KAISER DAILY HIV/AIDS REPORT
A service of kaisernetwork.org
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/hiv
________________________________________



Monday, July 21, 2003

GLOBAL CHALLENGES
========================================
1. Jong-Wook Lee Assumes Office of WHO Director General; Says Organization
Will Boost Commitment to HIV/AIDS Fight

2. Anti-AIDS Business Coalitions From 14 African Countries Meet in Zambia

3. Number of New HIV Cases in Rural Russian Province Increases, Similar to
Country's Urban Areas


ACROSS THE NATION
========================================
4. Marion County, Ind., Officials Charge Five People With Knowingly Selling
Their HIV-Positive Blood Plasma

5. Personal Care Home Settles Discrimination Complaint Filed by
HIV-Positive Man


SCIENCE & MEDICINE
========================================
6. Researchers Developing Intravaginal Ring That Releases Anti-HIV Drugs To
Prevent Infection


OPINION
========================================
7. 'Simple Human Compassion' Should Make Countries Contribute More to Fight
Against AIDS, Editorial Says

****************************************

GLOBAL CHALLENGES


1. Jong-Wook Lee Assumes Office of WHO Director General; Says Organization
Will Boost Commitment to HIV/AIDS Fight

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18913

Dr. Jong-Wook Lee today in Geneva assumed the position of World Health
Organization director general, saying that he will boost the organization's
commitment to combating HIV/AIDS by providing antiretroviral drugs to three
million HIV-positive people in developing countries by 2005, Agence
France-Presse reports (Agence France-Presse, 7/21). Lee, a South Korean
physician who has worked at WHO for 19 years, succeeds Gro Harlem
Brundtland, who yesterday ended her five-year term as head of WHO. She said
she stepped into "a role of unprecedented influence and importance in
global health matters," the Washington Post reports. During her term,
Brundtland, a physician who was Norway's prime minister for 10 years, urged
both rich and poor nations to focus on health, arguing that improving a
nation's health may promote economic growth and development, according to
the Post. Brundtland said that she has no immediate plans to work, but she
will serve on the boards of the Turner Foundation and a not-for-profit
organization working to develop microbicides that can be used by women to
prevent HIV infection (Brown, Washington Post, 7/20).

New Resources for Scaling Up Programs


Lee said that he has charged a "newly strengthened" HIV/AIDS department
with developing a worldwide plan to fight the disease by World AIDS Day --
Dec. 1, 2003. Lee also said that he will organize WHO's HIV/AIDS
department into a cluster with the organization's malaria and tuberculosis
groups; Dr. Jack Chow, who is resigning as deputy assistant secretary of
state for health and science at the State Department, will serve as head of
the HIV, TB and malaria cluster (WHO release, 7/21). Lee said that he will
"begin deploying additional resources to priority country offices for
building up capacity in HIV/AIDS control and health systems." He added,
"These resources should be available by early 2004 to support the rapid
scaling-up of HIV/AIDS technical cooperation and other top priorities."
Lee said, "We must scale up an integrated global HIV/AIDS strategy linking
prevention, care and treatment, prioritizing poor and underserved areas.
... The international community must act now." Lee concluded, "Today we
begin a new chapter in WHO's history. We will continue the work already
underway. And we will make changes where these are needed to meet the test
-- results in countries" (Speech text, 7/21).

Video and audio versions of Lee's speech are available online.

