The Nation Newspaper

Tag: HIV

  • Can we now cure HIV in newborns?

    Can we now cure HIV in newborns?

    Doctors are reporting that a child born with HIV that was put on an unusually aggressive treatment regimen has been functionally cured of the infection. Using the most sensitive HIV testing available, they were able to find only trace amounts of HIV “particles” but no virus capable of replicating, the research team reported.

    “If there is a trial that shows this can happen again, then this will be very important,” said Dr. Karin Nielsen, a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “You’ll be able to treat people very intensively and reverse the disease.”

    The news provides no answers for adults living with HIV but it can be a landmark victory in the health of future generations. Every year, 300,000 to 400,000 babies are born infected with HIV according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

    The treatment consisted of giving the newborn a three-drug regimen instead of just one antiretroviral drug. The more extensive treatment was first administered when the girl was just 30 hours old. A month of continued treatment allowed the child’s viral load to become undetectable with standard HIV testing.

    The girl received treatments over 15 months and due to unknown circumstances the treatment ceased as the mother stopped bringing her to the doctor. The virus should have returned without ongoing treatment under normal circumstances.

    The next step is to attempt to replicate the results in other HIV-positive infants said Dr. Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. If the triple-drug treatment regimen can replicated it could prove life saving for millions of children.

    Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV

    HIV-positive pregnant mothers should go on a regimen of three antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) as soon as possible — and stay on these drugs until their infant is born and breastfeeding has concluded according to 2010 World Health Organization guidelines.

    As soon as the infant is born, the baby should take a very inexpensive drug — daily for six weeks. As HIV can be transmitted through breast milk, the infant should be formula-fed rather than breastfed if possible. However, health officials do recognize that formula feeding is both expensive and difficult to do safely in resource-limited areas. In financial hardships, mothers are recommended to breastfeed exclusively for six months while continuing to take ARVs.

    The transmission of HIV from an HIV-positive mother to her child can occur during the pregnancy, labor, delivery or breastfeeding of the child. The transmission rates can be as high as 45 percent according to the World Health Organization. This rate can be significantly reduced to below 5 percent with effective interventions.

    UNAIDS advocates four key strategies to achieve this goal. Improving reproductive health and HIV prevention services that will help keep women of reproductive age and their partners HIV-negative. This will help promote safe sex practices and family planning strategies that will avoid unwanted pregnancies among HIV-infected women.

    HIV-positive women must be informed of HIV care, treatment and support during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding. Globally, there are approximately 1.4 million pregnant women living with HIV and only 26 percent have received HIV testing according to UNICEF. In sub-Saharan Africa only half of pregnant women have been tested for HIV. Of the tested, only 68 percent of HIV-positive women received ARV treatment.

    How is HIV transmitted?

    A person who has HIV carries the virus in bodily fluids such as blood, semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk. The virus can be transmitted only if HIV-infected fluids enter the bloodstream of another person.

    HIV can be transmitted in three ways:

    -Sexual transmission-Exposure to infected blood

    -Mother to child transmission

    The most common form of transmission is from unprotected sexual intercourse. There are fewer cases of transmission from oral sex but the risk significantly increases if either partner has oral cuts or sores. Sharing one’s toothbrush, canker sores or bleeding gums can increase one’s risk as well.

    The use of needles has significantly increased over recent years. Lifestyle factors such as poor diet and lack of physical activity has increased rates of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. It is very common for a diabetic to use needles to inject insulin. This can significantly increase the risk of transmission of HIV.

    Tattoos and piercings can also increase the risk of transmission. Studies have shown that HIV can survive in used needles for a month or more.

    How is HIV not transmitted?

    HIV is not transmitted through food, air or general contact. A person cannot get HIV through re-using washed eating utensils, toilet seats, bathroom sinks, shaking hands or even close contact such as hugging.

    Sweat, tears, vomit, feces and urine can contain HIV but are the least likely mechanisms of transmission. Insects and mosquitoes are not able to transmit HIV.

    How can I reduce my risk?

    If you are sexually active, protect yourself against HIV by practicing safer sex. Whenever you have sex, use a condom. When used properly and consistently, condoms are extremely effective. It’s important to use latex condoms and use them each and every time you have sex. If necessary, consult a nurse, doctor or health educator for guidance on the proper use of latex barriers.

    Abstinence is choosing not to have any kind of sexual play with a partner. Being abstinent is 100 percent effective in preventing sexually transmitted infections such as HIV as well as pregnancy. Additional advantages include cost-effectiveness, safe and convenient.

