A Day with HIV: Photographic Tapestry of Life with HIV

Positively Aware, a magazine for HIV treatment and wellness, will hold its fourth annual “A Day with HIV” photo essay campaign on Saturday, September 21. The magazine created the event to fight the stigma of being HIV-positive and being tested for HIV. The campaign encourages people everywhere to take photos on that day to emphasize HIV-positive people and those who care for them in their day-to-day lives.

The campaign hopes that by confronting stigma, fewer people will be discouraged from getting tested, starting treatment, and disclosing their status to loved ones. Many who test positive feel isolated and alone. This year, Mondo Guerra, a fashion designer and HIV advocate, will join a panel of three to judge the photos. "I know from personal experience how powerful and life-changing it can be to make a public statement about HIV, and also how scary it is for some," said Guerra, of “Project Runway” fame. "I'm thrilled to be able to lend my support to 'A Day with HIV' this year."

Positively Aware will announce this year’s judge-selected images in October and publish them in its November/December issue. The magazine also will choose four covers for this special issue. The other two judges will be celebrity photographer Duane Cramer and David France, the Oscar-nominated producer and director of the AIDS documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”

Participants must submit photos by Wednesday, September 25. They can post images on the Web site, www.adaywithhiv.com, or submit them by e-mail to photo@adaywithhiv.com. The Web site contains last year’s pictures and advice on how to take great photographs. Follow “A Day with HIV” on its Facebook page, on Twitter @A_Day_With_HIV, or on Instagram to receive updates and view selected photographs from last year as well as to share the campaign with friends and family.

Students, Staff Tested for Tuberculosis at Ada High School

After an Ada High School student in Ada, Okla., recently tested positive for TB, State and Pontotoc County Health Department officials went to the school to screen 200 students, staff, and family members for TB as a precautionary measure, according to Amy Hill, administrative program manager for the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

Officials also planned to follow up with more screening in three months since it could sometimes take that long for the immune system to respond to the virus.

Ada City Schools Superintendent Pat Harrison said the September 3 testing went smoothly and health department officials addressed many of the parents’ and students’ concerns. Harrison also noted that the school would not allow the originally diagnosed student to return to class until the school received doctor’s clearance.

New Dental Clinic for HIV Patients in Downtown LA

On August 12, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) opened its first oral health clinic, specializing in dental care for HIV-positive individuals, next door to AHF’s Downtown Healthcare Center in Los Angeles.

The clinic offers a full range of general services and relies on the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles Schools of Dentistry for specialty services such as root canals.

According to Dr. Mark Davis, DDS, head of the new AHF Downtown Dental Office, Los Angeles County’s Department of HIV and STD Programs has been increasing dental care services for those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in an acknowledgement of the need for those services, and the opening of the new AHF clinic is a part of that expansion.

The clinic hopes to have the resources available by the end of 2013 to provide services to approximately 9,000 clients in Los Angeles.

The clinic is located at 1414 S. Grand Avenue, Suite 485 and operates Monday–Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

For further information, please call (213) 744–1752.

Syracuse Agency Drops AIDS from Name as It Reaches Out to People with Other Illnesses

AIDS Community Resources of Syracuse, N.Y., is now called Access Care and Resources (ACR) Health. The healthcare agency changed its name to reflect its expanded services. In addition to providing healthcare for HIV-infected individuals, the agency also will treat people on Medicaid suffering from other chronic diseases such as asthma, heart disease, high blood pressure, serious mental illness, obesity, and diabetes.

ACR serves approximately 230 HIV/AIDS-infected individuals in nine counties in Central and Northern New York. According to Michael Crinnin, ACR Health’s executive director, if the agency did not expand its services, the state would have stopped funding the HIV/AIDS program. The agency is dependent on state funds to serve its clients with HIV/AIDS, but approximately two years ago the state informed the agency that it would continue funding the HIV/AIDS program only if the agency agreed to include individuals with other complicated healthcare needs through the state’s new Medicaid “Health Home” program.

Crinnin explained that because of the stigma attached to AIDS, some patients did not want to use an agency that was meant for people with HIV/AIDS. Also, patients with HIV/AIDS did not want the agency’s newsletter and literature mailed to their homes because they did not want relatives and friends to know of their diagnosis. On the other hand, some donors were displeased by the name change because they viewed it as betraying their loved ones who died of AIDS.

