US HIV rate 'higher than thought'

The number of Americans infected with the HIV virus each year is much higher than current government estimates, US health officials have said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 56,000 people had become infected with the virus that causes Aids in 2006. That is substantially more than the earlier annual estimate of 40,000. However, the CDC said the rise was due to improved detection methods, rather than an increase in infections. For the first time, new blood tests can tell how recently an HIV infection occurred, allowing researchers to pinpoint the year it happened. The increase is also thought to be due to new statistical methodsThe CDC's Richard Wolitski said the 2006 incidence estimate "reveals that the epidemic is, and has been, worse than previously estimated". The group added that the annual number of new infections was never as low as 40,000, and that it has been roughly stable since the late 1990s. The CDC described the findings as a "wake-up call that the US HIV/Aids epidemic is far from over". "The new estimates underscore the need to expand access to HIV prevention to gay and bisexual men, especially younger men, and to expand access to African-American men and women as well," Dr Wolitski added. The executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial Aids Directors, Julie Scofield, told the Associated Press news agency: "This is the biggest news for public health and HIV/Aids that we've had in a while." The revised estimated and the methodology behind it are due to be presented at the opening of an international Aids conference in Mexico City on Sunday. Ahead of the meeting, thousands of activists marched through the city to protest at discrimination against people with HIV.

Child prostitution up after Kenya's election bloodshed

This time last year, Janet Kimani spent her days at school and her nights fighting with her little brother.

Now, she sleeps all day and sells her skinny, 14-year-old body at night for $3 an hour."There are so many of us girls on the streets these days," Janet, dressed in a black miniskirt and white blouse, told The Associated Press in Eldoret, a western Kenya town that was a flashpoint of this year's deadly postelection crisis.Prostitution and sexual exploitation are on the rise in the wake of the violence, which killed more than 1,000 people, eviscerated the economy and forced tens of thousands of children to leave school, doctors and human rights groups say.A girl lies in a brothel next to a baby born to a prostitute in Mombasa, Kenya, a center of trade in underage girls.

Sex without condoms raises alarm about AIDS
Although no firm figures are yet available, medical experts say they fear the increase in young prostitutes -- known here as "twilight girls"

HIV drugs 'add 13 years of life'

Life expectancy for people with HIV has increased by an average of 13 years since the late 1990s thanks to better HIV treatment, a study says.
Researchers said it meant HIV was now effectively a chronic condition like diabetes, rather than a fatal disease, the Lancet reported. The team, involving Bristol University staff, looked at over 43,000 patients. The study found a person now diagnosed at 20 years old could expect to live for another 49 years. But the Antiretroviral Therapy Cohort Collaboration, which includes scientists from across Europe and Northern America, warned this was still short of the life expectancy for the wider population which stands at about 80. Antiretroviral treatment for HIV consists of drugs which work against the infection itself by slowing down the replication of the virus in the body. This method of therapy was introduced in the 1990s, but has since become more effective and better tolerated. The researchers looked at life expectancy during three time periods after the introduction of the drugs - 1996-9, 2000-2 and 2003-5 - in high income countries. Just over 2,000 patients died during the study periods. They found that while patients aged 20 diagnosed in the 1990s could expect to live another 36 years, that had increased by 13 years by 2003-5. During the middle time period, life expectancy stood at an extra 41 years.
Success
Researcher Professor Jonathan Sterne said: "These advances have transformed HIV from being a fatal disease, which was the reality for patients before the advent of combination treatment, into a long-term chronic condition."

Malaria gene 'increases HIV risk'

A gene which apparently evolved to protect people from malaria increases their vulnerability to HIV infection by 40%, say US and UK scientists.
People of African descent have a variation of the "DARC" gene which may interfere with their ability to fight HIV in its early stages. The Microbe study says the gene accounts for millions of extra HIV cases in sub-Saharan Africa. However, people with the gene appear to live longer with HIV than others.

"There has always been this myth that people in sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to get HIV because of differences in their sexual behaviour, or that they are more promiscuous ."