participated in the study identified as “straight.”)

In her first paragraph, the CDC released data about HIV infection rates among “sexually active gay and bisexual men in America” (emph. mine). In her second paragraph, the CDC released data about HIV infection rates among “MSM… in the 21 American cities with the highest infection rates.” That changes things a bit. Contrary to popular belief, men who have sex with men don’t live exclusively in 21 urban areas in the United States.

So the title, the first paragraph, and the second paragraph all make different, contradictory statements about the study, with no acknowledgement or explanation from Time. Which is correct? A casual reader wouldn’t know, and it’s unlikely anyone at Time understands. Many people would probably just read the title, which is the worst of the three, and move on unaware that they’ve been misled. We’re paid to write shocking stories, not report the facts! Melnick and her editors at Time protest.

Anyway, for those who’d like to know, the second paragraph is the one that gets closest, and it’s the one least likely to be read. And it’s still not good enough.

Here’s part of the note that was attached to the study on the CDC’s site, which is actually important to understanding the study (Melnick doesn’t mention any of this information in her shocking Time piece since it takes a lot of shock out of the story):

The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, because the survey was administered by an interviewer, positive HIV status might have been underreported during the interview, given the sensitive nature of the topic, thereby inflating estimates of MSM unaware of their infections. Second, 135 MSM who reported being HIV-positive but who had a negative or indeterminate HIV test result were excluded from analysis because of the possibility that they had false-negative NHBS test results; however, including these men as HIV-positive would have yielded a similar overall HIV prevalence (20% compared with 19%). Third, comparisons of the NHBS-MSM datasets collected during 2004–2005 and 2008 should be made cautiously, because this analysis did not control for demographic differences in the samples, which might have influenced the percentages reported. Finally, these findings are limited to men who frequented MSM-identified venues (most of which were bars [45%] and dance clubs [22%]) during the survey period in 21 MSAs with high AIDS prevalence; the results are not representative of all MSM. A lower HIV prevalence (11.8%) has been reported among MSM in the general U.S. population (8).
The CDC acknowledge four limitations to this study, two of which are major limitations that I’ll discuss.

In the third limitation, they acknowledge that demographics weren’t controlled for. Consider the income of the people tested — over 30% reported incomes under $20K a year. The Census Bureau only estimated 20% of US household income being below this line in 2009, which isn’t a direct comparison since gay households’ incomes are less and we’re more likely to have a single income for a single person than straight people. On the other hand, they investigated urban areas which have higher costs of living and incomes.

Either way, I can’t find comparable data focusing only on the same 21 urban areas and providing information about individual income, and apparently the CDC didn’t either since they didn’t control for demographics. Since socioeconomic status is one of the major factors that defines HIV infection rates, data that doesn’t reflect a representative sample of America’s economic reality can’t be used to make sweeping statements about “gay and bisexual men in America.”

23% of the people studied were “Black, non-hispanic”; 12.4% of America is. 25% of the people in the study were “Hispanic”; about 15% of America identifies as such. Again, perhaps that’s representative of these 21 urban areas, but we don’t know that and it means that the data isn’t representative of “gay and bisexual men in America.”

34% of those studied had “no” health insurance, while the un-insurance rate in the US is estimated at 15.4%. This relates specifically to the stories (like the one at Time) that stress how few “gay and bisexual men in America” know they’re HIV-positive. If the study focused heavily on the uninsured, then it’s more likely to show that people don’t know they have a certain virus. This stuff isn’t complicated.

The fourth caveat that the CDC lays out is also important: they found their subjects at bars and dance clubs that are “MSM-identified venues.” They’re missing a lot of people that way since lots of urban MSM (like me) don’t frequent gay bars and clubs. They cruise online or in parks. They’re in relationships or don’t cruise at all. They live far away from any gay bars. They don’t like gay bars for a variety of reasons. Maybe they just didn’t go to that one bar on the night they were recruiting people for this study. Maybe they didn’t want to take part in this study (only 43% of people who were “approached” agreed to participate, making the study self-selecting and not even controlled for basic demographics). Etc.

Of course, none of those caveats made it into the Washington Post story on these data, which ran with this headline and lede:

Study puts HIV rate among gay men at 1 in 5
One in five gay men in the United States has HIV, and almost half of those who carry the virus are unaware that they are infected, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

The Post’s Darryl Fears goes on to call this study “the most comprehensive such research by the CDC,” without mentioning any of the caveats the CDC laid out.

Even more frustrating is that the CDC specifically says “comparisons of the NHBS-MSM datasets collected during 2004 — 2005 and 2008 should be made cautiously,” but Fears spends three paragraphs making lazy comparisons between those two exact studies. “[T]he percentage of minorities who tested positive changed dramatically in the three years since the previous study,” Fears tells us, not telling us what the CDC know, that the samples in the two studies are different and neither controlled for demographics so comparisons between the two are likely to be inaccurate.

Not that any of that matters. The important thing is that we are all properly shocked into buying newspapers.

Now, though she swallows 60 pills a day to stay healthy, she needs no reminders. Cardell long ago memorized her medication schedule and all of its empty-stomach or full-stomach requirements.

But the stigma surrounding the infection she got from an HIV-infected boyfriend in 1991 still haunts her.

Though once an ambitious executive chef, she will never cook professionally again.

“People are afraid of eating that food, though that’s not how HIV spreads,” said Cardell, 46.

The Boulder County AIDS Project, which this year marks its 25th anniversary, faces the same challenge as it serves HIV-positive men, women and children living in Boulder, Broomfield, Clear Creek and Gilpin counties.

It offers free and confidential HIV testing, case management, medical care access, financial assistance, food bank resources, support groups and more.

Yet BCAP wants the Longmont branch, which this month relocated to 515 Kimbark St., to maintain a low profile.

“We have people who haven’t even told their sister, who they live with, because the stigma is so strong,” said Dan Hanley, BCAP’s development director. “Some of that stigma comes from homophobia. … But we’re in Longmont because there is a need.”

Cardell, a heterosexual woman who married in 1993 just before she was diagnosed, first volunteered at BCAP in 1994 after moving from Madison to Boulder. She remembers volunteers lighting a candle by the front desk in the Boulder home office whenever a client died.

Stigma caused some families to submit nothing more than the first initial of the late client’s name and the date of death to post by the flame.

“And this is at an AIDS organization,” Cardell said.

Volunteers from BCAP’s earliest years nevertheless appreciate progress between now and when the AIDS crisis first hit in the early 1980s.

For instance, burning the bed sheets crossed Neil Fishman’s mind after a buddy in California stricken with AIDS visited a mutual friend in Boulder.

“We didn’t know anything. We thought you might get it from toilet seats or door knobs. Scientists had not yet even isolated the virus then,” Fishman, 54, said.

