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How many times have you started to have a conversation with someone about Hepatitis C only to have it blow up in your face? Have you ever heard someone say something about Hep C that didn't seem quite right to you? You were probably right something was amiss. A discussion about Hepatitis C can...
As per Wikipedia, the definition of a stigma is as follows: "Stigma is a word that originally means a "sign", "point", or "branding mark"." Wikipedia goes on to call stigma "A badge of shame, a physical mark of infamy or disgrace." Damn that w...
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PUBLIC hospitals, since 2008, offer routine screening for HIV, but their patients do not seem to want it.
A recent study by Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) found that eight in 10 inpatients refused to get tested for the immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids.
The top reasons they gave were that they were unlikely to be infected because they were old, they feared needles, and they could not afford it.
While not surprising, this reluctance signalled an obvious stigma of the disease, said Arlene Chua, an infectious diseases specialist at TTSH who led the study published in scientific journal PLoS ONE last month.
The study polled all inpatients aged 21 and older admitted to TTSH between 2009 and 2010 who qualified for the test - that is, they could not be in intensive care, have mental illness, be already HIV-positive, or have been tested in the last six months.
Some 79 per cent of the 41,543 patients eligible said 'no' to the test. Of the 21 per cent who said 'yes', 16 people were discovered to be HIV-positive.
HIV is contracted through sexual contact or infected blood.
Among those who opted out of the HIV screening, 55.8 per cent said they did not think they were at risk of the infection.
One in five said they feared needles while about 10 per cent said they have financial problems. The test would have cost them $6 to $10, after a subsidy.
Other reasons for declining included 'family objection' and 'fear of results'. In the study, patients could pick more than one reason.
Response has been lukewarm at the other public hospitals as well - in 2009, about 80 per cent of inpatients polled rejected screening.
Though the study showed that those who said 'no' believed they were safe from the infection - either because they were old or did not have sex - the data so far has suggested otherwise.
In the past decade, 30 per cent of new cases were aged 50 and above, the Health Ministry said.
To encourage more people to get screened, researchers suggested that awareness campaigns, which tend to target younger people, be also tailored to the elderly.
Early detection is still the key to bringing HIV infections down, said Dr Chua. 'Even if we drop the prices, you cannot access the treatment if you are not tested and diagnosed,' she said.
In Singapore, HIV has been slowly declining. In 2010, a total of 441 Singapore residents were reported to have HIV infections, a 4.8 per cent drop from 2009. But more than half was found during a late stage of the infection.
Please sign the ATC Salvage Therapy Petition Join us in asking Congressman Alcee Hastings and Congresswomen Maxine Waters to send a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter to Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID, asking for the federal facilitation of apricitabine (ATC). ATC is a phase III nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) that has been shown to be safe and effective in treating people with HIV. It works against viruses that are resistant to several other nukes and could ...
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the University of Massachusetts Medical School announced today at CROI2013 the discovery of the first infant functionally cured of HIV. The baby, a female now two and a half years old, received 3 HIV medications when brought to the hospital at 30 hours old. Viral load tests were performed during the first few weeks that showed a rapidly decreasing viral load which reached ...
At the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington D.C., the CDC reported that only 1 out of 4 HIV patients in the U.S. have HIV under control, which is defined as complete viral suppression. Warning bells should be ringing in the scientific and HIV advocacy communities. While much progress has been made in the last three decades in the treatment of HIV, tens of thousands of people living with HIV (PLWH) are currently struggling to construct viable treat...
Paige Rawl is 17 and HIV positive, but while her life has been shaped by HIV it isn't ruled by it. When Paige Rawl starts her senior year at Indianapolis’s Herron High School next month, she'll be cheer captain and a member of the student government and prom committee. This summer, the 17-year-old held down a part-time job at Hollister, hawking the popular Southern California-inspired clothing brand. The all-American girl — who happens to be HIV positive. Paige was in...
The HIV community has been abuzz with the August FDA approval of what had been termed “the Quad”, the second one-pill-once-a-day combination antiretroviral drug. Marketed by Gilead under the name Stribild, the drug contains two NRTIs (tenofovir and emtricitabine), an integrase inhibitor (elvitegravir) and an integrase booster (cobicistat) and is approved for use in treatment naïve patients with either drug resistant or wild type virus. In comparison to Atripla, the first...
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Mission Statement
At HIV Haven we wish to provide our readers with vital cutting edge information to help expand HIV knowledge and promote activism, particularly that which works towards an end to the HIV pandemic. It is our desire to bring to you the scientific, medical and social advances that given the appropriate attention and support, could change the course of the HIV pandemic, lessen the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS, better the quality and quantity of life for people living with HIV and even yield an eventual end to the HIV pandemic. We also provide the basics of HIV transmission and treatment.
We will focus on issues such as innovative drug development, strategic activist campaigns, HIV relationships and novel HIV and HIV cure research. We also will bring you advances in Hepatitis C (HCV), a common HIV co-infection. Whether you are living with HIV/AIDS, HIV and HCV, love someone who is, are an activist, advocate, researcher, physician or just an interested party, we hope here at HIV Haven we can help you find what you are looking for.
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