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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...
Recently, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) issued a statement that all Baby Boomers should be tested for Hepatitis C. The question often comes up as to why this particular segment of people is so vulnerable. What does being born between 1945 and 1965 have to do with Hepatitis C? What was di...
Buyer Beware! There are several snake oil salesmen out there who are claiming to have cured their own Hepatitis C with herbs, supplements and parking lot gravel. Okay, maybe not the parking lot gravel but it might as well be. What you need to remember is that there are two different types of...
Most every adult woman (and an occasional man) has enjoyed a manicure and a pedicure at a nail salon or spa. That 30 minute pedicure can be so relaxing but are you aware of the danger lurking in that nail salon? Although few individuals recognize the medical risks associated with this common pr...
So this is how it started....
Just under two years ago i was playing one of those stupid time consuming games on Facebook. To be precise it was Farmville! If you have ever played it you will know that the key to doing pretty much anything in the game is to have many neighbours. So i went trawling for some. Somehow i ‘neighboured’ a lady by the Name of Jeannie, and being a nosy sod i went and checked out her profile. Well i was completely stunned as she was very beautiful! However i have always been a shy person and not one to come out and talk to people very easily, so i just hung around in the wings posting the odd comment to her wall every now and again.
This carried on for around seven months and then one day, out of the blue, she comes onto the chat and asks if i can talk! Heart pounding, i jump on the chat and wait to see what appears. To anyone around i must have looked like a rabbit in the headlights of a car as i sat there wondering what would transpire.
To cut a long story short, and not to bore the hell out of you, we decided on the spot that i would go over to America and visit her in New York that weekend as we both had nothing to do. Nothing untoward there? Well the chat took place on a Thursday night around 2am and the flight i took left the airport around three in the afternoon the following day.
Getting off the plane i called her cell and checked to see where she was as the flight had got in early. My heart stopped... what had i got myself into.. The voice that came back was indistinguishable, guttural and to say i couldn't understand a word said was to put it mildly. With a heavy heart, hoping it had just been a bad phone connection but feeling that the weekend was going to go down in flames, i walked to meet her. Waiting at a junction on the Airtrain walkway i got my first real-life glimpse of her as she walked up to me and my jaw hit the floor. Her photos did her no justice whatsoever and i hastily rolled up my tongue and closed my mouth before it became obvious i was drooling. With hesitance in my voice from the earlier call, i said hello and to my amazement understood her! A sudden wave of euphoria swept down my body as i knew that even if she did not like what she saw we could at least communicate.
The rest of the weekend flew by like a supersonic jet on speed, but my mind, heart and soul were won over by the one action that is by far the hardest thing i have ever had to watch in my life..
We were sitting on the couch in the room after returning from a local bar and things were progressing well, when i got the distinct feeling that there was some problem with her. Worrying like mad that she really did not like what she saw and was about to blow me out and head for the hills, i sat there perspiring with worry and waited for the hammer to fall. Well what happened next was a relief above all else but must have looked wrong at the time to her. With a look on her face i will never forget, she calmly told me she had the HIV virus. Now as stupid as this may sound the one thought that went through my head as soon as she said that was ‘Thank God’. Was i worried i had just learned that the woman i thought was everything i had ever wanted was HIV+? Yes of course, but the relief she wasn’t just about to run out the door was even stronger at that moment.
Now i guess i am one of the lucky ones, or so it seems, here in England as i already knew a fair amount about the virus and what it entailed, so the news that Jeannie had HIV did not phase me one small bit. Yes there is a possibility of cross-infection if we slept together but i already knew the precautions to take and we were not talking about leprosy here!
The reason i bring this to mind is that i will never have any idea how much guts that took to tell me from the start that she had the virus and she had no idea what my reaction to the news would be. For that thought alone, above all other feelings, i was filled with a feeling i had not felt in a long long time. The feeling of amazement and awe. I will never forget the determination and worried look on her face as she told me and the shock as i sat there and laughed when shedid. So relieved i was that for a second it must have looked like i was laughing at her for having the virus. That was definitely not the case and very quickly was cleared up.
Too many times you read in the journals where somebody has not had the guts to tell a prospective partner that they have the virus and needlessly put someone else at risk of contracting HIV. People, if there were more out there like my now wife, and i am not saying that she is the only one by any means, then the virus would not be spread so easily from people that are knowingly carrying it.
So that is how we met and how i found out that my wife has the virus and how HIV found its way into my life.
~Martyn~
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...
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for SUSTIVA® (efavirenz), including dosing recommendations for...