HIV, the virus that causes the deadly AIDS, passes from an infected person to another person through blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk.

Fishman, a Boulder scientist who served from 1987 to 1990 as BCAP’s third president, recalled how two volunteers launched what is now known as BCAP in 1985. They incorporated the nonprofit organization as the Boulder County Health Network to avoid using the AIDS acronym in the return address on mailings.

Though that euphemistic name eventually changed, BCAP managed to attract more clients and volunteers outside the gay community.

Bonnie Crumpacker, a wife and mother of four, volunteered in 1987 as Fishman’s vice president after she heard then-Colorado Rep. David Skaggs fielding complaints from gay men in Boulder. They reported housing and medical care discrimination related to their homosexual or bisexual orientation.

“(Supporting BCAP) was an act of bravery. A lot of people hate gay people,” the Boulder resident said. “But at some point, people began to realize it could be their child, certainly. … I knew young men whose parents just couldn’t adjust. I found that hard, and then they would come around for the funeral.”

Before the 1996 debut of protease inhibitors — powerful drug cocktails to slow the spread of HIV — AIDS (the infection’s end-stage immune system crash) ranked as the leading cause of death among those between ages 25 and 44 in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Crumpacker, 83, remembers the peculiarity of visiting so many sick young men — one of whom died in her presence — during her BCAP tenure.

Today, AIDS is the sixth highest cause of death for that age category.

The majority of new annual HIV cases in the U.S. still stem from men who have sex with men. But heterosexual contact accounts for 31 percent of annual new infections, according to the CDC.

That statistic and her personal experience pushed Cardell to serve beyond her volunteer roles over the years as BCAP’s bookkeeper, board member and client chauffeur.

“I went to BCAP and said, ‘You guys need a woman to tell your story.’ And they said, ‘Well, we had one, and she died. So it looks like it’s you,’” she said.

Now, Cardell speaks publicly on behalf of BCAP to prevent disease transmission, encourage early treatment and break stereotypes.

“(Adults) want to hear that you slept with a million people or used injection drugs. They want you to be so different that they don’t have to worry about it,” she said. “But kids say, ‘Now I know that you’re just like everyone else. You just have to try harder to live.’”

FIOCRUZ (www.fiocruz.br) is a world-renowned public health organization affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Health and is the Ministry’s leading supplier for therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostic tests dedicated to public health. FIOCRUZ has entered collaborations with some of the world’s leading biotechnology companies in fulfillment of its mission.

This is the second DPP(R) test developed by Chembio to receive regulatory approval in Brazil in the last three months. In June, the Company reported approval of its DPP(R) oral fluid HIV 1/2 screening test by ANVISA. This is however the first DPP(R) multiplex test employing Chembio’s patented Dual Path Platform to received regulatory approval. One of the unique features of DPP(R) is its enabling of multiple parameter tests to be developed. The confirmatory test uniquely detects five different strains of HIV in a single point-of-care device.

During 2008 Chembio signed four agreements with FIOCRUZ relating to products based on the Company’s DPP(R) technology, including this HIV confirmatory test. Previous to that, in 2004, Chembio and FIOCRUZ entered a successful collaboration pertaining to Chembio’s HIV 1/2 STAT-PAK(R). Under the DPP(R) HIV 1/2 Confirmatory rapid test agreement with FIOCRUZ, a technology transfer to FIOCRUZ for this product is contracted for, which is anticipated to occur in stages over a three-year period. During that period the agreement provides for minimum sales by Chembio to FIOCRUZ for this product and related components of approximately $4.7 million. Thereafter, it is anticipated that the technology transfer process will be completed. The agreement for the previously approved oral fluid HIV test, combined with this agreement pertaining to the HIV confirmatory test, represent combined potential aggregate sales of at least $13.5 million based on the minimum sales required under these agreements in order to complete the technology transfer.

Lawrence Siebert, Chembio’s Chief Executive Officer, said, “This product approval is an important milestone relating to our DPP(R) technology, as it very clearly demonstrates the capabilities of our platform, replacing time-consuming, laboratory-dependent tests with products that can provide critical information at the point of care.”

About Chembio Diagnostics Chembio Diagnostics, Inc. develops, manufactures, licenses and markets proprietary rapid diagnostic tests in the growing $7 billion point-of-care testing market. Chembio’s two FDA PMA-approved, CLIA-waived, rapid HIV tests are marketed in the U.S. by Alere North America, Inc. (formerly Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc.). Chembio markets its HIV STAT-PAK(R) line of rapid HIV tests internationally to government and donor-funded programs directly and through distributors. Chembio has developed a patented point-of-care test platform technology, the Dual Path Platform (DPP(R)) technology, which has significant advantages over lateral-flow technologies. This technology is providing Chembio with a significant pipeline of business opportunities for the development and manufacture of new products based on DPP(R). Headquartered in Medford, NY, with approximately 100 employees, Chembio is licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is certified for the global market under the International Standards Organization (ISO) directive 13.485. For more information, please visit: www.chembio.com.

Forward-Looking Statements Statements contained herein that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company and its management. Such statements are estimates only, as the Company has not completed the preparation of its financial statements for those periods, nor has its auditor completed a review or audit of those results. Actual revenue may differ materially from those anticipated in this press release. Such statements reflect management’s current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to Chembio’s ability to obtain additional financing, to obtain regulatory approvals in a timely manner and the demand for Chembio’s products. Chembio undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in Chembio’s expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact Chembio’s success are more fully disclosed in Chembio’s most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Through home-based counselling and testing, you are able to get children and parents who might not go to health facilities for these services,” said Samson Ndege, one of the authors of the study and HCT project coordinator with the USAID-supported Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), which cares for more than 100,000 HIV-positive adults and children in the region. “HCT provides an opportunity to… link children and parents to treatment.”

The study, published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, looked at the uptake of HIV testing and HIV prevalence among children given HCT and aged between 18 months and 13 years, whose mothers were either dead, HIV-infected or of unknown HIV status.

Ndege noted that it took some convincing to get parents to allow their children to be tested. “One reason many parents did not want their children tested was fear of disclosing their HIV status, but through counselling, many parents now know the children can access treatment and therefore there is an increase of those willing to have children tested,” he said.

Diagnosis and treatment of HIV-positive children remains very low in much of sub-Saharan Africa; the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that without treatment, about half of HIV-infected children will die before their second birthday.

Limitations

Kenya’s 2008 national HIV testing guidelines single out diagnosis of children as a benefit of HCT.

More on children
Help HIV-positive children in pain, urges HRW
Low breastfeeding rates threaten PMTCT efforts
Child deaths stubbornly high
When do we tell children they are HIV-positive?
Love, Positively Of the 2,289 children offered HCT in the Kenyan study, 57 percent participated and of these nearly 5 percent were found to be HIV-positive.

