>From: "ANNE WILSON, CDC NAC" >Date: Thu, 05 May 1994 09:40:35 -0400 (EDT) AIDS Daily Summary May 05, 1994 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, and the CDC Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information. Copyright 1994, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD "Dutchman Faces Murder Charge in AIDS Attack" Reuters (05/04/94) A 39-year old Netherlands man faces murder charges after he intentionally infected his former girlfriend with HIV, reported the Dutch news agency ANP. Last year, the man stuck the 36-year-old woman with a syringe filled with the contaminated blood of an HIV-positive friend. His behavior was a deliberate act of revenge against the woman for ending her relationship with him. She has subsequently tested positive for HIV, and has been given only three to four years to live. Her attacker will stand trial next week in Amsterdam. "D.C. Fails to Isolate Inmates With TB" Washington Post (05/05/94) P. C1; Duggan, Paul A lawyer monitoring health care at the District of Columbia jail informed a judge yesterday that, despite a months-old injunction, corrections officials still are not properly quarantining inmates who have infectious tuberculosis. Grace M. Lopes told Judge William B. Bryant that the D.C. Corrections Department has been providing "inaccurate and misleading information about their isolation capabilities" for prisoners who have the disease or exhibit symptoms of infection. Anna Blackburne, a spokesperson for the D.C. corporation counsel's office, which represents the D.C. Corrections Department, conceded that the reports were inaccurate, but blamed the false information on an administrative error. The Corrections Department has agreed that, starting May 13, it will pay fines amounting to $5,000 per day, per inmate, for every day that an inmate with infectious TB is not isolated in a properly equipped room. The daily fine would double to $10,000 on May 27. Although it generally is not fatal, TB--which is carried by droplets in the air--has been cited as the cause of death for at least 14 District prisoners in recent years. The highly infectious disease has recently become more prevalent, particularly in prisons, where crowded conditions prevail. "Activist Dying of AIDS" United Press International (05/04/94) Omar Ali-Bey, a Cleveland man who rose from a life of drug abuse and crime to become a college-educated civil rights activist, announced that he is dying of AIDS. Ali-Bey's physician told him that he has only 12 weeks to live. "10,000 Athletes Signed for Gay Games" United Press International (05/04/94); Reilly, William M. More than 10,000 athletes have registered to participate in Gay Games IV, June 18-25 in New York City, event officials said Wednesday. In a briefing for reporters, organizers said they expect more than 1 million visitors in the city from 42 different countries, including Indonesia, Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, and New Zealand. They also confirmed that the Justice Department in March waived a ban that prohibits HIV- and AIDS-infected foreigners from entering the United States. America will honor special 10-day visas that coincide with the games. "L.A. Quake Rocks New York-Based Actors' Fund" Reuters (05/04/94); Morehouse III, Ward Southern California's January 17 earthquake is placing an unanticipated strain on the New York City-based Actors' Fund of America, which could threaten the organization's annual AIDS initiatives. As of 1992, 322 clients of the fund had died from AIDS. HIV-positive clients receive assistance in the form of regular home and hospital visits, plus money to defray the costs of food, lodging, and medical needs. The Actors' Fund of America prides itself on putting absolutely no limits on providing aid to theater and other entertainment professionals who find themselves in crisis situations. However, nearly four months after the California quake, the organization still "is getting deluged by requests from help from victims of the earthquake," according to Tom Dillon, president of the Actors' Fund of America. General Manager Joe Benincase also expressed concern. "We think we are going to go over our budget because of the earthquake," he said. "Reality of AIDS Can't Be Denied" Richmond Times-Dispatch (05/04/94) P. A18 In response to commentaries appearing in the editorial-opinion pages of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, readers have written letters reprimanding the publication for its seemingly gross misunderstanding of the AIDS epidemic. One such reader is Robert O. Orenstein of the Infectious Diseases Section of McGuire Veterans Administration Medical Center. The Times-Dispatch continues to misrepresent the facts concerning HIV and AIDS, Orenstein