    Special Advantages for Teens

    Sexual relationships present risks. Abstinence is a very good way to postpone taking those risks until you are better able to handle them. It creates lasting, meaningful relationships that are not centered on sexual behavior.

    Women who abstain until their 20s — and who have fewer partners in their lifetimes — may have certain health advantages over women who do not.

    Teenagers are less likely to get STDs that could affect their ability to have children or even worse develop a harsh form of cancer called cervical cancer. Cervical cancer rates skyrocket in direct proportion to the number of sexual partners one has.

    The healthcare professions and ongoing medical research are allowing people to live longer, have a better quality of life and empower people to take preventative and corrective lifestyle modifications. Taking these steps will significantly reduce one’s risk of contracting and transmitting HIV. The prevention and treatment of HIV has finally given our children and us a glimpse of hope in a previous hopeless condition.

    Dr. Cory Couillard is an international healthcare speaker and columnist for numerous newspapers, magazines, websites and publications throughout the world. He works in collaboration with the World Health Organization’s goals of disease prevention and global healthcare education. Views do not necessarily reflect endorsement.

     

     

  • Baby ‘functionally cured’ of HIV

    Baby ‘functionally cured’ of HIV

    MAJOR breakthrough in the anti-HIV/AIDS battle has been announced.

    A baby born with the deadly Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) may have been cured of the condition, AFP reported yesterday.

    The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

    The development could help improve treatment of babies infected with the virus at birth.

    There is an important technical nuance: researchers insist on calling it a “functional cure” rather than a complete cure.

    That is because the virus is not totally eradicated. Still, its presence is reduced to such a low level that a body can control it without the need for standard drug treatment.

    The only fully cured AIDS patient recognised worldwide is the so-called “Berlin patient”, American Timothy Brown. He is considered cured of HIV and leukemia five years after receiving bone marrow transplants from a rare donor naturally resistant to HIV. The marrow transplant was aimed at treating his leukemia.

    But in the new case, the baby girl received nothing more invasive or complex than commonly available antiretroviral drugs. The difference, however, was the dosage and the timing: starting less than 30 hours after her birth.

    It is that kind of aggressive treatment that likely yielded the “functional cure”, researchers reported on Sunday at the 20th Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta, Georgia.

    What researchers call dormant HIV-infected cells often re-start infections in HIV-infected patients within a few weeks after antiretroviral treatment stops, forcing most people who have tested HIV-positive to stay on the drugs for life or risk the illness progressing.

    “Prompt antiviral therapy in newborns that begins within days of exposure may help infants clear the virus and achieve long-term remission without life-long treatment by preventing such viral hideouts from forming in the first place,” said lead researcher Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

    It appears to be the first time this was achieved in a baby, she said.

    The baby was infected by her HIV-positive mother, and her treatment with therapeutic doses of antiretroviral drugs began even before her own positive blood test came back.

    The typical protocol for high-risk newborns is to give them smaller doses of the drugs until results from an HIV blood test is available at six weeks old.

    Tests showed the baby’s viral count steadily declined until it could no longer be detected 29 days after her birth.

    The child was given follow-up treatment with antiretroviral drugs until 18 months, at which point doctors lost contact with her for 10 months. During that period, she was not taking the drugs.

    Researchers then were able to do a series of blood tests — and none gave an HIV-positive result.

    Natural viral suppression without treatment is an exceedingly rare occurrence, seen in fewer than half a per cent of HIV-infected adults, known as “elite controllers”, whose immune systems are able to rein in viral replication and keep the virus at clinically undetectable levels.

    Experts on HIV have long wanted to help all HIV patients achieve elite-controller status.

    Researchers say this new case offers hope as a game-changer, because it suggests prompt antiretroviral therapy in newborns indeed can do that.

    Still, they said, their first priority is learning how to stop transmission of the virus from mother to newborn. ARV treatments of mothers currently stop transmission to newborns in 98 per cent of cases, they say.

    “Our next step is to find out if this is a highly unusual response to very early antiretroviral therapy or something we can actually replicate in other high-risk newborns,” Persaud pointed out.

     

  • My parents are against my HIV positive boyfriend

    Hello Aunty, I have this guy that I love so much that I can die for. But he is HIV positive while I am negative

    but he wants to marry me but my parents are against it. I really love him and l love him with all

     my heart. Right now, I am getting mad because of all that is going on and I need your help because I don’t want to lose him. Aunty, please help me.

     

    Hi.

    You were not detailed in your mail to me as I do not know whether your parents are fighting your relationship with this guy because of his HIV status. If that is the case, even the most prominent campaigners for the rights of the people living with HIV wouldn’t agree easily for their HIV-negative children to marry an HIV-positive person. It would take a lot of counseling. In most cases where you have a positive and negative living together happily, they might have been married before discovering the positive status of the other person.