“In every place where we carried out the research… there are AMPATH clinics where the HIV-positive children and their parents are referred to for treatment,” Ndege said. “Community health workers are employed to make follow up visits and ensure that those enrolled in treatment do not default.”

Some limitations of the study included the fact that it was restricted to “high-risk” children, it did not test children younger than 18 months – who would have required more complex tests than the rapid one administered in the home – and the limited geographical and cultural scope of the study, which means the results cannot be generalized.

The authors concluded that while HCT did provide an opportunity to diagnose HIV among high-risk children, further investigation was needed to identify and overcome barriers to testing uptake.

That’s the message city Councilman James Oddo and borough health care experts hope people take home after attending the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation’s Health & Wellness Expo on Sept. 28 in the Hilton Garden Inn, Bloomfield.

“If you look at the data it will tell you that Staten Islanders’ obesity rates and smoking rates are some of, if not the worst in the city,” said Oddo, a leading sponsor of the event.

What we are doing and failing to do puts us at risk for many health problems, such as certain types of cancers, heart disease, diabetes and other conditions causing a shortened and diminished qualify of life, say Island health experts.

To that end, the second annual SIEDC expo will once again provide Islanders with a chance to examine and revamp their lifestyles through access to free health screenings.

Community Health Action of Staten Island’s mobile health unit will be providing walk-in HIV testing, and hepatitis C and diabetes screenings.

“There are fewer people on Staten Island who have ever had an HIV test than any place else in the city,” said Diane Arneth, executive director of Community Health Action.

Sixty-two percent of Staten Islanders have never had an HIV test — the lowest testing rate of all the boroughs, which ranged between 33 and 48 percent.

In 2008, 42.8 percent of Staten Islanders who were initially diagnosed as HIV-positive had already developed AIDS. That same year, the citywide rate for late diagnosis was 24.6 percent.

Project Renewal will operate a mobile mammography van for women ages 40 and older who have not had a mammogram in the past year and who have previously scheduled an appointment. Women wishing to make an appointment for a mammogram on the Project Renewal van can call 800-564-6868 or 718-226-6447.

On Staten Island, about 335 women are diagnosed and 77 die from breast cancer every year, the highest mortality rate in the city, according to state Department of Health statistics. Many of those diagnosed are women between the ages of 40 and 50.

“We’ve had a 5 percent decrease from last year in patients actually making appointments for mammographies,” said Barbara O’Brien, registered nurse and administrator of the Cancer Services Program of Staten Island. The program provides free mammograms to uninsured and underinsured women at Staten Island University Hospital, Richmond University Medical Center, several other health care facilities, as well as the Project Renewal van.

Ms. O’Brien attributed the dip in the number of mammograms to the economy and a controversial recommendation last November by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that determined women between the ages of 40 and 49 could forgo annual mammograms.

The Cancer Services Program also provides free cervical and colorectal screenings. Program staff will be handing out fecal occult blood (FOBT) kits, which people can do at home and mail to a lab to check for some intestinal conditions and colorectal cancer.

“Port Richmond has the highest incidence of colon cancer and we know that’s directly related to the fact that people are not getting screened for colon cancer,” said Ms. O’Brien.

While she acknowledged that an FOBT is not the same as a colonoscopoy — the gold standard for detecting colon cancer — it can help break the ice for those who are afraid of the test.

Other screenings available include hearing exams by the Center for Hearing and Communication, glaucoma tests by the Congressional Caucus Glaucoma Foundation and peripheral artery disease and metabolic syndrome screenings by Richmond University Medical Center.

More than nine months of planning have gone into this year’s health and wellness expo, said Paula Coyle, director of programs for the SIEDC, which teamed up with Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), Northfield Bank Foundation and the College of Staten Island.

In addition to screenings, the expo will also feature author Lisa Oz, wife of TV’s Dr. Oz, a healthy recipes cooking contest for Island fire houses presided over by firefighter/chef/author Joseph T. Bonanno Jr., a keynote address by city health commissioner Dr. Thomas A. Farley, more than a dozen health and nutrition seminars, representatives from borough health agencies, a blood drive and fitness presentations.

Source

However, close to half of the children’s caretakers who were offered testing refused.

The likelihood of children getting tested was greatest where information about the mother’s suspected or confirmed HIV infection was available; if the parents were not in the household; if they were grandchildren of the head of household; or if the father was not in the household.

Timely treatment of HIV infection requires early diagnosis. This is particularly important for children. Without treatment approximately 50 percent will die before the age of two.

In sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-limited settings where HIV-incidence among children is high early diagnosis is critical to achieve the best treatment outcomes.

However, in spite of the importance of testing at-risk children, little is known about the acceptance of paediatric testing among children and their caregivers in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a large clinical care system, has enrolled over 113,000 HIV-infected adult and paediatric patients in western Kenya.

Home-based voluntary counselling and testing, (community-based or population-based HIV-testing) can identify children early in the course of the disease so they can get treated early.

In 2007 AMPATH started HCT in western Kenya. This comprises: giving a rapid, in-home HIV test for adults and children over the age of 18 months, immediate availability of the test results, post-test counselling and referral as appropriate, during one household visit

HCT was rolled out in the Turbo Division of the Uasin Gishu District of the Rift Valley Province in 2008. This division, with an AMPATH clinic caring for 5340 patients including 989 children, is considered ethnically and socio-economically representative of many rural divisions in western Kenya.

All consenting adult household members over the age of 13 were eligible for testing. Children 18 months to 13 years of age were offered HCT if their mother was known to be dead, her living status unknown, known to be HIV-infected or of unknown HIV status. The goal was to identify children at high risk for HIV-infection.

In contrast to 95% of adults who agreed to be tested, caregivers refused testing for almost half (995-43%) of all children (2,289) at high risk for HIV-infection. Of the 57% tested 60 (4.6%) were identified as HIV-positive.

The likelihood of being tested was greater for children with HIV-infected mothers, OR 3.20, 95% CI: 1.64-6.23; not having parents living with them, OR 1.50, 95% CI: 1.40-1.63; were grandchildren of the head of household (compared to the child of the head of household, other relatives or non-biological heads of household), OR 4.02, 95% CI: 3.06-5.28; or if their father was not in the household OR 1.41, 95% CI: 1.24-1.56.

These findings, the authors note, highlight the mother’s HIV and living status as key indicators of a child’s HIV risk in regard to a caregiver’s willingness to agree to testing as well as HIV prevalence. Nonetheless, many children of HIV-infected mothers were not tested. This led the authors to estimate that 46 (2%) more at-risk children could have been identified as HIV-infected.

