Human Immuno Deficiency Virus

This western Kenya village was slowly dying five years ago. One in three people was HIV-positive, then a virtual death sentence. Coffin-makers couldn't work fast enough and the nearby hospital overflowed with HIV patients. No family went untouched, but stigma was so severe that few got tested and the word AIDS was rarely uttered. Today, with an influx of U.S.-funded antiretroviral drugs, prevalence rates have dropped to single digits. The AIDS ward has shut down.

It wasn't long ago that the pharmaceutical industry viewed HIV drugs as more of a public service than possible bestsellers. Unlike in the case of cancer or heart disease, where drugs for patients in richer markets such as the United States and Europe can be instantly and startlingly profitable, two-thirds of people infected with HIV are in impoverished regions in Africa. But something unexpected is happening: As treatment of HIV patients in the U.S.

The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may have put them at increased risk of becoming infected. The trials, which enrolled volunteers on four continents, have spurred intense scientific inquiry and unprecedented soul-searching as researchers try to make sense of what happened and assess whether they should have seen it coming.

The VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System began offering 20-minute HIV tests at its downtown ambulatory care center Tuesday -- part of a campaign to encourage more veterans to get tested and treated for the virus. "HIV testing is the gateway to life-saving therapy," said Dr. Earl Tso, a primary care physician who is leading the downtown center's outreach effort. In the past, veterans wanting to be tested for HIV had to have blood drawn and sent to a laboratory for analysis.

A bipartisan coalition in the House voted Wednesday to significantly expand a popular program aimed at combating HIV and AIDS around the world, renewing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by authorizing $50 billion -- $20 billion more than the White House requested -- over five years. "There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). "Few crises have called out more for sustained, constructive American leadership."

Nearly 3 million people in developing countries are now receiving antiretroviral drugs to treat AIDS, a treatment goal that health authorities had hoped to meet two years ago, according to a new report released Monday. About 1 million people received the life-saving drugs for the first time during 2007, according to the report from UNAIDS, the World Health Organization and UNICEF. During the same period, however, an additional 2.

A genetic mutation that originally protected Africans from a virulent form of malaria now renders them 40% more susceptible to HIV infections, offering a partial explanation for the disproportionate spread of the virus among Africans and African Americans, researchers reported today. The mutation, however, has an unusual benefit. It also slows progression of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, giving patients an extra two years of life, said Dr. Sunil K.

The number of AIDS deaths worldwide dropped 10% in 2007 because of increasing access to treatment, as did the number of new infections in children, the United Nations reported Tuesday. Condom use and prevention efforts increased in many countries and adolescent sexual intercourse declined in some of the most heavily affected regions, the report says. "In a surprisingly short period of time, there has been a tripling of prevention efforts in some countries," said Dr.

President Bush signed a sweeping measure Wednesday that provides $48 billion to combat AIDS and other diseases globally and that also ends a long-standing U.S. ban on foreign visitors and immigrants who are HIV-positive. The travel ban, approved in 1993, was seen by opponents as an anachronism from a period of hysteria surrounding gays. Its repeal, however, does not remove all U.S. travel impediments.

Federal officials have been underestimating the number of new HIV infections in the United States by 40% every year for more than a decade, a finding that indicates the U.S. epidemic is much worse than thought, researchers said Saturday. Using sophisticated testing to identify new infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that there are about 56,300 new infections each year, not the 40,000 figure that has been gospel for so long.