Word: hiv
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There's no doubt Africans have borne the brunt of the AIDS epidemic. Now researchers in London and Texas say it may have something to do with a single gene variant that could account for 11%, or about 2.5 million, of Africa's HIV cases...
...over 18 and a resident of the Bronx, the city of New York wants you to get tested for HIV - sooner rather than later. The borough's death rate from AIDS is nearly 10 times the national average, which health officials attribute to the fact that about 25% of its residents only learn they are infected after the disease has progressed to full-blown AIDS. In an ambitious plan announced at the end of June, the New York City Department of Health hopes to make HIV testing a basic part of routine medical care -as standard as mammograms, cholesterol screenings...
...Testing for HIV "is more than just drawing the blood or taking the swab," says Carmen Davila, community education director at CitiWide Harm Reduction, a needle-exchange facility in the Bronx where about 80% of patients are HIV-positive. "You also need to rub someone's back and talk to them. When I do testing, it's like a therapy session." Davila and others at CitiWide worry the initiative's approach ignores important parts of the treatment process - including pre- and post-test counseling - and reduces the delicate, often traumatic process of coping with a diagnosis to the emotional equivalent...
...fighting HIV, the new plan, which encourages but does not require testing, changes some of the accepted rules. New York state law requires that patients be counseled about HIV before they give consent for a test, a process that typically takes about 20 minutes. The Bronx plan will whittle that process down to five minutes or less in many emergency rooms; studies have shown reducing consent barriers can dramatically increase testing rates. "We can remove a hurdle that doesn't really serve a purpose anymore," says Dr. Donna Futterman, an AIDS specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx...
...encouraging kids to talk to their parents--and grandparents.' DR. SHARON LEE, medical director of HIV Wisdom for Older Women, on having youth teach their elders about safe sex as STD-infection rates rise in people 45 and older...