International Health Partnership

Posts Tagged ‘HIV and AIDS’

According to published today Elmundo. ART is the pill Truvada, which is used to prevent HIV infection among homosexual men is not as effective as initially thought. A few months ago a study published in the journal “The New England Journal of Medicine confirmed the effectiveness of it, but these days the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have published a guide on which part of this total distrust effectiveness.

For this reason, from the CDC wanted to develop a guide for proper use of the pill geared for professionals who are thinking about giving this pill to patients. Without this guide, said from the agency “was concern sev produce unsafe practices or less effective in the coming months.” It is true that the treatment has a high cost-about $ 1,000 a month, and almost certainly the U.S. insurance will not cover, so for now looks set to be used by very few patients. Read the rest of this entry »

There are still some things that we know about HIV and AIDS.

For example, do not really know why it is that HIV and AIDS are both so common in some African countries but not in Europe or America, although we do have some theories.

Factors that may contribute include the much higher prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases not covered in Africa (which usually increases the likelihood of HIV transmission) and, quite possibly, differences in HIV subtypes.

Also, people who have a poorer general health (including those with malaria or tuberculosis) are more likely to have higher amounts of HIV in their body fluids, making them more likely to transmit the virus. Read the rest of this entry »

Before we can start looking for a cause, we need first to clarify exactly what kind of disease we are talking about.

In early 1981, several physicians in New York and California began to report some strange new disease outbreaks.

In both places, previously healthy young men appeared with rare diseases including Kaposi’s sarcoma (a type of tumor) and PCP (a type of pneumonia), something hitherto unprecedented in this type of people.

Within months, dozens of similar cases were reported in 23 states across the U.S. and the UK, representing the beginning of a massive and unprecedented epidemic. 5

Doctors quickly discovered a distinctive feature of these cases. More than anything, these men lacked a particular type of white blood cells essential to a healthy immune system. Read the rest of this entry »