The HIV/AIDS pandemic has expanded its reach across the planet, afflicting more than 70 million people since it began, United Nations officials reported yesterday. And, for the first time, most of those living with the infection are females who acquired the virus through intercourse with men. In its annual report, the
For the first time in 11 years, syphilis rates in the United States rose last year, primarily among gay men living in large cities. The increase, reported yesterday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has public health officials worried for two reasons. First, the same men who are at risk for syphil
Two decades into the AIDS pandemic, HIV is being seen as a threat not just to individual health but also to the stability of the world economy and politics. In new reports -- including one from the CIA s National Intelligence Council -- analysts paint a disturbing picture of the world that AIDS, if left unchecked, will
Critics skeptical, saying same experiment attempted without reaching same result Scientists at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan may have found a long-sought, mysterious factor secreted by HIV-infected individuals who survive, disease-free, for more than 20 years. In today s Science magazine, Dr. Davi
For the first time in 30 years physicians have a new drug for tuberculosis treatment, greatly simplifying patient care and reducing treatment costs. This good news comes at a time of desperate need for new strategies against TB, which was declared a global health emergency by the World Heal
Having accepted the possibility that samples of the highly contagious and deadly smallpox virus have gotten into the wrong hands, the U.S. government is racing to obtain millions of doses of new vaccine before the end of this year -- more than 100 million doses by Sept. 11. But how that vaccine will be used remains a h
It might be possible to stop the AIDS epidemic purely through use of currently available drug therapies, a mathematical model based on San Francisco predicts. If the model developed by the University of California at Los Angeles researchers holds up, it would mean the pandemic could be slowed, even eradicated, after 50
Barcelona, Spain Ten years ago, it might have been possible to apply straightforward, relatively inexpensive approaches to controlling AIDS. Not anymore. Today the scale of the epidemic is so immense that scientists find themselves scrambling to imagine what will come next. Political leaders are at pains to imagine whe
Barcelona, Spain - British researchers have discovered an Achilles heel of the AIDS virus that scientists are hailing as one of the most significant pieces of good news to come from the laboratory front in the battle against AIDS in several years. The finding concerns an obscure gene in HIV, an equally mysterious and p
Barcelona, Spain -- Former President Bill Clinton joined other recent and current heads of state yesterday to urge all world leaders to join in an international mobilization against AIDS. Under a banner reading Leadership Saves Lives” at the 14th International AIDS Conference, they called upon their counterparts worldw
Barcelona -- Grim new findings that put a successful AIDS vaccine even farther off on the horizon were presented today at the XIV International Conference on AIDS. Harvard Medical School s Dr. Bruce Walker startled scientists with word of an unusual patient who, despite building up an immune response to HIV, then acqui
Barcelona, Spain -- Shouting Shame! Shame! Shame!, AIDS activists stormed the stage at the 14th International Conference on AIDS yesterday, drowning out U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson as he attempted to deliver a speech describing the U.S. contributions to the global effort to stop AIDS. L
Barcelona, Spain - In private meetings yesterday, the U.S. government hammered out plans for providing funds to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in 12 African and Caribbean nations. But publicly, the U.S. presence at the 14th International Conference on AIDS was a target of anger over what less-wealthy count
Barcelona, Spain -- Some people may be producing immune responses that protect them from HIV infection, according to two reports presented yesterday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. The reports require confirmation, but at first glance were signs that it s possible to build immunity against the virus -- a lon
Barcelona, Spain -- In private meetings yesterday, the U.S. government hammered out plans for providing funds to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in 12 African and Caribbean nations. But publicly, the U.S. presence at the 14th International Conference on AIDS was a target of anger over what less-wealthy coun
Barcelona, Spain -- The 14th International Conference on AIDS opened yesterday with more grim news, a record 17,000 delegates and a top-level presence from the U.S. government. The U.S. delegation is led by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, and includes officials from his department as well as the Sta
Barcelona, Spain - The minister of health for South Africa yesterday called drugs used to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child poison. Her nation s top court ruled last week that the government is required to permit use of such drugs. The South African government of President Thabo Mbeki has consistently op
Barcelona, Spain - When leaders of the fight against AIDS gathered in Durban, South Africa , two years ago for their biennial international meeting, they demanded that life-extending drugs available to Americans and Europeans be extended to the vast majority of HIV-infected people, who are the world s poor.
Barcelona, Spain - More Americans are getting infected with forms of HIV that are resistant to life-extending drugs, a finding produced by a study showing that 16 percent of new cases in San Francisco are caused by a strain that resists treatment with one or more drugs. An analysis of the viruses found in 225 newly inf
Barcelona, Spain - If the world stays its current course in the battle against AIDS, 45 million more people will be infected with HIV in the next eight years, according to a report in this week s edition of the British medical journal The Lancet. But that grim tally - more than doubling the cumulative total of 40 milli
Barcelona, Spain -- At its current pace of growth, the world s AIDS epidemic will kill 68 million people by the end of this decade and virtually destroy the economies of up to 45 nations, according to the United Nations AIDS Programme. Those predictions were coupled with a startling statement: We now realize that the
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria got out its checkbook yesterday, announcing the first round of spending: $378 million for 31 poor countries to target the diseases that kill nearly 6 million people a year. The grants are expected to reach $616 million once 18 other proposals, earmarked for fast-t
The board administering the global AIDS fund is meeting at Columbia University today to decide how the first pot of money should be spent -- essentially determining the fate of treatment for millions of people living with HIV in poor nations. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created last year
Seattle - A team of New York researchers may have found an explanation for why, in the United States and overseas, heterosexual transmission of HIV is rare among whites, but more common among Asians and people of African descent. Dr. Harold Burger, of the New York State Wadsworth Laboratory in Albany, and his team foun
Seattle - A much-anticipated AIDS vaccine, the largest such research effort to date, has entered human trials with what the lead scientist yesterday characterized as moderate results. Merck Pharmaceutical Co. of West Point, Pa., is spending an undisclosed but massive amount of money on projects for creating a viable AI
Seattle - Scientists are zeroing in on two new types of anti-HIV drugs that appear to be far more potent than available therapy and less toxic. The researchers cautioned that their work is preliminary, and none of the new drugs is likely to be available commercially for at least two years. Still, the chemicals have gen
Seattle - The number of Americans diagnosed with HIV disease rose by 50,000 over the last 12 months, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC s Dr. Harold Jaffe released the estimates yesterday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, a meeting of scientis
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