Children aged 5-12 were more likely to be tested than those under five. The authors offer a number of potential reasons: the children may have more signs of illness, the risk of sexually transmitting HIV and the belief that older children were better able to handle a diagnosis. In addition they note with increased antenatal HIV testing there is a possibility that younger children had already been tested.

Fear of stigma and discrimination could also have played a key role in refusal of testing, the authors note. Only high-risk children were offered testing. The family or caregivers may not have wished to be singled out. Or, they did not wish their own status to be known to their children. Not having easy access to care could also have played a role.

However, their findings, they note, also suggest less fear of stigma and discrimination among caregivers of orphans.

These findings highlight the need to investigate why caregivers accept or refuse testing. Missed opportunities and interventions to increase paediatric testing can be identified and treatment outcomes improved.

Limitations included, according to the authors,

The child’s eligibility was based solely on the mother’s status. While useful the child’s own health status was not taken into account. Unlike adults in the household all children were not tested.
Testing of children under18 months of age was not offered. These children needed a non rapid DNA PCR test to distinguish between maternal and child antibodies that could not be done in the home.
Data collected was quantitative from a brief home visit.

The study was limited to a specific geographical and cultural area so was not generalisable. However, the findings nonetheless point to the importance of understanding a caregiver’s reasoning for accepting or refusing testing. So that the best use of scale-up of paediatric HIV testing using community-based methods is made.
The authors conclude that “home-based voluntary counselling and testing provides an opportunity to identify HIV among high-risk children.” And add “Further investigation is needed to identify and overcome barriers to testing uptake.”

Source: aidsmap.com

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Market Press Release – September 14, 2010 11:50 am – Getting oneself tested for HIV is a very delicate issue. Yet we must all understand the importance of it and take measures well in advance. When taken as a precautionary step, testing helps avoid unwanted situations in the future. STD or sexually transmitted disease is also known sexually transmitted infection (STI). It is not necessary that these diseases get transmitted only through sexual intercourse. Using IV drugs and in some cases, childbirth, can also cause risk of infection. A person infected with an STD will show various kinds of symptoms, but not very clear ones. The only way to get a confirmed report on the positive or negative aspects is through a test. If an HIV testing shows positive results, then immediate medication is called for, along with a counselor who will provide guidance and support.

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Source: marketpressrelease.com

Home HIV Test Kit |
HIV Self Test

ON a flawless day in Bali, tourists are revelling in sun and surf and padding about plush hotels. Beneath the highly developed tourism industry a deepening health crisis is gripping the island.

Encapsulating the trend is a tiny Balinese girl whose unfocused gaze indicates her poor state of health. Asih, two, is pale and listless as she wanders about her home of the past year, Anak Anak Bali orphanage, or Bali Kids, in Kerobokan. Asih is having trouble fighting off a common cold. She is HIV positive and has tuberculosis, preventing her immune system from kicking in quickly.

She is one of the estimated 7317 HIV-AIDS cases in Bali, part of an epidemic, much of it heterosexually driven, dubbed an AIDS tsunami by health workers.

Related Coverage
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Obama reveals national HIV strategy Courier Mail, 14 Jul 2010
National strategy aims to boost HIV testing The Australian, 9 Apr 2010
Gen Y clueless about how HIV is spread Adelaide Now, 30 Nov 2009
Australians need better sex education Adelaide Now, 30 Nov 2009

Known cases are thought to be the tip of the iceberg. The infection rate has jumped 81 per cent from 4041 in late 2006, according to the Bali Department of Health. The rate is alarming not only for the exponential rise but because health providers are questioning the veracity of records.

Figures are thought to be much higher than reported and their collection is being thwarted by discrimination, social taboos and ignorance of the disease, doctors say. Local men who engage in same-sex relationships, visit sex workers without using condoms or inject drugs with infected needles are not telling of their risk-taking behaviour, even on their deathbeds.

But data shows migrant Indonesians and Balinese men, many of whom work in tourism areas, are spreading the virus from sex workers to unsuspecting spouses, corroborating a Health Department study that found 48.9 per cent of sex workers only “often use” condoms. Four times as many men as women have HIV-AIDS.

As the epidemic ravages families, a new generation is falling victim. Mothers, usually widows whose partners have died, are unknowingly transmitting the virus to children at birth. Many children are being forced into orphanages as a result.

Last month tourism officials floated the idea of legalised prostitution, while examining the risk to tourists and their possible role in promulgating the disease. Although tourists are believed to be largely unaffected, it’s unknown how many are at risk. In the firing line are Bali’s biggest fans, Australians, who contributed a whopping 56 per cent rise to foreign arrivals with 213,361 visits in the year to May compared with the same period last year.

Asih’s story, which includes family disintegration coupled with a backlash from poorly educated villagers, is typical. After Asih’s father died from AIDS-related illnesses, her HIV-positive mother fled her village in Singaraja, north Bali, when fearful villagers warned they would kill her baby if they did not leave. Both ended up in Sanglah General Hospital, Denpasar, for months. They are being treated, successfully, with antiretroviral drugs but Asih’s mother, unable to care for her child, surrendered her to Bali Kids, which offers free clinical and dental treatment, and provides mobile medical services to other orphanages and villages.

About 4000 children live in 71 orphanages around Bali, many disreputable and none of which accept known HIV-positive children, says Bali Kids’ project co-ordinator, Adelaide-born Brenton Whittaker. Yet many are sent to orphanages after their parents die of AIDS-related illnesses. Stories abound of exploitation, slave labour and funding ending up in the pockets of corrupt operators.

“At Bali Kids it’s extremely difficult for anyone to scam us because it’s medical treatment. I see the child receive the treatment, so I can see where the money’s going,” says Whittaker.

When Inquirer visits a Dickensian-looking Denpasar orphanage housing 40 children ranging from infants to teens, the owner is away indefinitely. Children cook meals, consisting of only noodles and rice, in a squalid kitchen over an open fire. An eight-storey concrete maze, it overlooks a rural back yard where clothes dry amid piles of rubbish. Girls share a small dormitory, two to a single bed, while boys sleep on a mat on the ground floor. All share an abysmal toilet facility.

Lying abandoned are countless donations of clothes and toys. This is one of the orphanages where the Bali Kids medical team regularly treats children but the owner does not permit HIV testing, which is free in hospitals and clinics.

Involved in charity work in Asia for more than 20 years, Whittaker received an Order of Australia medal for humanitarian services to children in 2005 when Bali Kids opened. Bali Kids is first a medical facility, caring for underprivileged children suffering from malnutrition and illnesses such as TB and scabies. Increasingly, it cares for impoverished HIV sufferers.

“That’s our calling because no one else wants to deal with it,” Whittaker says.

Local authorities also refer children with HIV to Bali Kids. “You see the children arrive so sick and leave happy and healthy so you feel you have achieved something,” says Whittaker, attesting to good responses to antiretroviral treatment. “Plus we are educating them . . . so they have the opportunity to get into the workforce.”

