Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 10:01:26 +0500 From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 01/22/96 AIDS Daily Summary January 22, 1996 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 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ************************************************************ "A Young Victim of AIDS Gets a Proper Goodbye" "AIDS Epidemic, Late to Arrive, Now Explodes in Populous Asia" "Testing for H.I.V." "AIDS Wanes in West, Grows in Africa and Asia" "Funeral Home to Treat AIDS Victims Equal" "AIDS Education Campaign Aimed at Nation's Youth" "Generation of Human T Lymphocytes From Bone Marrow CD34 Cells In Vitro" "Acyclovir Limits Symptomless HSV Shedding" "The Newest AIDS Treatment Is Not a Drug" ************************************************************ "A Young Victim of AIDS Gets a Proper Goodbye" New York Times (01/22/96) P. B2; Jay, Sarah Kai Evans was found to have HIV at the age of 7, after both her mother and father died of AIDS. Her great-aunt and guardian, Sylvia Copes, lives in the Bushwick Houses in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. When Kai was diagnosed, Copes did everything she could to keep the girl happy and encouraged. Kai died in May 1995, but Copes did not have the money for her burial. The Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens paid for the funeral and burial at St. Mary's Hospital for Children, where Kai died. The charity is one of seven supported by the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, which helps New Yorkers who are poor, sick, or elderly. "AIDS Epidemic, Late to Arrive, Now Explodes in Populous Asia" New York Times (01/21/96) P. A1; Shenon, Philip Thailand was one of the first Asian countries to be hit by AIDS, although the virus took hold over a decade later in the country than it did in the United States and Africa. The disease is now spreading quickly and becoming more visible across the continent. AIDS began spreading in Asia in the late 1980s, and until now the epidemic has been mostly quiet. As the incubation period for many people ends, however, the deaths increase. Experts estimate that about 10 million Asians will die of AIDS before 2015. Infection continues to spread in Asia, mostly through heterosexual intercourse. While most of Asia should be able to avoid the scope of disaster that was seen in Africa, some countries could be hit just as bad. In India, experts say, AIDS may kill more people than in any other country. In Thailand, the number of new cases is dropping, after a public education campaign was launched and condoms were distributed at brothels and massage parlors. "Testing for H.I.V." New York Times (01/22/96) P. A14; Elovitz, Marc E. In this letter to the editor, Marc Elovitz--staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation--responds to an editorial about mandatory HIV testing for certain criminal defendants. The author says that technology has rendered the debate moot, since doctors can now determine if a crime victim has been infected with a polymerase chain reaction test that detects HIV. He says that testing the defendant "may or may not tell whether the defendant is infected, and will not tell whether the victim is infected." "AIDS Wanes in West, Grows in Africa and Asia" Reuters (01/22/96); Verma, Sonali Two separate AIDS epidemics are going on, with the number of new cases slowing in the world's western countries, and increasing rapidly in Africa and Asia. Max Essex of the Harvard AIDS institute described the problem at an infectious disease conference in New Delhi. In the West, he said, there are about 2 million cases, and the number is leveling off. In sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand, and India, however, he says about 15-20 million people are infected, and the number is rising. In the West, Essex said, AIDS is transmitted mostly through homosexual contact and intravenous drug use, and is spread by the strain HIV1-B. But in Africa and Asia, other strains of AIDS are more prevalent, and the disease is transmitted mostly by heterosexual contact. Essex said sex education in developing countries is lacking compared to AIDS awareness efforts aimed at youths in the West. He also warned that the therapies developed for AIDS in the West are for HIV1-B alone and that other strains could cause a heterosexual epidemic. "Funeral Home to Treat AIDS Victims Equal" Miami Herald (01/19/96) P. 4A A funeral home in Portsmouth, Va. has agreed to stop charging $300 extra to embalm bodies of people who die of AIDS complications, after the Justice Department found the policy was in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The Fisher Funeral Home also agreed to reimburse families, to adopt a policy against AIDS discrimination, and to train its employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued rules in 1991, based on recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that funeral homes treat all bodies as if they have an