2. Anti-AIDS Business Coalitions From 14 African Countries Meet in Zambia

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http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18914

Anti-AIDS business groups from 14 African countries last week met in
Zambia to discuss ways to further the private sector's role in combating
HIV/AIDS in the workplace, according to a World Economic Forum release.
The World Economic Forum's Global Health Initiative, the World Bank and
UNAIDS brought together representatives from Botswana, Ethiopia, Gambia,
Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa,
Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda. About 19 million, or 44%, of the world's
42 million HIV-positive people live in those countries. The business
coalitions have been formed over the past few years to gather and share
corporate best practices, carry out business-to-business awareness and
advocacy campaigns, prepare the private sector to help fight AIDS and work
with local governmental agencies, as well as local and international
nongovernmental organizations. The coalitions shared strategies, pooled
best practices and attempted to build a public-private partnership in the
region, according to the release. Elizabeth Ashbourne of the World Bank
said, "This meeting marks the beginning of a coordinated effort between the
World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the UNAIDS, the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other donor agencies to ensure that we
harness the core competencies of the private sector in the battle against
HIV/AIDS" (World Economic Forum Release, 7/18).

3. Number of New HIV Cases in Rural Russian Province Increases, Similar to
Country's Urban Areas

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18915

The number of newly reported HIV cases in Russia is increasing rapidly in
urban areas, and similar increases also might be occurring in rural areas,
according to a report in the July 18 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report, Reuters Health reports (Rauscher, Reuters Health,
7/17). Researchers from the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Prevention Center
in Orel Oblast province, Russia, and the CDC's National Center for HIV,
STD, and TB Prevention analyzed HIV trend data from the predominantly
rural, agricultural province, which has a population of about 900,000.
Researchers recorded the results of all HIV tests conducted between 1987
and 2001, with an annual range of between 140,000 and 170,000 tests.
Voluntary testing was offered to patients at drug-treatment, sexually
transmitted disease, tuberculosis and prenatal clinics; HIV testing was
mandatory for prisoners. AIDS Center researchers collected clinical,
HIV-risk and contact histories for HIV-positive residents of Orel Oblast
and offered HIV testing to recent sex and injection-drug using contacts of
HIV-positive residents (Molotilov et al., MMWR, 7/18). Researchers found
that the province has seen a 40-fold rise in HIV incidence between 1998 and
2001. In addition, the annual rate of new positive HIV tests increased from
five per 100,000 tests in 1998 to 202 per 100,000 in 2001, while HIV
testing patterns during this time remained stable, Reuters Health reports.
Dr. Shannon Hader, CDC epidemiologist and co-author of the report, said, "I
must say this is what we have seen in other places of a really rapid
initial increase in HIV." She added, "Because Orel was doing good
monitoring and good surveillance for HIV they were able to identify this
initial rapid increase in cases, and perhaps with good prevention
activities catastrophe can be avoided" (Reuters Health, 7/17).

More information on AIDS in Russia is available online through
kaisernetwork.org's Issue Spotlight on AIDS.

ACROSS THE NATION


4. Marion County, Ind., Officials Charge Five People With Knowingly Selling
Their HIV-Positive Blood Plasma

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18916

Officials in Marion County, Ind., on Thursday charged five people with
allegedly selling their blood plasma despite knowledge of their
HIV-positive status -- the first such cases in the county, the Indianapolis
Star reports. The infected plasma, which was sold to two Indianapolis
blood collection centers over the past two years, was identified through
routine HIV testing, according to Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi and
state Department of Health officials. Under state law, knowingly
transferring contaminated body fluids is a Class C felony, and the five
suspects, who received $20 per collection, could face two to eight years in
prison if convicted. Brizzi said that the suspects lied about their
HIV-positive status and "put thousands at risk" as a result, according to
the Star. Health officials waited until the plasma centers confirmed that
the suspects were the plasma suppliers, then they filed charges with the
prosecutor's office, according to Michael Butler, director of the state
health department's Division of HIV/STD. Roger Rayl, spokesperson for the
prosecutor's office, said that additional charges could follow,
particularly if investigators discover that the individuals sold their
plasma more than once while they knew their HIV-positive status. Although
Brizzi said that he thinks that laws regarding HIV-positive people
knowingly putting others at risk should be stronger, Butler said, "My
greatest concern is if individuals start seeing behaviors related to being
aware of your HIV status as being the subject of criminal action, then
individuals will just stop being tested. Then we have the problem of not
just one person's personal health, but the risk of their exposing numbers
of other individuals to the virus" (Kightlinger, Indianapolis Star, 7/18).

