CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update 07/15/2013

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7/15/2013
National News Study: Fear of Criminalization Harms Trans People Living with HIV International News Spurious Tuberculosis Drugs Pose a Threat Medical News UC Riverside Study Finds That Married Men Are Less Likely to Die of HIV/AIDS Local and Community News HIV: New East Bay Program Gives Prevention Pill to High-Risk Youths News Briefs WHO Opens a Supranational TB Reference Lab in Uganda To Detect Pulmonary Tuberculosis Among Detainees, ICE Will Administer 200,000 Chest X-Rays Annually AIDS Project RI Launches New Website	National News Study: Fear of Criminalization Harms Trans People Living with HIV UNITED STATES :: HIV/AIDS San Diego Gay and Lesbian News (07.11.2013) :: By Sarah Giovanniello The Sero Project and the Transgender Law Center surveyed HIV-infected people in the United States to determine the effect of disclosure laws on HIV testing and treatment. According to the National HIV Criminalization Survey, 58 percent of transgender and third sex-identified HIV-infected people avoided HIV testing for fear of prosecution. Sixty-one percent viewed fear of prosecution as a reason not to disclose HIV status to a sexual partner, and 48 percent indicated they would avoid treatment for fear of prosecution. Those surveyed reported they lacked clarity about offenses that could result in arrest, did not trust the court system, and had little knowledge of disclosure laws or the likelihood of prosecution for failure to disclose their HIV status. Although many states required HIV-infected people to disclose HIV status to others or face punishment, states in the Midwest and South enforced these laws more aggressively. Participants from these regions were more mistrustful of the criminal justice system and less likely to have HIV testing; those from the Northwest were less likely to know about their states’ disclosure laws. Only 15 percent of HIV-infected transgender people believed that HIV-infected persons could receive fair treatment in the criminal justice system. Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top International News Spurious Tuberculosis Drugs Pose a Threat GLOBAL :: TB New York Times (07.01.2013) :: By Donald G. McNeil Jr. Researchers reported that pharmacy sales of substandard TB medications in poor countries could result in a public health crisis. Report author Dr. Amir Attaran, a drug-counterfeiting expert at the University of Ottawa, stated that 9 percent of 713 samples of TB medications purchased in 17 countries contained little or no active ingredient. Medications with too little active ingredient were even more dangerous than those with no active ingredient, as an “inadequate dose” allowed drug-resistant TB strains to develop. Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive secretary of Stop TB Partnership, which is affiliated with the World Health Organization, affirmed that the study identified weak points in the TB control system. The Stop TB Partnership packages high-quality TB drugs for approximately $30 per six-month supply. The drugs are free for poor countries and available at a reduced cost for middle-income countries. Attaran urged all countries to follow WHO recommendations, ban sales of TB drugs, and purchase the Stop TB Partnership drugs. Poor countries such as Rwanda have demonstrated they could control TB through “pharmacovigilance.” India, which has not enforced pharmacovigilance, is now facing a multidrug-resistant TB epidemic. The full report, “Combatting Substandard and Falsified Medicines: A View from Rwanda,” was published online in the journal PLOS Medicine (2013; doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001476). Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top Medical News UC Riverside Study Finds That Married Men Are Less Likely to Die of HIV/AIDS UNITED STATES :: HIV/AIDS News-Medical.net (07.15.2013) Research from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) indicated that married men were significantly less likely to die of HIV/AIDS than divorced or single men. UCR sociology professor Augustine Kposowa investigated effects of marital status on deaths of individuals with HIV/AIDS. Kposowa used recently released data from the US National Longitudinal Mortality Study and the National Death Index to track approximately 763,000 individuals ages 15 years and older between 1983 and 1994. During that time, 410 died of HIV/AIDS. The analysis of 11 years of data showed that marital status was a significant risk factor for men. Divorced and separated men were more than six times more likely to die of the disease than married men, and single men who never married were 13.5 times more likely to die of HIV/AIDS than married men. African-American men were 2.7 times as likely to die of the disease as white men, and Hispanic men were more than twice as likely to die of HIV/AIDS as white men. For women, race rather than marital status was the significant factor. African-American women were nine times more likely to die of HIV/AIDS and Latinas seven times more likely to die of the disease than white women. Kposowa reasoned that little was known about the disease during the time period studied and those without healthcare access were more likely to be poor and/or minorities. By the time the poor presented for care, the disease had progressed. He used other studies to argue that healthcare disparity affected by color and background was responsible for some of the results. The full report, “Marital Status and HIV/AIDS Mortality: Evidence from the US National Longitudinal Mortality Study,” was published online in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases (2013; doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2013.02.018). Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top Local and Community News HIV: New East Bay Program Gives Prevention Pill to High-Risk Youths CALIFORNIA :: HIV/AIDS San Jose Mercury News (07.15.2013) :: By Sandy Kleffman A new program will provide the drug Truvada to more than 100 East Bay youth along with safe-sex counseling and other sexual health services to prevent HIV transmission. In 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada to help prevent HIV in high-risk healthy individuals. George Lemp, director of the University of California Office of the President’s HIV/AIDS Research Program, cited the frustration with the inability to reduce the number of new infections as the driving force behind the more aggressive method of prevention. The University of California program will award $18 million in grants throughout four years to teams in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Diego to test this new approach of distributing Truvada to high-risk groups. The Bay Area program will be supervised by the Downtown Youth Clinic, which is part of the East Bay AIDS Center at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland. The program will target 15–29-year-old gay men in cities along the Bay from Richmond through Berkeley, Oakland, and to Fremont. The program will include regular monitoring of participants for adverse reactions to the drug, organizing peer discussion groups, stressing the importance of safe sex, and delivering a variety of sexual health services to young men who often lack healthcare. The drug, which sells wholesale for approximately $46 per daily pill—$1,300 a month—will be free for participants. Drug manufacturer Gilead is donating approximately $20 million worth of the medication to programs in the Bay Area and Southern California. According to Project Director Ifeoma Udoh, program leaders plan to use social media to contact youth and will reach out at schools, parties, and other places where young people congregate. Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top News Briefs WHO Opens a Supranational TB Reference Lab in Uganda UGANDA :: TB New Vision (Kampala) (07.11.2013) :: By John Agaba The World Health Organization has elevated Uganda’s national TB reference laboratory, located in Wandegeya, to supranational TB reference lab status. Along with one other lab in South Africa, it becomes only the second supranational TB reference lab in Africa and the 33rd such lab globally. According to Dr. Moses Joloba, head of the Wandegeya lab, the facility now has the necessary equipment to diagnose TB in fewer than two hours, including multi-resistant forms of the virus. The lab will be responsible for the quality assurance of all diagnoses within the country and now will be able to undertake research as well. Due to the lab’s new role, the government has agreed to build a new $2.4 million facility for the lab, to be located in the Kampala suburb of Luzira. Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top   To Detect Pulmonary Tuberculosis Among Detainees, ICE Will Administer 200,000 Chest X-Rays Annually UNITED STATES :: TB Government Security News (07.10.2013) :: By Jacob Goodwin US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials who oversee enforcement removal operations for detained immigrants released a statement of objectives on July 9. The statement detailed their desire to find a small business to administer approximately 200,000 chest X-rays annually to detainees at ICE facilities across the country, to quickly screen and detect active TB among these individuals. X-ray images could be captured at one location and sent to another through tele-radiology, and would need to be integrated with ICE’s electronic Health Records system. The small business would have to analyze X-rays and provide a response to the agency within four hours. Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top   AIDS Project RI Launches New Website RHOHDE ISLAND :: HIV/AIDS Edge on the Net (07.11.2013) :: By Winnie McCroy AIDS Project Rhode Island (APRI) launched a new Web site to address the health needs of gay and bisexual men. The site, called Men2MenRi.org, will inform its users about how to stay healthy and HIV-free, and provide a forum for them to connect with each other socially. The site resulted from the responses of gay and bisexual men to a statewide survey and features an interactive HIV risk quiz; frequently asked questions on men’s health; lists of HIV test sites; and links to LGBT-friendly healthcare providers such as doctors, dentists, and mental health specialists. The site also includes safe sex information and tips on post and pre-exposure prophylaxis. Dr. Phil Chan, an internal medicine and infectious disease physician at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, will answer site visitors’ questions. The site features resources for those who have not yet dealt with their sexual orientation, a community calendar for groups to post events, and information on how to become an activist, as well as a section called Living with HIV in Rhode Island, where people can share their stories. APRI Executive Director Thomas Bertrand plans to promote the site on college LGBT sites and the state health department’s Web site. Read Full Article Share this Article Back to Top
The CDC National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention provides the above information as a public service only. Providing synopses of key scientific articles and lay media reports on HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, other sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis does not constitute CDC endorsement. The above summaries were prepared without conducting any additional research or investigation into the facts and statements made in the articles being summarized, and therefore readers are expressly cautioned against relying on the validity or invalidity of any statements made in these summaries. This daily update also includes information from CDC and other government agencies, such as background on Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) articles, fact sheets, and announcements. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update should be cited as the source of the information. Contact the sources of the articles abstracted above for full texts of the articles. The Prevention News Update electronic mailing list is maintained by the National Prevention Information Network (NPIN), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. Regular postings include the Prevention News Update, select articles from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report series, and announcements about new NPIN products and services.

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