California and other states would be pressured to amend or repeal criminal laws that single out HIV-positive people under a bipartisan bill co-authored and introduced this week by Rep. Barbara...
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.
HIV Haven is kindly hosted by 
Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) is this July launching another third Phase I trial to develop an HIV vaccine since 1999 when the first trial was launched. Phase I is the first...
Rubaga Girls Primary School pupils had assembled to listen to an HIV awareness talk.The school always created an opportunity for the pupils and their parents to learn about different issues,...
AIDS will account for 32% of all deaths in South Africa in 2013, down from 48% in 2005, according to a midyear report by Statistics South Africa. But 1 in 10 South Africans has HIV infection,...
THE HIV/AIDS prevalence rate at the Coast has gone down to 4.2 per cent from 8.1 per cent, Coast provincial director of medical services, Dr. Khadija Shikelly has said. Dr. Shikelly attributed the...
Mr Dong, a 37-year-old man from Hanoi, has been living with HIV for a number of years. He is in good health thanks to the antiretroviral treatment that is provided free of charge in Viet Nam and...
Cambodia is on track to become one of the few countries in the world to successfully reverse its HIV epidemic and may eliminate new infections by 2020, the World Health Organization said Friday....
In recent years, the countries of Central Asia have experienced some of the fastest growing rates of HIV infection in the world. One of the key populations at risk is men who have sex with men...
Continuing analysis of an HIV vaccine trial undertaken in Thailand is yielding additional information about how immune responses were triggered and why the vaccine did not protect more people. In...
HIV patients who are forced to report to hospital every month for a prescription could be forced into a situation where they have to reveal their condition to an employer. HIV patients who are...
Seventy per cent of Italian HIV specialists who answered an online survey would prescribe pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to people in their care who ask for it, at least in some circumstances, a...
Liver transplants to treat a common type of liver cancer are a viable option for people infected with HIV, according to new research. The Italian study, published May 10 in the journal The...
Despite hepatitis B virus suppression provided by current drugs, many patients coinfected with hepatitis B and HIV have advanced liver fibrosis, according to new research. "Of the patients we had...
One day in late March, European finance and health ministry officials met at the OECD’s Paris office to discuss how healthcare systems are faring in times of austerity. On the second day of the...
"It's a revolution in diagnosis which is leading to a revolution in treatment," says Philippe Douste-Blazy of UNITAID. UNITAID means helping together, roughly translated from the French and it's a...
Not a single sailor diagnosed as HIV-positive has been assigned overseas since the U.S. Navy changed its policy toward such medical conditions, officials say. In instructions issued in August...
The decade-old law that transformed the battle against HIV and AIDS in developing countries is at a crossroads. The dream of future generations freed from epidemic is running up against an era of...
AUSTRALIA is way behind the US and Europe in protecting medical workers from sharp objects, says a former US nurse who contracted HIV and hepatitis C through a needle injury. Dr Karen Daley, in...
Background: The resurgence of infectious syphilis in men who have sex with men (MSM) has been documented worldwide; however, HIV coinfection and syphilis reinfections in MSM in inner Sydney have not...
'Your Body Blueprint', a new campaign for people living with HIV has just been launched by AFAO. Based around an interactive website, the campaign is designed to encourage and support people...
DESPACHO GERAL, a Santos-based custom clearance agency for over twenty years, has successfully navigated the protocols for shipping the Spirit of Malabo to New York. The vessel departs today on...
Venezuelan professionals are working in investigations to establish the molecular panorama of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and hepatitis, specialized sources said.According...
Top AIDS scientists are in Paris to mark the 30th anniversary of the detection of HIV. One of them is Sharon Lewin. Her work on latent HIV cells could lead to a cure, but she warns it's a "tough...
There was no fanfare on May 20, 1983 when Science published what is undoubtedly among the most important medical papers of the 20th century. In the usual dry prose, researchers from the Institut...
“It will take 10 years.” That is what researchers usually say when asked how much longer it will take to develop a safe and effective HIV vaccine.Some of the world’s brightest minds have been on...
Bottling up emotions is thought to harm both mind and body, but a new study suggests that the opposite extreme may be no better. In a study of thousands of heart attack patients, those who...
An explosion of cheap generic substitutes for widely used prescription drugs last year helped drive the first decline in pharmaceutical spending in the U.S. in nearly six decades. Drug makers...
An antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea—now considered a superbug—has some analysts saying that the bacteria's effects could match those of AIDS. "This might be a lot worse than AIDS in the...