Whittaker has been instrumental in securing three scholarships in Australian private schools.

Meanwhile, the latest HIV screening study in March by the Bali Health Department reveals Bali has the second highest infection rate in Indonesia behind Jakarta and the island’s young are most vulnerable, with those in the 20 to 29 age range peaking at 46 per cent. Sexually active teenagers between 15 and 19 account for 2.3 per cent of HIV.

“We are seeing pregnant teens who have contracted HIV while at high school but we don’t have the real numbers, that’s the problem,” says consultant pediatrician Ketut Dewi Kumara Wati at Sanglah Hospital. Efforts to curb the spread are proving arduous. Many locals are unaware the virus even exists. Those who suspect they are infected typically shun testing and leave preventive treatment too late. Adding to the crisis, some hospitals turn away patients.

“It’s very hard to get medical staff and doctors to work with HIV-AIDS patients,” says Dewi, the only pediatrician at Sanglah’s children’s AIDS ward. She believes the true number of cases on the island is about 10,500.

The highest prevalence of the virus is in the capital, Denpasar, and the Buleleng and Badung (the Kuta area) regencies, tourist districts that villagers and migrants gravitate to for work.

Tourism officials are warning of the effect the virus could have on Indonesia’s top tourist spot but claim the Balinese government would rather sweep the issue under the carpet.

“They don’t want to touch this. They are confusing it with a moral issue. They don’t want to talk about sex, but it’s a health issue, a disease,” says Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Bali Tourism Board. While Wijaya does not directly link tourism to transmission rates, Bali’s contact with foreigners far surpasses that of the rest of Indonesia, and intermingling is a fact.

His solution? A government-controlled prostitution zone with regulated health checks. “How can you control public health if you don’t control the sex workers?”

Yet he says a red-light district would taint the island’s image. “We cannot promote sex tourism. It would send the wrong message. People don’t come here for that.”

But it can’t be said sex tourism doesn’t exist. Sex workers in Bali attract 88,000 customers a year, this year’s report shows. And although HIV infection rates among foreigners are at negligible levels, the real situation is hard to gauge.

Figures for the second largest group with HIV, injecting drug users, estimated at 1371, have stabilised since 2002, according to the study, but the prevalence of the virus among transvestites and prisoners is increasing.

Kerobokan jail, where the Bali Nine drug traffickers and Schapelle Corby are detained, has HIV testing and counselling and the highest incidence of infection in a Bali jail, at 29 prisoners.

Most HIV programs are funded generously by AusAID, through the HIV co-operation program for Indonesia, which provided $500,000 in 2009-10. AusAID’s programs have been instrumental in bringing down infection rates among intravenous drug users. Overall it has provided more than $4.8 million for HIV-AIDS Bali programs since 2002.

Yet Bali is at risk of losing a generation, as increased numbers of HIV-positive mothers — about 600 a year — endanger their children, says Dewa Nyoman Wirawan, of the Bali Aids Commission and public health professor at Denpasar’s Udayana University.

Dewi agrees. “Without prevention many children will die. It will be the loss of a generation. Children are slow progressers and it will not show ’til they are in their teens,” she says.

A report by Wirawan last June on the UN Millennium Development Goals warns HIV-AIDS is the largest inhibitor to achieving child mortality reduction goals. “The estimated number of residents in Bali to be infected with HIV . . . will double in a very short time. The big challenge . . . is the explosion of the epidemic through heterosexual contact and the still low level of condom use.

“If there is no prevention of transmission from pregnant mother to her baby, then in one year it is expected approximately 300 infants will be infected with HIV. Usually all of these children will die . . . [in] under five years.”

The suppression of safe-sex messages because of social taboos on AIDs-related issues are at the core of the problem, says Tuti Parwati Merati, of the Bali Aids Commission, who is also head of tropical and infectious diseases at Sanglah Hospital and the University of Udayana’s medical school. With about 150 new patients admitted in the late stage each month to Sanglah Hospital, she battles the problem daily.

“More than 80 per cent of HIV-AIDS patients throughout Indonesia wait until it’s too late because they do not know they are infected by HIV,” says Merati.

Frustrating medical efforts are farcically low statistics on deaths from AIDs, estimated at 341 in total in Bali. Merati, who diagnosed the first AIDS case in Bali — and Indonesia — in 1987, suspects substantial numbers of deaths from AIDS are unreported. She concedes that awareness of the disease remains pitifully low.

Although testing and antiviral treatment is free, antibiotics and antifungal treatments are not, a factor she fears stops people following up on related illnesses.

The Balinese, about 93 per cent of whom are Hindu, do not religiously oppose condom use, but Muslims do. A safe-sex advertisement was pulled from Indonesian television stations last year because Muslim groups believed it was promoting promiscuity and adultery.

Entrenched animistic beliefs also inhibit safe-sex programs, Dewi says. People often believe their illness is related to karma or a punishment for perceived bad deeds. Some think it’s the result of a curse from an enemy and most seek help from witch doctors.

Amanda Morgan, country representative of Bali’s Burnet Institute in Indonesia, which combines health research, including HIV initiatives, with the Burnet Institute (Australia), concurs numbers are much more extensive than acknowledged, the response driven by inaccurate data.

“When you don’t have the data you have to question if you are responding in the most effective way.”

The Indonesian Ministry of Health estimates 40,000 people have HIV-AIDs, while UNAIDS puts the number at 270,000.

“We know it’s an iceberg phenomenon but as we dig deeper we are seeing increasing numbers, and particularly numbers of children, not being addressed,” Morgan says. When Putu Utami founded the outreach group Bali Plus in Denpasar in 1995, her husband had just died of AIDS-related illnesess. She found out he was gay after he died, a week after the birth of their son, now 15. She had learned of her own HIV infection six months into the pregnancy.

“My husband never told me he had AIDS. When I told him he had infected me and asked why he had the virus, he just cried.

“I was scared for my baby. I was scared I was going to die . . . I was very angry.”

Mercifully, her son is HIV-negative and Putu has responded well to treatment. She married again in 2003 and says her new husband, although initially sceptical, is accepting of her situation.

She only recently told her son, who lives with her first husband’s parents, of her HIV status. “He was very angry and sad, and asked me if his father had another girlfriend.” She pleaded ignorance. Her parents-in-law still don’t know their son was gay.

* * *

Plucked from poverty to live and learn
NI Komang Sani Asih knows how quickly life can turn around — for the better. At 19, she is experiencing the unthinkable for a child born into an impoverished village.

She is one of the fortunate few from 71 orphanages in Bali to benefit from Australians’ largesse. In Melbourne for a year after winning a scholarship, Sani’s life-changing opportunities unfolded through private orphanage Bali Kids.