    Parental consent in a marriage relationship is very important in Africa, especially here in Nigeria. If they were kicking against it on grounds such as the guy’s lack of adequate finances or religious grounds, one could always have a way of going around it because in such cases, we can say they are not being considerate. But if it is on health grounds, then you have to be on the same page with them. The parents you fail to listen to today as blood is still pumping to your heart in the name of love may be the ones you will go and cry to later.

    All in all, seek counseling on your expectations and limitations with an HIV positive partner. It is possible to live happily with him and have healthy babies. You however need to be armed with information and education about how to go about it. You may in turn educate your parents so they can see that life continues whether you have HIV or not. Wishing you the best.

  • Nigeria, Global Fund, seal agreement on HIV, Tuberculosis

    Nigeria, Global Fund, seal agreement on HIV, Tuberculosis

    Nigeria and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have signed five grant agreements worth 335 million dollars.

    This is to support programmes that would aid prevention and treatment of HIV and tuberculosis in the country.

    The information is contained in a release signed by the Head, Grant Management Division of the Global Fund, Mark Edington.

    Edington said the grant agreements were a critical part of the three billion dollars in 169 grants that the Global Fund has committed in 2012.

    “For Nigeria, the grant agreements address a tremendous need: Nigeria has the second highest number of people living with HIV in the world and only 30 per cent of people requiring HIV treatment are receiving antiretroviral therapy,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted Edington as saying in the statement.

    He said that the grant-signing followed the launch in October by President Goodluck Jonathan, of a national program aimed at “Saving One Million Lives” by 2015.

    He said that Nigeria is committing $500 million to support the program.

    “Nigeria has made some big strides and to turn back now is unthinkable, but the challenges are formidable and much remains to be done.

    “There is now an excellent opportunity for Nigeria’s government to close the funding gap for antiretrovirals.

    “The HIV grants signed today will target “most-at-risk populations” such as female sex workers, men who have sex with men and injecting drug users.

    “Also, orphans and vulnerable children, including those infected with HIV; and HIV positive mothers who have recently given birth to children and are breast-feeding them,” the Global Fund chief said.

     

  • HIV prevalence on the increase

    Surveys have indicated that the HIV prevalence in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) since the pandemic was first discovered in the territory in 1991 has been very high and doubles that of the National prevalence, the FCT Agency for the Control of AIDS (FACA), has revealed.

    Project Manager of the agency, Dr. Uche Okoro, who disclosed this in a presentation on FCT HIV Situation during the FCT HIV/AIDS Expanded Partners Forum organised by FACA at Alexis Hotel  and  Conference Centre,  Jabi, Abuja said the fact emerged from the 2010 National HIV Sero-prevalence Sentinel Survey Report . The first case of HIV was reported in the FCT in 1991.

    “Since then, the HIV prevalence in FCT over years has been very high and most times doubles that of the National. Also, the HIV prevalence in FCT at site shows that the five sites surveyed have high HIV prevalence relatively,” he said.

    Data presented by the manager in his presentation indicated that, in 1999, the national HIV prevalence was 5.4 per cent, while that of the FCT was put at 7.2 per cent.

    In the following year of the survey, which is 2001, national prevalence was 5.8 per cent and FCT was 10.2 per cent.

    For 2003 and 2005, the national and FCT prevalence were five per cent against 8.4 per cent and 4.4 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively.

    Similarly, in 2008, the national prevalence was put at 4.6 per cent, FCT prevalence put at 9.9 per cent while in 2010; it was put at 4.1 per cent and 8.6 per cent respectively.

    It was gathered that the sentinel survey is usually carried out within an interval of two years.

    Earlier, Dr. Okoro had emphasised the importance of operationalising coordination meeting in FCT for an expanded and comprehensive response among development partners in delivery of HIV/AIDS services to vulnerable groups.

    This, he said, was “given its significance for the achievement of one of FACA objectives which is to increase programme implementation through improved coordination and effective mobilisation and utilisation of resources.”

    He said this would give partners strategic direction to increase synergy between their programmes; thus avoiding duplication of efforts and wastage of critical resource.

    In his remark, the Secretary, FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat, Dr. Demola Onakomaiya pointed out that, to provide a comprehensive and expanded response to HIV/AIDS epidemics in Nigeria, donor agencies and other external partners have a major role in ensuring that their funding and support policies enable a state-owned and led HIV/AIDS response.

    He thanked the implementing partners and donor agencies working in FCT for their commitment in the fight against HIV epidemic.