5. Personal Care Home Settles Discrimination Complaint Filed by
HIV-Positive Man

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18917

The attorneys representing a man who said that he was refused admission to
a personal care home because of his HIV-positive status on Thursday said
that the man had settled his discrimination complaint with the facility,
the Associated Press reports. The 56-year-old man, who is legally blind
and who had sought care in the facility after his health began
deteriorating, agreed to withdraw the complaint after the Loving Heart
Personal Care Home agreed to admit him to the center and to conduct HIV
training for its staff, Ronda Goldfein, executive director of the AIDS Law
Project of Pennsylvania, said. The man, who has not been identified by
name in the legal proceedings, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development against the facility in April saying that
the facility denied his admission because they were uncomfortable caring
for someone with AIDS, but facility officials had previously denied the
man's allegations. Goldfein said that the man's "number one priority was
just getting a place to live." She added, "I think that the folks at
Loving Heart understand why what they did was wrong." Attorneys
representing the facility did not immediately return phone calls for
comment, according to the Associated Press (Associated Press, 7/17).

SCIENCE & MEDICINE


6. Researchers Developing Intravaginal Ring That Releases Anti-HIV Drugs To
Prevent Infection

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18918

Scientists have developed a "potentially revolutionary device" that could
allow women to protect themselves from contracting HIV from an HIV-positive
sex partner, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. The device -- a flexible,
slender 2.3-inch-wide intravaginal ring that time-releases anti-HIV drugs
-- is inserted near the cervix similar to a diaphragm and could be worn
continuously for six to 12 months. In acceptability tests, most users said
that the device, once in place, could not be detected by either partner.
The ring is being jointly developed by the International Partnership for
Microbicides, whose research is being partially funded by a $110 million
donation made last year by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a team
of 10 researchers led by Karl Malcolm, a chemist at Queen's University in
Belfast, in conjunction with researchers at drug makers Janssen
Pharmaceutica, Tibotec-Virco and Biosyn. Unpublished research on the ring
was introduced at the 30th Annual Meeting & Exposition of the Controlled
Release Society that began yesterday in Glasgow, Scotland. Researchers
plan to test the ring in monkeys over the next 18 months to determine its
effectiveness against HIV and will perform small human trials to test the
device's safety. If successful, the trials will be expanded to hundreds or
thousands of women. Researchers are seeking $40 to $60 million in funding
for the trials from charitable organizations and the pharmaceutical
industry. Robin Shattock, director of the research and advisory council
for International Partnership for Microbicides, said, "At the moment, many
women in the developing world have no choice about preventing infection.
The whole concept is to empower women and provide them with some measure of
providing protection [against HIV]" (MacPherson, Newark Star-Ledger, 7/20).

OPINION


7. 'Simple Human Compassion' Should Make Countries Contribute More to Fight
Against AIDS, Editorial Says

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18919

"Simple human compassion -- if not financial interest -- " should prompt
wealthy countries to contribute more to the fight against AIDS, a Financial
Times editorial says. While President Bush has "moved in the right
direction" with his $15 billion, five-year global AIDS initiative, the
details of the plan have caused it to become "mired in controversy,"
according to the Times. The "biggest problem" is the administration's
"antipathy to multilateral action," which has prompted Bush to devote most
of the money to new programs, which must first be established, rather than
give the money to the already established Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Times says. While this may not be the "most
efficient way" to use the AIDS funding, "[a]t least the U.S. is prepared to
spend serious money tackling AIDS in the developing world," unlike Europe
whose contributions so far have been "shockingly mean," the editorial says.
The Times concludes that countries should contribute more money to the
fight against AIDS and should improve access to antiretroviral drugs for
HIV-positive people worldwide (Financial Times, 7/21).

________________________________________

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