Sani, from a village in Singaraja, north Bali, where her family still lives in abject poverty, is in Year 11 at Mater Christi College. Her plan — to work as an air hostess with Garuda Airlines — would be a pipe dream had she not been plucked from obscurity.

One of five children, Sani was originally farmed out to an orphanage in Denpasar when she was 13 because her parents were destitute. She was rescued three years later by Bali Kids from what were described as appalling conditions. Now mapping a bright future, the teenager hasn’t looked back.

“There is not a day that passes where she does not ask for an explanation about something, then she smiles in amazement and says thank you,” says her Melbourne host mother, Keryn Begg.

Recounting a precarious existence in Denpasar at the hands of a merciless orphanage owner, Sani says: “The boys [some no older than 10] built the eight-storey orphanage with no pay; the girls helped. We were hit by the owner . . . sometimes the children went to hospital. One boy fell off the building. The place was dirty, there were rats and no clean water.”

Sani was initially shy and quiet, with minimal reading and English language skills. She is now averaging 70 per cent in her eight subjects, including maths, accounting, economics and business management. She works a few nights a week in a Thai restaurant where she can indulge her penchant for spicy food.

“I felt nervous at first because I didn’t know anyone here and I didn’t understand your culture,” says Sani. “I did not understand much English and I wasn’t confident. There are 1000 students in my school and only 100 in my old one.”

Begg and her husband, John, say Sani is the perfect “other” daughter, complementing their own girls, Danielle, 14, and Melissa, 25.

“She has become part of our family. It’s just amazing how she’s come out of her shell. She’s adjusted and made a lot of friends.”

Long-time Bali devotees, the Beggs decided to host a child after visiting Bali Kids while on holiday last year. “It’s all very well to sit in your five-star hotel but there’s more to it than that. It’s been an amazing journey,” says Keryn Begg.

Source: The Australian

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This is now being revealed in some rather shocking video footage released by Brent Leung, creator of the House of Numbers documentary (www.HouseOfNumbers.com) which tears apart the inconsistencies and dogmatic non-science found in the conventional HIV / AIDS industry.

Watch the footage yourself right now at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA…

There, you’ll see world-renowned scientists discussing the so-called “western blot,” a highly subjective test that is now being used around the world to falsely diagnose people with HIV and, subsequently, AIDS. This western blot, as you’ll learn below, is a spectacularly laughable test that seems to have been designed to make “positive” criteria as loose as possible in order to label perfectly healthy people as having AIDS.

“I don’t think the western blot is a useful diagnostic test. I don’t think it’s worth doing,” argues Dr Robin Weiss in the video clip.

Val Turner, an MD from Australia, adds, “It’s ludicrous that you can be [HIV] positive in one country and not positive in another.”

Neville Hodgkinson, the Medical and Science Correspondent for The Sunday Times (London) adds, “Some people argue that we have a confirmatory test in some western countries, and that repeated testing can lead you to a safer diagnosis. But if the very basis of the test is faulty, then nothing works in fact. …Because of the different criteria that apply in different countries, you can test HIV positive in one country and be given an AIDS diagnosis as a result of that, whereas in another country you won’t test HIV positive and you won’t be given an AIDS diagnosis.”

A full-blown AIDS patient will almost always show nine different “bands” on an HIV test. But in the 1980’s, only one band was required — P24 — to diagnose someone as HIV positive (and subsequently having AIDS). The problem is that perfectly healthy people can also test positive for P24, even if they aren’t HIV positive.

“In the early days, people developed criteria that were too much like a screening test. So if you had just P24 [band], they might have called it a positive,” said Robert Redfield MD, Director, Clinical Care and Research, Institute of Human Virology.

Doctor Val Turner adds, “Many people were diagnosed using these criteria, and then it was realized that forty percent of people who are completely healthy have one or more western blot bands, most commonly a P24 band.”

A few years later, the FDA changed its diagnosis criteria for HIV, upping the requirement beyond a single P24 band. But people who had already been diagnosed as having AIDS were never re-tested!

Dr Val Turner explains, “We don’t know how many thousand people were testing using that western blot criteria before 1987, but … shouldn’t they all have been tested when the criteria changed in 1987 in case they were no longer positive? So there are probably people out there who would not be positive under the criteria which developed subsequently. Using the FDA criteria which existed before 1993, only 80 percent of AIDS patients had a positive HIV test, which means 20 percent were not positive.”

HIV tests depend on personal opinion, not rigorous science

Even today, HIV tests are conducted in a wishy-washy, non-scientific manner where the results depend largely on the opinion of the lab technician reading the test results! (It’s absurd, of course, but this is what’s happening right now.)

In House of Numbers, Brent Leung visited Claudia Kücherer, MD, a Molecular Biologist at the Robert Kock Institute in Berlin. There, he recorded this conversation:

Brent: “When you’re looking at this western blot, how do you determine what is a positive [result]?”

Claudia: “You need a certain number of bands being present. It depends a little bit on the producer of the test.”

Brent: “It depends on the manufacturer?”

Claudia: “Yes”

Brent: “Is there a different criteria for what might be a positive?”

Claudia: “Yeah, there are different criteria from the manufacturer.”

Manufacturers of the HIV test, in other words, differ in how they define a “positive.” You might be “HIV positive” on one test, but negative on another. And the decision on which manufacturer’s test to use is based on the opinion of the clinic, hospital or doctor ordering the tests.

Astonishingly, this House of Numbers footage also includes a scene featuring two different HIV test lab technicians working in the same lab who disagree on the criteria for a positive HIV test result. While one lab workers says two bands are needed for a positive diagnosis, another worker says three are required. And they work in the same lab!

Watch this footage yourself right here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA…

Western blot HIV test called into question

But some scientists feel the western blot is not just a good test, but a great one! Robert C Gallo MD, Director of the Institute of Human Virology, says “This has a margin of error if done properly that’s extremely low. In other words, it’s one of medicine’s better tests.”

One of medicine’s better tests? Really? And yet it can be interpreted in different ways by different lab technicians, different definitions in different countries, different manufacturers and different medical opinions?

The HIV tests, it turns out, is more a matter of opinion than scientific fact. And if you or someone you know has tested positive for HIV, maybe they should get a second opinion.

Why not make the test more accurate?

So why doesn’t the industry tighten up its guidelines and require five, six or even all nine bands to show up before diagnosing someone as HIV positive? No one seems to know.

I do, though. Isn’t it obvious? The AIDS industry is much like the cancer industry in that it’s focused on diagnosing as many patients as possible whether or not they actually have the disease. More patients equals more profits and a bigger “scare story” to feed the media propaganda machines.