    On his part, the FCT Coordinator of the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPHWAN), Mr. John Okene, said the association would monitor partners to ensure that funds are used so that from 2013 to 2015, the prevalence in FCT would drop.

    He campaigned against the diversion of 2013 HIV/AIDS intervention funds.

  • Nigeria, nine others to receive UN treatments on HIV, Tuberculosis

    Nigeria, nine others to receive UN treatments on HIV, Tuberculosis

    The Executive Director of United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), Mr. Michel Sidibe, said Nigeria and nine other countries will be the focus of a new UN-led preventative treatments of tuberculosis (TB)/HIV infection.

    Other beneficiaries are Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

    The UN Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria reports that the initiative was inaugurated on Tuesday as part of a wider effort to accelerate the global fight against the highly fatal co-infection.

    Sidibe urged the scaling up of services in affected countries through concerted and joint efforts.

    He noted that the agreement between UNAIDS and the Stop TB Partnership would seek to achieve the 2015 goal of reducing deaths from TB among HIV patients by 50 per cent, or the equivalent of 600,000 lives.

    “TB/HIV is a deadly combination; we can stop people from dying of HIV/TB co-infection through integration and simplification of HIV and TB services,’’ Sidibe said.

    He said that at the 2011 UN high-level meeting on AIDS, member states agreed on the ambitious objective of reducing by half the TB/HIV deaths by 2015.

    “TB is preventable and curable at low cost, yet we still have one in four AIDS-related deaths caused by TB, and this is outrageous,’’ Dr .Lucica Ditiu, the Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, also said at the inauguration.

    Ditiu said that in spite of increased access to antiretroviral therapy for patients and a consequent 13 per cent reduction in the numbers of TB-associated HIV deaths over the past two years, the pulmonary disease remained the leading cause of death among HIV patients.

     

  • HIV infection: UN report identifies reduction in Africa

    HIV infection: UN report identifies reduction in Africa

    A United Nations report said there has been reduction of more than 50 per cent in the rate of new HIV infections across 25 countries in Africa.

    The report made available at the UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday said that the reduction was an indication that unprecedented acceleration response to HIV issues had produced results.

    “We are scaling up faster and smarter than ever before; it is the proof that with political will and follow-through we can reach our shared goals by 2015,” the report quoted the Executive Director of Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), Michel Sidibe as saying.

    It said that UNAIDS increased HIV treatment by 75 per cent in the last two years by ensuring that 1.7 million people had access to life-saving treatment.

    According to the report, in some of the countries which have the highest HIV prevalence, the rates of new HIV infections have been reduced drastically since 2001.

    It explained that it reduced by 73 per cent in Malawi, 71 per cent in Botswana, 68 per cent in Namibia, 58 per cent in Zambia, 50 per cent in Zimbabwe and 41 per cent in South Africa and Swaziland.

    The News Agency of Nigeria, quoting the report said sub-Saharan Africa also recorded low AIDS-related deaths in the last six years and increased the number of people on antiretroviral treatment by 59 per cent in the last two years.

    It also revealed that countries were assuming shared responsibility by increasing domestic investments in the response to the virus, adding that more than 81 countries increased such investments by 50 per cent between 2001 and 2011.

    It stated that in Burundi, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Togo and Zambia, the number of children newly infected with HIV fell by 40 per cent between 2009 and 2011.

    “Antiretroviral therapy has emerged as a powerful force for saving lives,’’, the report noted, adding that in the last 24 months, the number of people accessing treatment had increased by 63 per cent globally.

    It further said that in sub-Saharan Africa, 2.3 million people had access to treatment, while China had increased the number of people on HIV treatment by nearly 50 per cent in the last year alone.

     

  • Nigeria, Ghana, others get waste management manual

    To reduce the incidence of HIV and AIDS among other infections and environmental pollution, Nigeria and four other member-countries of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) now have a manual on effective management of health care waste.

    A don at the Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State, Prof Mynepalli Sridhar, said poorly managed health care waste had been exposing medical staff and people to pollution and infections.

    According to him, improper waste disposal has negative effect, not only on medical staff, but also on the society at large.

    Sridhar spoke at a workshop on Abidjan-Lagos Corridor’s (ALCO’s) Simplified manual for health care waste management in Lagos.

    He said the sub-region now has a practical and explicit document which clearly provides legal, administrative and financial guidelines on a daily basis for a rational and responsible management of health care waste.

    “This manual, harmonised and ratified by member countries, among other things, contains basic information about the nature, generation, collection, storage, transportation, treatment and disposal of health care waste,” he added.

    He said its implementation at the regional level will ensure a culture of best practices in health facilities and borders, adding that it will also reduce or minimise the incidence of infection of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV and AIDS along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor.

