Ask the UN and you’ll get the staggering sum of $10 billion. A year . The annual per capita cost of treating infected Africans, where much of the UN money goes, is around $1,100. One of the major problems facing HIV/AIDS advocates is their inability to lower this number. An estimated $600 is spent on anti-retroviral drugs, while the remaining $500 is spent on other AIDS associated conditions. Even $10 billion wouldn’t cover treatment for the more than 20 million Africans with HIV/AIDS. A conside...
Oct 26, 2010
Africa. The seed of the world. One of the most beautiful and most scintillating places on earth. From the deserts of the Sahara and the rainforests of the Congo to the bright and bustling metropolis of Cape Town, life is rich everywhere. Yet amidst all this beauty and splendor, a deadly scourge threatens the people of this continent. AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV/AIDS than is any other region in the world. Somewhere around 22.4 million people in the region are currentl...
Oct 19, 2010
No one can argue that HIV testing is a bad thing. Knowing one’s status allows a person to access treatment earlier, change risky behaviors, or rest assured that he/she is indeed HIV negative. With that said, why not make HIV testing mandatory for everyone? Hello, I am Katie Morris and this is The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. Dave Wessner, associate professor of biology, and his students at Davidson College. Compulsory HIV testing—which requires that the entire population, or at least c...
Oct 14, 2010
“By 2015, let us end the transmission of HIV from mother to child. This is not a dream: we can do it.” Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, The Global Fund Ambassador With that simple statement from Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy as its guiding principle, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria has launched Born HIV Free. The goal of this new initiative is straightforward – stop the mother-to-child transmission of HIV. As Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy notes, this goal is achievable. We have at our disposal the means of...
Jul 07, 2010
I’m Lindsay Sween, and welcome to this installment of the AIDS Pandemic blog and podcast. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) invades a CD4+ (T4) cell through the attachment of the viral protein gp120 to its primary cellular receptor, CD4, and to a transmembrane chemokine coreceptor, usually CCR5 or CXCR4. Agrawal et al. (2007) explain that the removal of 32 base pairs from the CCR5 gene results in the CCR5Δ32 mutation, which produces a shortened, nonfunctional protein that cannot act as...
Nov 20, 2009
I'm Paige Bates and this is The AIDS Pandemic The RV144 study was a phase III HIV vaccine trial conducted by the US Army and Thai government over seven years on 16,402 volunteers—all HIV negative men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 in parts of Thailand. For ethical reasons, all participants were taught HIV prevention behaviors, given condoms, and promised lifelong antiretroviral treatment if they contracted HIV. Half of the volunteers were given a prime-boost vaccine regimen and half rec...
Nov 11, 2009
Hi, I’m Justin Eusebio. While tuberculosis is one of the world’s oldest surviving plagues and HIV-1 infection is one of medicine’s newest challenges, there is an undeniable relationship between HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Independently, Mycobacteria tuberculosis and HIV are formidable pathogens but in concert, the prospects for controlling either epidemic are jeopardized. TB-HIV coinfection and interaction complicate all aspects of each disease: pathogenesis, epidemiology, clinical presentation, ...
Oct 17, 2009
Welcome to this installment of the AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dave Wessner of the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I am Sarah Bertram. This past summer, I traveled to Mwandi, Zambia through a Davidson biology and pre-medical program. Mwandi is a predominantly Lozi village of about 7,000 people and the catchment area totals about 25,000 people. We spent 5 weeks in Africa, 3 of which were spent working in the Mwandi Mission Hospital , the Mwandi AIDS clinic, the Orphans and Vulne...
Oct 02, 2009
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in certain high risk groups is on the rise today as government funding for prevention campaigns nears an all-time low in Thailand, a country once touted the ‘poster-child’ for HIV/AIDS prevention efforts. Hello, I am Devynn Birx-Raybuck and this is The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. Dave Wessner , associate professor of biology, and his students at Davidson College . Though Thailand’s initial response to the AIDS epidemic was weak in its early years, in 1991, t...