We already know that the AIDS industry fabricated evidence to try to exaggerate the scope of the AIDS scare (http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=D35F0…). So it’s not surprising they would be promoting a “loose” test that potentially has already ensnared potentially tens of thousands of innocent people into a false AIDS diagnosis.

Once a person is diagnosed with AIDS, you see, they become a profit generating machine for Big Pharma. AIDS pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive, and because they are protected under an FDA-enforced monopoly, they can be sold at practically any asking price.

Even better, once innocent “healthy” people start taking AIDS drugs, they begin to show AIDS symptoms such as compromised immune systems. These side effects are caused by the drugs, of course, not by the disease, but in the minds of doctors and patients, the emergence of these scary symptoms proves that “they really had AIDS.”

It’s all just loopy, circular logic with a single purpose: To earn more money for Big Pharma at the expense of human suffering.

Now, I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a genuine person with immune deficiency. Thanks mostly to our toxic environment, there are certainly people who suffer chronic immune system malfunctions. But it is in the AIDS industry’s interests to convince even healthy people that they are ill and need pharmaceutical intervention to survive. And, by sheer coincidence (not!), today’s HIV tests are specifically designed in a way that produces a disturbingly high number of false positives.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/029689_western_blot_HIV_test.html

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“A wide range of HIV-related events can be of traumatic intensity for some individuals”, comment the researchers.

Life-threatening illness is recognised as a possible stressor that can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a standard text book for the diagnosis of mental disorders (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition Text Revision) this stress is defined as “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury or threat to the physical integrity of self and others”, with the individual’s emotional response involving “fear, helplessness, or horror.”

Investigators wished to see if a broad-range of HIV-related events were associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. They hypothesised that experiencing one or more events would be linked with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and that perceived threat and emotional distress would be associated with such symptoms. They also wished to see if shame-related emotions were associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Their study sample included 100 HIV-positive gay men. These individuals were self-selecting, collecting their study questionnaire from an HIV service provider or downloaded it from the internet.

The patients had a mean age of 43 years, the mean number of years since diagnosis with HIV was eight, most (95%) were white, 68% had received a college education, 47% were employed, and 56% defined themselves as being single.

Overall, 33%of the sample met the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Over half the sample (55%) reported that their HIV diagnosis was traumatic, 40% said that the experience of HIV-related symptoms caused trauma, and 30% said that they were traumatised by witnessing a death related to HIV. Other traumatic events included starting HIV treatment (19%), experiencing treatment side-effects (29%) and self-disclosing HIV status (15%).

Experiencing HIV-related symptoms was associated with feelings of physical threat, leading to the development of stress disorder.

For all the other measures emotional distress – fear, helplessness, or horror – was associated with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

The only socio-demographic characteristic associated with an increased risk of reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress was under- or unemployment (p < 0.05).

Physical symptoms (p < 0.01) and witnessing an HIV-related death (p < 0.05) were all significantly associated with symptoms of traumatic stress. The investigators believe that such experiences may immediately recall the “immediate threat posed by HIV.”

The investigators were surprised to find that starting HIV treatment (p < 0.01) was strongly associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Few people (27%) perceived treatment as being physically threatening. The investigators speculated that there may be “catastrophic expectations about the limitations [treatment] may impose on social or occupational functioning, thus leading to traumatic fear, or the perceived failure of…lifestyle remedies leading to traumatic helplessness.”

The inclusion of shame-related emotions in the investigators’ analysis only modestly increased the proportion of patients who could be said to have experienced a traumatic event.

Individuals living with HIV can experience long periods of good health and stability, note the investigators. However, they suggest that receiving bad test results or witnessing HIV-related illness and death could cause “intense fear, helplessness or horror” that can predict the development of symptoms of post-tr aumatic stress. They recommend that HIV doctors should be watchful for symptoms such as “reexperiencing the event, behavioural avoidance or emotional numbing.”

Limitations of the study include its cross-sectional design. The investigators also acknowledge that they were unable to control for potentially confounding factors such as social support, non-HIV-related stressors, stigma, stressful life events, and past mental health problems.

Nevertheless, the investigators believe that their study adds to the literature that associates HIV with posttraumatic stress and that this is “primarily associated with fear, helplessness, or horror as opposed to shame, humiliation, or guilt.”

Source: http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1506783/

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From 2008 to 2009, the hospital conducted 25,000 rapid and standard HIV tests, and it is on track to do 18,000 this year. “The more people who know their status, the more people we get into care. We decrease the community viral load and decrease the number of infections,” said Ralph Belloise, director of HIV services at St. Barnabas.

The Bronx is especially affected by HIV/AIDS, say New York City health department officials. The borough is home to nearly a quarter of the city’s HIV infections and a third of its annual AIDS deaths. Some 106,000 city residents were living with HIV/AIDS in 2008. This number has grown steadily for the past 10 years, officials note. One in five infected residents are unaware of their status.

The health department in 2008 launched “The Bronx Knows,” a borough-wide effort to boost voluntary HIV testing. Roughly 75 community organizations, including hospitals, had administered more than 375,000 HIV tests as of June. Of these, 1,275 tests were positive, according to the health department.

Testing rates are rising at other city hospitals and agencies, too. Health and Hospitals Corp., which operates city-owned hospitals, tested almost 190,000 people last year, said Terry Hamilton, director of HIV services, up from 50,000 tests in 2004. Almost 90 percent of the tests it performs this year will provide rapid results.

Source: http://www.thebody.com/content/art58297.html

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Foursquare and MTV think you should.

The addictive mobile app has teamed up with the home of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom to encourage people to find out if they’re one of the one in five Americans with an STD.

And then they want you to tell the world.

After you drop by the doc’s, you can download a “GYT” — that’s Get Yourself Tested — badge from the geo-caching game.

Because there’s no way to celebrate becoming the mayor like yelling, “I got tested for crabs today!”

I give MTV and Foursquare credit for the project. It’s an important message, and if you’ve watched an episode of Jersey Shore lately, you might be wondering if syphilis has gotten to their brains.

But saying you “got tested” usually means you thought you “needed” to be tested. Which means you’re announcing to the world of Foursquare (including your granny) that you did something where you maybe sort of possibly could have caught a raging case of something.

Have heart — so has most every other person on the planet. Even people who are totally monogamous can have an STD.

And sometimes the anonymity is a bit … over the top? I was required by NY State law to have an HIV test (negative yo!) when I was pregnant. My OB/GYN offered me the chance to go for an anonymous test … even though, um, he would get the results?

Letting your doctor in on your STD fears is one thing, though. Letting the whole world know is a whole uncomfortable talk with Granny about kids these days.

Unless you’re just in it for the free trip to New York City they’re giving away. Ah, gotcha there, didn’t we?

Would you let people know you just got tested?