    He said ALCO’s mandate was HIV and AIDS prevention, care and support, treatment and the facilitation of free movement of people and goods along the road linking Abidjan to Lagos.

    “ Its intervention covers five ECOWAS countries. They are Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria,” he added.

    He said the agreement was signed by the Minister of Health of the countries.

    Sridhar said it was clear that the management of health care waste in the sub-region often face many problems such as ignorant among stakeholders, limited capacity for management of health care waste, absence of legal framework and lack of a discernable plan for HCWM along the Abidjan-Lagos Transport Corridor.

    Environment and Medical Waste Management, Specialist, Jules Kouassi said the development of the manual was ratified by the five-member countries in July 2006 in Accra, Ghana.

    The manual, he added, was initiated and developed by ALCO to serve as a practical tool in the hands of stakeholders along the corridor, to ensure effective management of health care waste.

  • HIV positive woman wins 12-year-old case

    After waiting 12 years for justice, reprieve finally came the way of Georgina Ahamefule on 27th September, 2012 at a Lagos State High Court.

    Ahamefule is a woman living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), whose employment as an auxiliary nurse at the Imperial Medical Centre was terminated in October 1995.

    Efforts by her, through the Social Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC), to obtain redress received an initial jolt when the HIV-positive woman was barred from entering the courtroom, due to her medical status, by a judge of a Lagos High Court, where her case was to be heard. The judge said she needed “satisfactory expert evidence” to convince her that the judge and others would not become infected with the virus as a result of Ahamefule’s physical presence in the courtroom.

    SERAC appealed the decision at the Court of Appeal, where it was remitted back to the High Court for trial. The suit commenced by a writ of summons filed at the High Court of Lagos State, Ikeja Judicial Division, (General Civil Division) on 14th July, 2012.

    The 27th September, 2012 judgment delivered by Justice Y.O. Idowu, the court made four declarations, and ordered that; 1) Five million naira be paid to the plaintiff for the wrongful termination of her employment, and 2) Two million naira be paid her, being compensation for unlawful conduct of HIV testing without the plaintiff’s informed consent and for the defendants’ negligence.

    Speaking with reporters, Ahamefule, a native of Mbaise, Imo State, said she had to relocate to Port Harcourt while awaiting the outcome of the case. According to her, she knew that justice would surely come her way, especially considering the resilience with which SERAC pursued the case. Before she relocated to Port Harcourt, she had worked with Centre for the Right to Health (CRH) and a medical facility briefly as an HIV counselor. She is currently without a job.

  • How to control HIV/AIDS’

    Farmers screened, sensitised

     

    Former chairman, National Agency for the Contriol of AIDS (NACA), Prof Shehu Umaru has recommended existing testing, treatment and prevention tools for the control of HIV and AIDS.

    Speaking at this year’s Faculty Day Lecture of the National Post-Graduate Medical College of Nigeria, entitled: The Challenge of HIV/ AIDS in Nigeria.

    Shehu said strengthening research capabilities in behavioural communications, prevention and treatment programmes and care, would go a long way in curbing the disease.

    “Strengthening the integration of HIV services with other health programmes including sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, TB, malaria and health systems; promoting task sharing or task shifting towards addressing health human resource gaps to ensure that other cadres of health care workers, especially nurses can provide some services usually provided by doctors to people living with HIV (PLWH) will help to reduce, if not stop, the spread of the disease,” he added.

    On the part of the government and relevant partners, Shehu said they should review the supply chain management system and come up with an effective central supply chain management system that will reduce, if not totally, eliminate stock outs and wastage of HIV commodities.

    “For PLWH and those affected by AIDS and vulnerable children, there should be comprehensive care and support by developing policies and guidelines that can promote a minimum package and standards acceptable at all levels throughout Nigeria,” he said.

    Counselling, he stated, is a key entry point for prevention, treatment and care investment for people living with HIV which lies in creating awareness that can be instrumental in improving access to care, protecting sexual partners and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS thereby reducing risky sexual behaviour generally.

    Minister of State for Health, Dr. Mohammed Ali Pate, said HIV/AIDS is a public health problem across the world with its attendant health, social and economic implication on the development of the country.

    He said the disease affects the society, including the women and children, who are regarded as the vulnerable group and the reproductive and productive segments of the society.

    Pate, represented by the Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Prof. Innocent Ujah, said HIV/AIDS not only causes untold psychological and financial hardship on the families but also affects the resources of developing countries, including Nigeria.

    He said the promotion of behaviour communication, community involvement and participation, HIV counselling and testing and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) will help to prevent and control the spread of HIV/AIDS.