Mar 27, 2009
Momentum for the alternate HIV/AIDS explanation started in 1987 when Dr. Peter Duesberg , a professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley and initial demonstrator that the influenza virus has a segmented genome, published a paper claiming that HIV cannot be the cause of AIDS. Four years later, a number of scientists formed “The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis” which later established itself as an official non-profit organizati...
Mar 04, 2009
More than twenty-five million people have died from AIDS since it was first recognized in 1981, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in history. It is undeniable however, that sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest hit and most affected area in the world. Of the global 2.9 million AIDS related deaths in 2007, 72% occurred in this area. AIDS has devastated the social and economic framework of societies in sub-Saharan Africa by mostly infecting people in the age group of 15-49, while 63% of ...
Feb 19, 2009
Welcome to this installment of The AIDS pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. David Wessner from the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I’m Middleton Chang. Since 1987, the United States Department of Health and Human Services has imposed a travel ban on HIV-infected individuals, under the premise that HIV falls into their list of “dangerous and contagious” diseases which present a public health risk. The law specifically prohibited foreigners from immigrating or obtaining a travel visa to t...
Feb 10, 2009
I'm Utsha Khatri. The Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, was the first piece of comprehensive AIDS legislation created to provide funding for people living with AIDS (PWAs) to access care and treatment. Ryan White was a young, Caucasian hemophiliac who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion. He was diagnosed with AIDS at age thirteen and died six years later. Prior to the media’s coverage of the Ryan White story, it was widely held that HIV/AIDS only affected margi...
Jan 09, 2009
It all began with a 1994 study that showed antiretrovirals given to HIV-positive pregnant women before and during childbirth – as well as to the child upon delivery – reduced the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission by 50%. Next were the post-exposure prophylaxis guidelines issued by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 1998, recommending an antiretroviral regimen for healthcare workers after unintended HIV exposure. Then, 2006 brought exciting data gleaned from a study of monkey...
Dec 17, 2008
72% of the 5.5 million South Africans who are HIV-positive are in need of antiretroviral (ARV) drug treatment. In leading the movement against ARV drugs, recently removed South African President Thabo Mbeki denied millions of his people HIV treatment. He believes that the AIDS pandemic was created by Western pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of Africans and maximize their profits. Mbeki also sides with dissident scientists in denying that the HIV virus causes AIDS and in 2003 he was quo...
Dec 09, 2008
Today is the 20th annual World AIDS Day, a day set aside to remember those who have died of HIV/AIDS and those who are living with HIV/AIDS. It’s also a day to remind ourselves that we all are affected by this disease. Today, many of us are wearing red ribbon pins. Many of us have placed red ribbon photos on social networking sites. Many of us will be attending HIV/AIDS breakfasts or seminars. Many of us are blogging about HIV/AIDS. Do any of these events really matter? Roughly 35 million people...
Dec 01, 2008
I'm Courtney Sanders. According to the 2008 UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic , countries in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to bear a disproportionate share of the global HIV/AIDS burden. In all, an estimated 67% of people living with HIV reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2007, three-quarters of all deaths resulting from AIDS occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though the first HIV cases in the United States were noted in 1981, HIV was not seen in African countries until the late 80s. From its f...
Nov 21, 2008
In a recent episode of the television show South Park , one of the main characters is infected with HIV. In an attempt to find a cure, he must continually deal with the public opinion that AIDS is no longer a threatening condition. He is told that his disease is “a disease of the 80s and 90s” and even that he is “retro” for being infected with HIV. But has this retrovirus truly become retro to Americans? If we take South Park as a social barometer, then it seems that the disease has been margina...
Nov 11, 2008
Welcome to this installment of The AIDS Pandemic, a podcast hosted by Dr. David Wessner from the Department of Biology at Davidson College. I’m Kara Earle. Since the diagnosis of the first case of HIV in 1982, infection rates in South Africa have skyrocketed. It is currently estimated that one in five South Africans, or approximately 5.7 million people, are living with HIV. In addition, there are nearly 1,000 AIDS-related deaths occurring daily. Many AIDS experts around the world blame the South...
Oct 27, 2008
