HIV/AIDS May Have Originated in 19th Century

Painstaking research using modern genetic technologies has placed the origin of the HIV/AIDS pandemic sweeping the world today at somewhere between 1884 and 1924, much earlier than the 1930 point of origin previously estimated.  The same period of time saw rapid urbanization of Colonial Africa, a very opportune moment for a virus to jump from the wild into the human population. Read more

CDC: US AIDS Epidemic Far From Over

Statisticians for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had predicted that about 40,000 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), would be diagnosed each year in the US alone but the grim reality is that as many as 56,300 Americans became infected in 2006. Read more

CDC Wants More HIV Testing Done in US

The diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is a life-altering moment that comes with some really big decisions to make.  One of the most important of those decisions is the course of medical treatment to take. Read more

High Risk of HIV Linked to Common Vaginal Infection

Women with bacterial vaginosis are at 60% higher risk of contracting the human immunosuppressant virus (HIV) than women without the infection, according to the findings of a study just released from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health.  Research hasn’t yet revealed which infection came first but, since both infections are sexually transmitted, the findings of the UNC study may lead to improved treatments, perhaps a means of prevention, for either of the two life-changing infections. Read more

HIV Vaccine Study Halted as Too Logistically Complex

A vaccine that will prevent infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is thought to be the best hope for ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic sweeping the globe and the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) has developed one said to be scientifically intriguing and different enough from vaccines that have been previously explored that further testing is highly desired.  Plans for a widespread test of the vaccine have been halted now for a second time, however, due to concerns stemming from a previous trial of another vaccine that failed to reduce viral load as expected. Read more

AIDS Increasing When Men Have Sex With Men

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a new report on the growing number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the population of men having sex with men, or MSM, a term public health officials prefer since not every man who has sex with another man is homosexual or bisexual.  The alarming rise in diagnoses occurred between the years 2001 and 2006, when HIV transmission in other categories, such as IV drug users and those that engage in high-risk heterosexual activities, declined. Read more

HIV+ Women Want a Baby

One quarter of women with HIV want pregnancy and motherhood in their future. This statistic was examined in a recent study which also showed that the age of the women who were diagnosed played a significant factor in their decision to become pregnant. Women who were diagnosed with HIV and were under 30 year of age were four times more likely to want a baby. Those over 30 were less likely to want pregnancy. Read more

US To Extend Global AIDS Program

A late-night compromise on Tuesday led to the verbal vote on Wednesday that gives approval to the US Foreign Affairs Committee to extend US funding of the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was enacted in 2003 to provide care and prevention programs to regions around the world that are in crisis from an ever-growing epidemic of the disease. Read more

Women Approve of Anti-HIV Gel

In an effort to combat the spread of HIV, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have found an experimental anti-HIV gel is safe for women to use on a daily basis. Read more

When Discrimination Appears in the Medical Profession

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus has been a part of modern society for at least the last 25 years. In that time, numerous reports have emerged detailing how a non-infected person can not obtain the virus simply by coming into general contact with an infected person. Still the discriminating treatment of HIV patients continues to occur. Read more

Next Page »