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60% of gay men unaware of HIV symptoms

I guess I was one of the 60%. I never thought there was an actual "triad" of symptoms (fever, rash, sore throat). I guess in my mind, the symptoms were always something like full-blown AIDS-type stuff, like lesions were the symptoms. These symptoms seem so commonplace to me that they are easily missed.

Sixty per cent of gay men are unaware of the symptoms of early HIV infection, a large-scale survey has found.

According to the research by National AIDS Trust, most of the men surveyed could not name the ‘triad’ of a sore throat, rash and fever as the most common symptoms occurring together.

Between 70 and 90 per cent of people experience symptoms soon after HIV infection but fewer than one in ten respondents were aware of this.

While 31 per cent said they would go to the doctor if they experienced the symptoms, 28 per cent said they would wait to see if the symptoms go away.

NAT says the findings are worrying because early detection of HIV means the best chances for health in future.

Seventy-six per cent of respondents had had an HIV test and 16 per cent of respondents were HIV positive.

Full story and source.

Drug Stops HIV Spread

An AIDS drug already shown to help prevent spread of the virus in gay men also works for heterosexual men and women, two studies in Africa found. Experts called it a breakthrough for the continent that has suffered most from AIDS.

The prevention drug is Truvada, a pill already on pharmacy shelves to treat people with HIV. It’s made by Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City, Calif. Another Gilead drug, Viread, was also used in one of the two African studies.

Earlier research with Truvada found it prevented spread of HIV to uninfected gay men. But experts were thrilled Wednesday at the first compelling evidence that AIDS medications can prevent infection between men and women. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gave advice last fall for use of the preventive drugs among gays, is now developing guidance for heterosexuals in this country.

At the same time, national and international health officials said it’s far from clear how preventive use of these drugs will play out.

In [the] studies, participants also were offered counseling and free condoms, which may help explain the relatively low overall infection rate.

A 30-day supply of Truvada costs about $900 in U.S. pharmacies, and the same amount of Viread costs about $600. Prices charged in developing countries are much lower, but still can be hard to shoulder.

Full story and source.

First Man 'Functionally Cured" of HIV

 

There has been so many possible "cures" that had been reported before and none seemed to have panned out.  However, this one is interesting because the cure stems from people who seem to be naturally immune to HIV and developing a cure from this.

Timothy Ray Brown suffered from both leukemia and HIV when he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in Berlin, Germany in 2007. The transplant came from a man who was immune to HIV, which scientists say about 1 percent of Caucasians are.
What happened next has stunned the dozens of scientists who are closely monitoring Brown: His HIV went away.

"He has no replicating virus and he isn't taking any medication. And he will now probably never have any problems with HIV," his doctor Gero Huetter told Reuters.

Full story here.