laments. Have the media blown the issue out of proportion, as suggested by Michael Fumento in the April 10 issue, he wonders. Just because most white, middle-class, heterosexual suburbanites are not HIV-positive, Orenstein notes that this does not diminish the problem. The HIV epidemic is thriving in inner-city Richmond. It primarily affects homosexual and lower socioeconomic populations, he concedes, but everyone is affected by the disease's social, economic, and political consequences. The epidemic is a global crisis that affects more than 11 million people. Is, then, Fumento's implication that the issue has been blown out of proportion valid? Orenstein notes that his place of employment cares for more HIV patients than any other single health-care provider. These are the same people who served their nation to defend the freedoms so callously abused by the media, Orenstein concludes. "Haemophiliacs Seek Charges in AIDS Scandal" Nature (04/21/94) Vol. 368, No. 6473, P. 680; Swinbanks, David As the scandal in Japan over HIV-infected blood products continues to mount, a group of hemophiliacs and their family members has asked the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office to file charges of "willful negligence" against Takeshi Abe, a leading hemophiliac specialist. Two court cases in which nearly 100 AIDS-infected hemophiliacs are suing the government and pharmaceutical firms have been in Osaka and Tokyo courts for several years now, but this is the first attempt in Japan to bring criminal charges against individuals for their role in the country's blood product policy in the early- to mid-1980s. During that time, nearly 2,000 hemophiliacs became infected with HIV through the use of contaminated blood coagulants. The group claims that Abe, who in 1983 headed a group organized by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to help formulate policy on blood products, knew by late 1984 that a large number of his patients had contracted the virus. However, he continued to treat uninfected patients with blood products that had not been heat-treated to kill the virus. "AZT Lowers Risk of Maternal Transmission of HIV Virus" Nation's Health (04/94) Vol. 24, No. 4, P. 8 AZT therapy slashed by two-thirds the risk of HIV-positive mothers passing the deadly virus on to their babies, according to the preliminary findings of a study conducted by the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. An interim review of the study revealed the HIV transmission rate to be 25.5 percent among patients who received a placebo, and only 8.3 percent when both mothers and infants received AZT. "Although this treatment did not protect all babies in the study, the news that the risk of HIV transmission to newborns can be significantly reduced is very promising," said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The results highlight the need for long-term follow-up of children born to mothers in the study to "learn more about the risks and benefits of the treatment beyond these encouraging early results," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which sponsored the trial. HIV is the leading cause of mortality in American children under age 15, calculates the National Center for Health Statistics. Approximately 7,000 HIV-positive women give birth each year, and an estimated 25 percent infect their babies with the virus. "New AIDS Definition Reduces AIDS Cases Never Reported" AIDS Alert (04/94) Vol. 9, No. 4, P. 56 Due to last year's expanded case definition for AIDS, the number of AIDS patients still alive at the time of reporting rose to 88 percent--a 23 percent increase from 1992, according to figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "You can flip that around and say the 12 percent who died [about 3,000 people] would have been missed if we had not changed the definition," explains Dr. John Ward, director of the CDC's AIDS surveillance branch. Critics of the old definition argued that people with HIV were dying before being diagnosed with AIDS. By expanding the definition to include CD4 counts lower than 200, recurrent tuberculosis, pneumonia, and cervical cancer, reporting now reflects more accurately the effect of the epidemic on people's lives. "It was clearly appropriate for these conditions to be included...one of the objectives of AIDS surveillance is to capture severe death and disease due to HIV," Ward says. In 1993, the number of reported AIDS cases grew 111 percent over the previous year. That dramatic increase, which exceeded CDC projections of a 75 percent increase, represents a one-time effect that is the result of reporting of people who had the newly added conditions diagnosed before 1993. That number is expected to decrease significantly this year.