infectious, blood-borne disease. "AIDS Education Campaign Aimed at Nation's Youth" Nation's Health (01/96) Vol.26, No.1, P. 24 The federal government has heightened its AIDS education and prevention campaign for youths, as statistics show that AIDS cases are increasing among the young, especially in minority and ethnic groups. Lisa Lynch, a 20-year old single mother who is HIV-positive, works to educate her peers in Washington, D.C.'s inner city. She said she "has been appalled by the lack of knowledge among teens who unwittingly put themselves at risk daily." The theme "Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself" is the focus of a series of public service announcements produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that began airing in January. The ads emphasize abstinence and encourage youths to be responsible for their own protection. Conservative groups have criticized them as too sexually explicit. However, Donna Shalala, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, noted that the country's young people are "a generation in jeopardy, and it is up to us to take action now to reverse these troubling trends before we wipe out a new generation of leadership for this country." "Generation of Human T Lymphocytes From Bone Marrow CD34 Cells In Vitro" Nature Medicine (01/96) Vol.2, No.1, P. 46; Freedman, Andrew; Zhu, Haihong; Levine, James D.; et al. HIV destructs mature T-cells and interferes with the production of T-lymphocytes, impairing immunity. Freedman et al. studied T-cell development in vitro using thymic tissue to evaluate the effects of HIV on maturing thymocytes. They also used a feeder layer system to assess the expression of genes during the progression of the cells along a T-lineage differentiation pathway. For this study, the researchers induced T-cell differentiation of CD34 bone marrow mononuclear cells (MNCs) in normal human fetal thymocytes. They found that the cells proliferate, acquire the expression of the lymphoid-specific RAG-2 gene, develop the ability to produce T cell-specific interleukin-2, and achieve a range of T cell immunophenotypes. In addition, the cells become susceptible to infection with the T-lymphotropic strain of HIV-1 According to the authors, the data suggest a potential role for IL-12 in an early T-lymphoid commitment step, adding to T-cell differentiation from CD34 bone marrow precursors. "Acyclovir Limits Symptomless HSV Shedding" Lancet (01/06/96) Vol.347, No.8993, P. 48; McCarthy, Michael Suppressive doses of the antiviral drug acyclovir decreases the frequency of shedding of HSV-2, or herpes simplex 2 virus, the virus that causes most cases of genital herpes, report scientists in Seattle in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The virus infects one in five U.S. adults over age 15. Researchers now think that suppressive treatment of symptomless cases may reduce transmission of the virus, which usually occurs when someone is infected but has no symptoms. For the study, 26 HSV-2-infected women took acyclovir for 70 days and recorded medication compliance, symptoms and the presence of lesions. Following a 14-day lag period, the patients recorded the same information for a 70-day placebo period. The results showed a 94-percent reduction in shedding between the two periods. But the authors warn that "although the effect that acyclovir therapy had on subclinical shedding was surprisingly great, it was not absolute." They concluded that more study is needed to determine the usefulness of the drug to reduce the transmission of HSV-2. "The Newest AIDS Treatment Is Not a Drug" POZ (12/95-01/96) No. 11, P. 62; Lederer, Bob; DeLeon, Kathy Psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI, focuses on the interaction between the mind, nervous system and immune system. For thirty years, researchers have been studying how the body's hormone and endocrine systems affects psychology, emotions and stress and influence immunity. PNI research on various diseases, including AIDS, reveals that stress, depression, grief, social isolation and stigma impact immunity and survival. PNI findings are often questioned, however, because, until recently, most biologists thought that the central nervous system operated separately from the immune system. PNI researchers, though, have established the connection. In the 1980s, studies of healthy people and people with illnesses showed that stress led to decreased immunity and that those who handled stress better recovered more fully. A 1987 study of 18 gay long-term HIV survivors found they shared a number of attitudes and behaviors. The Learning Immune Function Enhancement program is one of many programs that uses PNI to help AIDS patients nationwide improve their quality of life and slow the progression of AIDS. The National Institute of Mental Health has provided some funding for PNI research, but last year, William Paul, head of the Office of AIDS research, stopped funding of any PNI studies that were not directly related to AIDS.