Source: The Stir

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The first special event, the Fall Health Fair at the State College of Florida’s Venice campus, will be held from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 8, in the Selby Room at the college, 8000 S. Tamiami Trail, Venice. Mobile unit staff will provide sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV testing, blood pressure and blood sugar screening, and Body Mass Index (BMI) measurements.

The other two September special events are free HIV testing as part of the National Aging and HIV Awareness Day and National Gay Men’s HIV-AIDS Awareness Day public health campaigns.

To encourage testing in adults over 50 years old, free HIV testing will be available from 9:30 a.m.-noon on Friday, Sept. 17, at the Senior Friendship Center, 2350 Scenic Drive, Venice.

Free HIV testing also will be available during the presentation of the play “Return to the Mineshaft” at the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre, 25 N. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota. That event, scheduled from 6-9 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 26, is part of the National Gay Men’s HIV-AIDS Awareness Day campaign.

Regular services provided at the 15 sites by the mobile medical unit staff include diabetes education and screening, blood pressure tests, pregnancy testing, HIV and tuberculosis testing, adult immunizations and health education. The staff also assists in finding a medical home that provides ongoing health care services for anyone who lacks medical insurance and does not have a health care provider.

No appointment is needed. Some services are free, including HIV rapid testing with results in 20 minutes. Other services offered at other locations are on a sliding fee scale based on income. Licensed volunteer physicians from the Senior Friendship Centers provide basic medical care when the mobile medical unit is at the Salvation Army in Sarasota. A registered nurse is available at all sites.

Source: mysuncoast.com

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The common reason they give is that the man cannot leave them for someone else after infecting them with HIV.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Agnes Banda’s story may somehow be different but she says when she was getting divorced, her husband told her not to mention that she was HIV positive – a move she says disadvantaged her.

Banda, 39, and a teacher at one of the schools in Lusaka says she got married in 2002.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“We started co-habiting in 2000 when I was still in Western Province and in 2002, that’s when we got married officially. Before we got married there was a time I came to visit him from Kaoma and I found some capsules in one of the pockets of his clothes. I wasn’t familiar with them so I later asked him what they were for. He told me that he had some genital rashes, an STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) and he was prescribed the medicine,” she says. “He went on to say that before he could take the capsules, he consulted another nurse and she said it was just a mere rash but I still wasn’t convinced, but we got married anyway.”home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

She says in 2004, her husband got very sick and lost a lot of weight.

“He was just like a moving skeleton. He used to have night sweats and at that time, he was doing nothing so I had to run around and look for money. He had insisted on going to the hospital alone. So I went for work and when I came back. he said ‘Aggie banipeza nili HIV positive’ (Aggie, they have found me HIV positive) but I think after seeing the fear in me, he withdrew the statement and said ‘Mwandi bani chita chabe advise kuyenda kupimisa VCT’ (no they have just advised me to go for VCT voluntary counsellig testing). home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kitSo I asked him if he had done VCT. He said ‘no’, then I asked why, the response I got was that because of his illness his immunity was low and could have mistook that for HIV. So he said that he would go when he got better. He was put on medication and he got better,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Banda says when her husband recovered, she reminded him to go for a test but he refused, saying that the virus could not survive in his blood.

“That was a wake-up call for me but I was scared I couldn’t go alone because I was thinking how I could receive the news if I was found positive. I feared to say if I go there and I am found positive, he could have accused me of infidelity. So life continued and I lived in fear,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

She says in October, 2006, fate caught up with her and she started feeling sick.
“It was during the elections and I was feeling like I had malaria. My legs were painful, very painful. I used to sit on the table verifying results and after I got money from the elections, I used it all on medication,” she says.

Banda says while she was sick, her husband left her and went to Malawi to do business.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

She says while he was in Malawi, her illness progressed and her health deteriorated.

“Even after using all the money, I started going to other clinics even government clinics but all in vain. Then one day I just thought of going to UTH, without a referral. The doctor saw me and saw the seriousness of my illness. He asked for a close relative since I had just gone there with a friend. At the hospital, they said there was need for either for a mother or husband to come,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Banda says since her husband was out of the country, she called her mother who found her critically ill.

She says her mother told her to tell the husband to come back from Malawi.

“He came back with some money which he spent on me and I appreciate that but after trying this and that nothing worked or improved until one day a certain doctor at UTH decided for me and the family. I was in no decision making position. I couldn’t walk. I was being lifted around and I believe that God spoke through that doctor,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Banda says the doctor decided that she does an HIV test because all the tests were done and nothing came out.

She says the test was done and it came out positive.

“I thank God that the test was done because if it was not for that, I would have been gone and forgotten. When the test was done, the CD4 count was initially low, it was 135. So I was immediately put on ARVs and within the shortest period of time, I started recovering,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Banda says when she started getting better, her husband started complaining about the money he had used on her.

“I thought he was giving me money out of love and he talked about it until it became a thorn in the bush. He complained that couldn’t I have gotten sick for a short time and gotten better. I couldn’t bear this any more so, I had to find a way to get back the money he spent on me which he accepted,” she says.

Banda says she got a loan and gave him K3 million and upon giving him the money, he told her that she should not expect him to buy anything at home or pay the rent until he declares profits.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Banda says things were not easy for her as she had to cope with her HIV status as well.

“I discovered immune boosters in his pockets… then the bank was deducting money from me and I was given full responsibility of the home. This went on for months and even before I could finish the loan…I had a lot of debts because of the loan, he said that we divorce,” she says.

She says her husband told her that he could not continue with her and if he had to build a house, her relatives would grab the house thinking they had used her money.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“So that’s how we got divorced on 10th May 2008. On September 3, I took him to court and we got divorced officially but unfortunately, I wasn’t open about my status. I wasn’t open because I wasn’t counselled. We did not have any children together,” she says.

Banda says her husband was not supposed to divorce her because she tested positive in his home.

She suspected that her husband might have known because he was taking boosters.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Maybe if I had mentioned that I was positive at the time in court, the court could have told him to be maintaining me. He told me not to mention in the courts that I was positive. He brought me from Kaoma to Lusaka where life is expensive. I need help. I need a house and I am finding it difficult to work. My husband refused to go for a test because he used to say that it’s voluntary so he could not be forced,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Banda says she told her relatives about her status but he never mentioned anything to his.

She says at that time, she felt rejected and a misfit and that no one counted her as a person.

Banda says she used to feel as if people knew about her status.

“I received counselling from call centres and I accepted my status and I now talk about it openly. My CD4 count is now 820 as of January this year and I thank God for that. But I think he knew about his status and even when I was sick, he refused to go and get tested saying it was voluntary and that he would do it at his own time,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

She says she has now come to terms with her status and has accepted it.

Banda says she even has a club at the school where she teaches but finds it difficult to talk to the teachers.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit