Tag Archives: AIDS

Prestigious GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT Award, Awarded to LASS

Posted on May 17, 2013 by | Leave a comment

 

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Leicestershire AIDS Support Services has won a prestigious GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT Award for its outstanding contribution to improving health in Leicestershire, GSK and The King’s Fund announced last night at the award ceremony held at London’s Science Museum. LASS provides rapid HIV testing, support, information and advocacy to people affected by HIV and AIDS in one of the most diverse areas in England. Leicester has many different communities and an above average population of HIV positive people.

To slow down the spread of HIV and help people to access treatment, LASS invests in rapid testing services in community settings. There is particularly low uptake in some African communities, so LASS trains volunteers from these communities to carry out testing and provide information. They provide testing at a range of events and venues including African football tournaments to reach people who otherwise wouldn’t be tested. LASS also provides services for people with the virus and maybe coping with other issues like poor mental health, and they provide healthy living training.

The GSK IMPACT Awards, GSK’s flagship UK corporate responsibility programme organised in partnershop with The King’s Fund, is seen as a ‘seal of excellence’ in the sector. As well as as receiving £30,000 in funding during a difficult financial climate, the winners can take part in a training programme hosted by The King’s Fund that provides training, development and networking opportunities. Feedback has shown that this opportunity is as important to the winning charities as the funding as it helps them develop the skills to carry on building their organisation.

Katie Pinnock, Director of UK Corporate Contributions at GSK, OR Lisa Weaks, Third Sector Programme Manager at The King’s Fund said:
‘Congratulations to LASS, a strong winner in these awards. Their work providing, support for people with HIV and bringing testing into local communities, is making a real difference tobpeople lives in hard-to-reach groups. It is sharing best practice to further improve outcomes for its service users as well.’

Patrick Bowe, Chair of LASS Board of Trustees , said:

We are absolutely delighted to be recognised at this high level for the impact of our local work supporting and empowering people living with HIV, and challenging and breaking down stigma and discrimination. Our community HIV testing programme is contributing to government public health targets and has already saved the health service more than £3million through encouraging more people to have an HIV test and know their HIV status.
This huge achievement for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland is due to the continued commitment by a great team of staff and volunteers. They are determined to deliver the highest standard of services possible and make a significant diference in HIV provision locally with a relatively small budget. This award will make a significant difference to the profile of our work and the reputation of LASS and our new social enterprise.

The calibre of award is reflected in its judging panel who chose the winners, which this year includes Professor Steve Field, Deputy National Medical Director at NHS England (health inequalities); the journalist, Fiona Philips; Peter Wanless, CEO of The Big Lottery; Gilly Green, Head of UK Grants at Comic Relief; Sir Christopher Gent, Chairman of GSK; and, Sir Chris Kelly, Chair of The King’s Fund.

Please note that case studies and spokespeople are available for interview, along with photographs. For further information or interviews, please contact Saskia Kendall at The King’s Fund press office on 020 7307 2603 or by email on s.kendall@kingsfund.org.uk.

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Salt & Peppa – Let’s Talk About Sex

Posted on March 18, 2013 by | Comments Off
Last week, we spoke briefly about how music affects the body, mind and mood and introduced Music Mondays! Sharing music with a HIV or sexual health spin.
Last week featured Neneh Cherry’s, rework of Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and as promised, this week, It’s all about sex!

Let’s Talk About Sex is a message about safe sex, the positive and negative sides of sex and the censorship that sex had around that time in mainstream media.  An alternate version of the song entitled “Let’s Talk About AIDS” was released to radio on a promotional single and included as a b-side on various singles for the song.  The lyrics were changed to more directly address the spread of AIDS and HIV.

The music video for “Let’s Talk About Sex” directed by Millicent Shelton starts in a black-and-white scene with a girl turning on a radio and listening to the song. Then she starts kissing her boyfriend and scenes of Salt-N-Pepa and other couples kissing and hugging are shown. Next the video colorizes when Salt-N-Pepa are shown dancing. Another version of the video has a scene in which a skeleton is shown after the word ‘AIDS’ with a stamp written ‘censored’ in his mouth.

Let’s Talk About AIDS

If talking about sex is too ‘in your face’ we slow it down a little next week and talk about the emotional side of love, and waiting for the right time.

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Can Blood Transfusions Cure HIV?

Posted on February 28, 2013 by | 3 Comments

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In a different take on health and HIV related questions, Gawker reader, Michael, asks the question, “can massive blood transfusions be used to treat HIV”?

THE QUESTION:

Is it possible to cure, or at a minimum delay the effects of, HIV by simultaneously drawing infected blood and transfusing in ‘clean’ blood into the patient? You would still have tainted blood in the system, but wouldn’t this turn the clock back a bit in regard to how much of the virus is in the person’s blood stream?”

Here’s what doctors say on EXTREME blood transfusions as a fix for HIV

Dinesh Rao, assistant professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA:

Not a bad question actually. The issue is that the virus infects T cells and these reside both in the blood and in tissues, such as the lymph nodes and the gastrointestinal tract. So even if one were to entirely rid the blood of the virus (which would be really difficult to accomplish), there would be other sites such as those I mention that would still have “reservoirs” of virus. Add to this the difficulty and potential complications of doing the blood exchange, which is done for certain other conditions… And you have a sufficiently bad benefit/harm ratio to make the procedure untenable.

Michael Saag, Director, Center for AIDS Research, University of Alabama at Birmingham:

Evidence for most infectious disorders is detected in the blood. This does not mean that the blood is the location of the infection. In the case of HIV, most / all of the virus replication occurs in lymphoid tissue (gut, spleen, lymph nodes), NOT in the bloodstream. Blood is simply a place were we can readily detect it. And while blood can transmit HIV, it is because the virus is present in blood not because it is replicating there. Therefore, removing ‘infected’ blood and replacing it with ‘clean’ is like taking a cup of water from the ocean and then pouring in a cup of fresh water in the hopes you would make the ocean a very large freshwater lake!

Michael Poles, associate professor, NYU School of Medicine:

The short answer is that it wouldn’t work. HIV is a retrovirus and, as such, integrates it’s reverse transcribed DNA into the host cell genome. That DNA will sit dormant in a lymphocyte until the cell dies. as such, there will be plenty of cells that contain HIV DNA sitting around, not just in the blood stream, but in the tissues, most notably the intestines. Even if you could replace all of the peripheral blood through transfusion, additional lymphocytes would be in the tissues and would continue to produce virus, which would just infect the cells that you have transfused in.

Patrick Fogarty, assistant professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania:

I can think of a few reasons why the approach you mentioned would not work, including that HIV infection is not a process that is confined to the intravascular space (meaning inside the blood vessels). The tissue through which the infection gained access to the body (needle stick, mucous membrane) would be contaminated with virus as would the regional lymph nodes, which drain these tissues. So exchanging the blood volume wouldn’t purge the body of the virus.

Ian Frank, professor of medicine and Director, Clinical Core, University of Pennsylvania Centre for AIDS Research:

There is no way to delay the effects of AIDS by removing infected blood and transfusing in uninfected blood. HIV replicates predominantly in a type of lymphocyte called a CD4+ T cell, or a helper T cell. About 2% of the CD4+ T cells in our bodies are circulating in the blood. The rest are in our intestines or in lymph nodes scattered around our body. Therefore, even if we could remove all of the HIV infected lymphocytes in our blood, the vast majority of the cells infected by HIV would not be removed, and HIV would still be reproducing in those cells.

Hope that is understandable. [Ed.: lol]

THE VERDICT: No, you can’t cure (or even ameliorate) HIV/ AIDS with blood transfusions, because the virus hangs out elsewhere in the body, and would just reinfect the new blood.

Original article via Gawker

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Discussion:

Have you read any interesting articles about measures to halt, or cure HIV/AIDS.  Why do you think the answer has baffled scientists for so long.  Do you think they’ll ever be a cure, or a vaccine for HIV, and when do you think HIV will begin to become part of history, rather than a current medical condition.  Comments are open for two weeks.

You may also be interested in:

 

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HIV positive patients fail to disclose their infection to NHS staff

Posted on February 18, 2013 by | 1 Comment

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A significant proportion of HIV positive patients may not be disclosing their infection to NHS staff, when turning up for treatment at sexual health clinics.

This is the finding suggested by preliminary research published online in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

If the findings reflect a national trend, this could have implications for the true prevalence of undiagnosed HIV infection in the population, which is based on the numbers of “undiagnosed” patients at sexual health clinics, say the authors.

Currently, it is estimated that around one in four people in the UK who is HIV positive doesn’t know they’re infected with the virus.

The estimate is based on several sources of data, including the GUMAnon Survey, which routinely looks for HIV infection in blood samples taken from patients to test for syphilis at one of 16 participating sexual health clinics across the UK.

The results are then matched with the individual’s diagnostic status—whether they had been diagnosed before their arrival at the clinic, or were diagnosed at their clinic visit, or left the clinic “unaware” of their HIV status.

It is thought that a proportion of patients who do know their HIV status nevertheless choose not to reveal it to NHS staff when attending for services elsewhere.

To test this theory, the researchers analysed all HIV positive samples from one participating GUMAnon clinic in London in 2009 for the presence of very low viral loads— a hallmark of successful drug treatment—and various antiretroviral drugs.

Of the 130 samples which matched clinic records, 28 were from patients who were not known to be HIV positive before their arrival at clinic. Ten had been tested for HIV at their clinic visit.

The remaining 18 did not have a test at the clinic, and were therefore classified as undiagnosed. Yet almost three out of four (72%) of these samples had very low viral loads, indicative of successful drug treatment.

Only eight samples were of sufficient volume to be able to officially test for antiretroviral drugs, but evidence of HIV treatment was found in all of them.

“This is the first published objective evidence that non-disclosure of HIV status as a phenomenon exists in patients attending [sexual health] clinics in the UK,” write the authors.

“Given the high proportion of individuals classified within this study as [non-disclosing], the extent to which these findings can be extrapolated to other clinics, and the degree to which they may influence estimates of the proportion of undiagnosed HIV in the community, warrants further study,” they conclude.

The reasons why they don’t come clean(sic) about their HIV status may be that they don’t want to be “judged,” given that they have come to the clinic with another infection, which implies they are indulging in risky sexual behaviour, suggests lead author Dr Ann Sullivan of London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

But by not revealing their HIV status, they could be missing out on the chance to be treated more holistically and discuss other aspects of their health which might be affected by HIV, she says.

Original Article via Onmedica, taking medical information further.

DISCUSSION:

The comment by Ann (above) implies NHS staff are predisposed with attitudes toward sex.  Especially when using phrases like “when they don’t come clean” – However, NHS staff; particularly those within genitourinary medicine should not assume those who wish to have a HIV test participate in “risky sexual behaviour” as for a lot of people, HIV infection can simply occur when the HIV status of a sexual partner is positive, but not known and undiagnosed, then innocently passed to another (which is why is it recommended that condoms are used if the HIV status of the other person is unknown.

Do you have an opinion on this? – Let us know in the comments below.

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HIV research offers hope

Posted on January 27, 2013 by | Comments Off

Issue 89 - Scaling up treatment guidelines in resource limited settings

Immediate treatment of HIV can slow the progression of the virus, a study undertaken by researchers from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials Unit has shown.

Antiretroviral medication taken during the early stages of infection, over a 48-week period, delays damage to the immune system and can defer the need for long-term treatment.

An estimated 34 million people suffer from HIV worldwide. The virus weakens the immune system, leaving the body vulnerable to infection. In its early stages it often goes unnoticed; left unchecked, it can result in individuals being in danger of life-threatening illnesses.

The study, which took place over five years, took the form of a randomised controlled trial of antiretroviral treatment on 366 adults from Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Spain, Uganda and the UK. It comprised mostly of heterosexual women and gay men and was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

At present, it is unusual for antiretroviral medication to be given to HIV patients in the early stages of infection. The trial randomly allocated the volunteers, who had been diagnosed with HIV no more than six months earlier, medication for 48 weeks, 12 weeks or not at all.

On average, the study found that those receiving no medication required a lifelong course of treatment 157 weeks after infection. Those receiving 12 weeks of antiretroviral medication took an average of 184 weeks before receiving lifelong treatment. Participants on the 48 week course began long-term treatment on average 222 weeks after infection.

Moreover, those receiving medication for 48 weeks had higher CD4 T-cell counts, which can reduce susceptibility to secondary infections such as tuberculosis. Adults on this course recorded lower levels of HIV in the blood, which could help reduce the risk of infection for sexual partners.

Dr Sarah Fidler, leader of the study from Imperial College London said: “These results are very promising and suggest that a year-long course of treatment for people recently infected with HIV may have some benefit on both the immune system as well as helping control the virus.”

Concerns over how cost-effective such treatment would be have been raised by some who do not deem the findings to be tremendously significant. Professor Gita Ramjee, who led the study in South Africa, commented: “We now need to weigh up whether the benefits offered by early intervention are outweighed by the strategic and financial challenges such a change in policy would incur, particularly in resource-poor settings such as Africa, although this may be where the most benefits are seen in terms of TB rates.”

Students at Oxford University have expressed interest in this new study. Fergus Chadwick, a Biologist, said: “It is really fascinating to see how theory that has been outlined in our lectures is being applied in the real world with such promising results.”

Original Article by Elizabeth Pugh at Oxfordstudent.com

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Farewell Spencer

Posted on December 19, 2012 by | Comments Off

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Spencer Cox, one of the world’s most prominent AIDS activists and a highly respected “citizen scientist” has passed away.

Spencer Cox, the pivotal AIDS activist who co-founded ACT-UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) and was featured in David France’s recent documentary How to Survive a Plague, has died at Columbia Presbyterian of AIDS related causes, France writes in a note:

 As a very young man fresh from Bennington, where he studied Theater and English Literature, he arrived in NYC after finishing just 3 years. He was diagnosed with HIV soon thereafter. By 1989, at age 20, he had become spokesman for ACT UP during its zenith through the early 90s. A member of its renowned Treatment & Data committee, and later co-founder of TAG (the Treatment Action Group), he schooled himself in the basic science of AIDS and became something of an expert, a “citizen scientist” whose ideas were sought by working scientists. In the end, Spencer wrote the drug trial protocol which TAG proposed for testing the promising protease inhibitor drugs in 1995. Adopted by industry, it helped develop rapid and reliable answers about the power of those drugs, and led to their quick approval by the FDA.

Even before ACT UP, he began work for amfAR (Foundation for AIDS Research), first as a college intern, eventually going on staff as assistant to Director of Public Affairs, responsible for communications and policy).  He left there to co-found the Community Research Initiative on AIDS (now the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America, ACRIA) with Dr. Joseph Sonnabend and Marisa Cardinale (Marisa Cardinale <marisacard@aol.com>). At ACRIA, he ran public affairs and edited all publications.

From 1994 to 1999, he was Director of the HIV Project for TAG, where he did his ground breaking work in drug trials designs. He designed the drug trial adopted in part by Abbott as they were developing Norvir, the first Protease Inhibitor to head into human trials. It had an “open standard-of-care arm,” allowing people on the control arm to take any other anti-AIDS drugs their doctors prescribed, versus the arm taking any other anti-AIDS drugs plus Norvir. It was this study that showed a 50% drop in mortality in 6 months. Norvir was approved in late 1995. Though the results were positive, the proposal sharply divided the community, many of whom thought it was cruel to withhold Norvir on the control arm. Spencer defended himself in a controversial BARON’S coverstory that made him, briefly, the most-hated AIDS activist in America. Ultimately he was vindicated.

Writing for Poz in 2006, Cox wrote:

“Some of my friends lived for almost 20 years through a flood of death, illness, fear and sadness. And when effective treatment came along and the dying slowed—at least in much of the developed world—everyone assumed that things had gotten better, that we didn’t need to think about it anymore.  But I don’t think that’s true. I think those of us who were in the middle of it were deeply affected by what we experienced and that it affects the choices we make today. I wonder if that’s not partly why the depression rate among gay men is about three times higher than among straight men.

“Because of my memories of those times, I try to appreciate life and the people special to me. But I can also see that I have to fight off an ongoing fear that things could go suddenly, terribly wrong, that the worst-case scenario is also the most likely.”

“What I learned from that is that miracles are possible. Miracles happen, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I wouldn’t trade that information for anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’d going to happen day to day. I don’t know what’s going to happen next year. I just now, you keep going. You keep evolving and you keep progressing, you keep hoping until you die. Which is going to happen someday. You live your life as meaningful as you can make it. You live it and don’t be afraid of who is going to like you or are you being appropriate. You worry about being kind. You worry about being generous. And if it’s not about that what the hell’s it about?”

Farewell Spencer, and thank you for all your hard and contribution

Spencer

Spencer Cox
1968 – 2012

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Heather Alcock, policy advisor for the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV & AIDS joins LASS.

Posted on December 13, 2012 by | Comments Off
Heather Alcock at the LASS AGM 6th October 2011

Heather Alcock presenting certificates to volunteers at the LASS AGM 6th October 2011

Heather Alcock, policy advisor for the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV & AIDS has agreed to join the LASS Board of Trustees as a co-opted Trustee.

This is great news for us and will give us a good profile nationally as well as influence with local MPs.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS is a backbench cross-Party group of MPs and Peers in the UK Parliament at Westminster.

MPs and Peers who have joined the Group have done so because they are concerned about both the devastation that HIV and AIDS are causing in developing countries and about their impact here in the UK including in our constituencies.

They believe that as parliamentarians they should play their part in addressing the HIV epidemic. In particular they say they have an important role in ensuring that laws and policies are respectful of human rights and promote public health.

On their website, you can read reports published by the Group, see examples of where we have raised issues about HIV and AIDS in Parliament and find out how to stay in touch with their work.

They say;

We value very highly the advice, guidance and support that we get from people living with HIV, NGOs and professionals outside Parliament. We hope that this website not only increases the information people can obtain about the Group, it also increases the dialogue between politicians and the people who are coping with the reality of life with HIV.

Please join us in welcoming Heather Alcock to our Board of Trustees.

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The Need for A HIV Strategy

Posted on December 7, 2012 by | 1 Comment

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By the end of 2012 it is estimated that there will be 100,000 people living with
HIV in the UK.  HIV diagnoses remain stubbornly high.  The two communities most affected are gay and bisexual men and African men and women.

Approximately one in twenty gay and bisexual men and one in twenty African men and women in the UK are living with HIV. In 2010, 3,000 gay and bisexual men were newly diagnosed with HIV; this is the highest number of gay and bisexual men newly diagnosed with HIV ever reported in a single year.

In the same year, half of all people diagnosed were diagnosed late; people diagnosed late have a ten-fold increased risk of death within one year of HIV
diagnosis compared to those diagnosed promptly. And still nearly a quarter of people living with HIV in the UK are unaware of their status. This is of real
concern given that the majority of transmissions come from people who are themselves unaware that they have HIV.

Advances in treatment have seen enormous improvements in quality of life and life expectancy for people living with HIV. In 2010, 85% of people on treatment had an undetectable viral load within a year of starting medication, a marker of
successful treatment. However, this success in treatment has not been matched by improvements in social support for people living with HIV. Many still  experience stigma and discrimination, live in poverty and cannot access the psychological support they need.

Although HIV remains one of the most serious infectious diseases affecting the UK, public understanding and knowledge of HIV is poor and getting worse. Recent Ipsos MORI research commissioned by NAT revealed that only one in
three adults were able to correctly identify all the ways HIV is and is not transmitted from a list of options, with almost a fifth mentioning one incorrect
method such as spitting or sharing a glass. One in five were unaware that HIV is transmitted through sex without a condom between a man and woman.

The research also showed a link between poor knowledge about HIV and negative and judgemental attitudes towards people living with HIV. There is
clearly still a need to improve awareness among the public, both to prevent the spread of HIV – each new infection costs the UK over a quarter of a million
pounds in direct lifetime medical costs alone – and to prevent misconceptions which fuel stigma and discrimination.

Despite this situation, there is no strategy for HIV in England – the last national strategy for sexual health and HIV came to an end in 2010. Over 90% of people living with HIV in the UK live in England, and yet England is the only country within the UK not to have a strategy.

Would you like to know more? Read the National AIDS Trust HIV Strategy.

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FREE Training: HIV & Culture

Posted on December 6, 2012 by | Comments Off

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Delivered in collaboration with people from a wide range of communities and cultures in Leicester, we will explore how culture affects perspectives and experiences of HIV.

  • Date & Time: Thursday, 13th December between 13:00-16:30 hrs.
  • Venue: The Michael Wood Centre, 53 Regent Road, Leicester, LE1 6YF.

The session will also look at ways of providing knowledge and empowerment about HIV to people with different cultural needs.”

Spaces are very limited, (only 10 available).  If you would like to attend, please contact us on 0116 2559995 and speak to our team who are happy to help.

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu urges Uganda to drop the “Anti Homosexuality Bill”

Posted on December 6, 2012 by | Comments Off

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Our International Patron, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been a tireless campaigner for health and human rights, and has been particularly vocal in support of controlling TB and HIV.  He is also Patron of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, a registered Section 21 non-profit organisation, and has served as the honorary chairman for the Global AIDS Alliance and is patron of TB Alert, a UK charity working internationally.  In 2003 the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre was founded in Cape Town, while the Desmond Tutu TB Centre was founded in 2003 at Stellenbosch University. Tutu suffered from TB in his youth and has been active in assisting those afflicted, especially as TB and HIV/AIDS deaths have become intrinsically linked in South Africa.

On 20 April 2005, after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as Pope Benedict XVI, Tutu said he was sad that the Roman Catholic Church was unlikely to change its opposition to condoms amidst the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa: “We would have hoped for someone more open to the more recent developments in the world, the whole question of the ministry of women and a more reasonable position with regards to condoms and HIV/AIDS.”

In 2007, statistics were released that indicated HIV and AIDS numbers were lower than previously thought in South Africa. However, Tutu named these statistics “cold comfort” as it was unacceptable that 600 people died of AIDS in South Africa every day. Tutu also rebuked the government for wasting time by discussing what caused HIV/AIDS, which particularly attacks Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for their denialist stance.

Presently, Desmond Tutu urges Uganda to drop bid to jail gays and lesbians.

He has urged Uganda to scrap a controversial draft law that would send gays and lesbians to jail and, some say, put them at risk of the death penalty.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is expected to become law after Parliamentary Speaker Rebecca Kadaga offered it to Ugandans as a “Christmas gift.” The bill is believed to exclude the death penalty clause after international pressure forced its removal, but gay rights activists say much of it is still horrendous.

“I am opposed to discrimination, that is unfair discrimination, and would that I could persuade legislators in Uganda to drop their draft legislation, because I think it is totally unjust,” Tutu told reporters here on Tuesday at the All Africa Conference of Churches meeting.

Desmond Tutu is the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and was a hero of the anti-apartheid movement, he has emerged as a leading pro-gay voice both in the church and across Africa.

With African church leaders passionately preaching against homosexuality as sinful and against African culture, Tutu said the church must stand with minorities.

“My brothers and sisters, you stood with people who were oppressed because of their skin color. If you are going to be true to the Lord you worship, you are also going to be there for the people who are being oppressed for something they can do nothing about: their sexual orientation,” he said.

Tutu said people do not choose their sexual orientation, and would be crazy to choose homosexuality “when you expose yourself to so much hatred, even to the extent of being killed.”

“Kill The Gays” bill: Read the actual bill about to be debated by Uganda’s Parliament | VIDEO

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