Cumberland County STD Rates Rise, Health Workers Battle Budget Cuts to Take on Diseases

North Carolina’s Cumberland County Health Department and its community partners reported they were struggling to meet growing needs for STD and HIV prevention education, testing, and treatment services. Although the county’s STD incidence began to decline in 2007, the number of new diagnoses sharply increased from 2010 to 2011, according to North Carolina Division of Public Health data. Cumberland County reported 1,479 new gonorrhea cases in 2011 and it ranked third in in the state for new chlamydia diagnoses in 2011, with 3,600 new cases. New HIV cases increased to 97 in 2011 after a four-year decline, and syphilis increased from 18 diagnoses annually between 2007 and 2009 to 37 new cases each year in 2010 and 2011.

Dr. Lan Tran-Phu, medical director for the health department, attributed the incidence increase to three factors. The county saw a large transient population due to the constant movement of troops through Fort Bragg. In addition, Tran-Phu stated that more young people had become sexually active, but were not receiving in-depth prevention messages. Finally, although health department disease intervention specialists emphasize community outreach and reporting test results to community members, shrinking funding has hampered their efforts.

The North Carolina General Assembly recently voted to cut AIDS drug assistance funding by $8 million, which could mean that newly diagnosed HIV patients would go on waiting lists for HIV care and medications. According to Dr. Danielle Thomas-Taylor, medical director for specialty medicine at Fayetteville’s Southern Regional Area Health Education Center, the cost of HIV care and medications for one patient was approximately $42,000.

Cumberland County Health Educator Phyllis McLymore reported that while many young people associated pregnancy with unprotected sex, they had misconceptions about HIV and STD transmission. Other health educators reported that people failed to seek HIV testing because of stigma and fear of knowing their status.

Hepatitis B Vaccination May Cut Deaths from Liver Disease

Researchers in Taiwan have concluded that the Taiwanese hepatitis B virus (HBV) infant vaccination program, which began in 1984, resulted in a 90-percent decrease in hepatitis B-related deaths. Chien-Jen Chen, vice president at the Genomics Research Center at Academia Sinica in Taipei, and colleagues reviewed the 30-year outcomes of the HBV immunization program in Taiwan.

For the first two years, the program vaccinated only newborns of HBV-infected mothers, but later included all newborns. In 1987, the program vaccinated preschooolers for HBV, and from 1988 to 1999 all elementary school children received the HBV vaccine. The researchers found that the rate of vaccination for persons born 1984 to 2010 was 89–97 percent. The extensive immunization resulted in a more than 90-percent reduction in chronic liver disease deaths and liver cancer between 1977 and 2004 and 80 percent fewer cases of liver cancer. Infant fulminant HBV virus deaths decreased 90 percent.

Chen noted that there were 350 million chronic HBV carriers in the world and the highest prevalence was in the Asia-Pacific region and sub-Saharan Africa. He suggested that all newborns in high-prevalence areas should be vaccinated to reduce the burden of liver disease and associated healthcare.

The full report, “Thirty-Year Outcomes of the National Hepatitis B Immunization Program in Taiwan,” was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (2013; 310(9):974–976, doi:10.1001/jama.2013.276701 ).

Asylum Seekers from PNG Could Bring TB to Australia, Warns Medical Expert

Professor Ian Wronski, James Cook University (JCU) pro-vice-chancellor for medicine, urged both of Australia’s primary political parties to commit funding to JCU’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine in support of enhanced response to an influx of TB and other tropical diseases from Papua New Guinea (PNG). According to Wronski, thousands of political asylum seekers have been travelling illegally across the four-kilometer Torres Strait that separated PNG from Australia’s northernmost territories. AusAID estimated 14,749 new TB diagnoses in PNG annually and reported that PNG had the highest TB burden in the Pacific region.

Wronski recommended a “massive escalation” in disease surveillance in the coastal area to prevent TB from becoming established in the Torres Strait and mainland Australia. The Queensland government already has committed $42 million to infrastructure and projects of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, which will be based in Townsville and will have offices in Cairns and Thursday Island. Total cost for the institute would be $116 million. Plans called for the institute’s scientists to study the prevention and cure of TB, dengue fever, rabies, and other emerging diseases.