Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:07:14 -0400 From: "Vaux, Lenore" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary, 09/30/96 AIDS Daily Summary Monday, September 30, 1996 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National AIDS Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a public service only. Providing this information does not constitute endorsement by the CDC, the CDC Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information. Copyright 1995, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ****************************************************** "The Test of the Times" "Fairfax Man With AIDS Charged in Biting at Clinic" "Marching on AIDS" "HUD Grants $1.2 Million for Homeless in Houston" "HIV Ravages Drug-Torn Town in Belarus" "White House, GOP Leaders Strike Immigration Deal" "Nigerian Governor Orders Arrest of AIDS Patients" "Some 330 Iranians Affected by AIDS Virus" "Antiretroviral Drugs for AIDS" "A New Serine-Protease Fold Revealed by the Crystal Structure of Human Cytomegalovirus Protease" ****************************************************** "The Test of the Times" Washington Post (09/30/96) P. C1; Span, Paula The two new HIV home tests, being advertised on both radio and television, are gradually appearing in Washington, D.C., stores. The Confide test, offered by Johnson and Johnson, will be in 90 percent of U.S. drugstores, and at Wall-Marts, Kmarts and supermarkets within a month. The Home Access test kit is being distributed to drugstore chains like Rite Aid and Eckerd Drug. While retailers at some area stores report that consumers are asking about the kits, other stores have seen only spotty sales. However, to make it easier for embarrassed consumers to buy the Confide test, a "silent request form" is available at stores, to be handed to the pharmacist rather than the test itself. The tests won approval from the Food and Drug Administration after a long battle, in which activists were enlisted by the companies to support the idea of home testing. "Fairfax Man With AIDS Charged in Biting at Clinic" Richmond Times-Dispatch (09/30/96) P. B4 A Virginia man with AIDS was charged with malicious wounding on Friday for biting a worker at a clinic. A spokesman from the clinic said that David Murray, of Fairfax, had a "personal business relationship" with the worker. "Marching on AIDS" Los Angeles Times--Washington Edition (09/30/96) P. B3; Emmons, Steve; Slater, Eric A record $3.4 million was raised by participants in the 12th annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles, held Sunday. About 28,000 walkers took part in the 10-kilometer walk, which started at Paramount Studios. Thirty-six city department heads were among the walkers, in response to Mayor Richard Riordan's promise to donate $1,000 for each one. "HUD Grants $1.2 Million for Homeless in Houston" Houston Chronicle (09/29/96) P. 32A Housing and services for homeless people with HIV or AIDS will be provided through more than $7 million in grants from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, agency secretary Henry Cisneros announced Thursday.. In Houston, $1.2 million will be allocated to the Houston Regional HIV/AIDS Resource Group and four sponsors of the Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Among the projects to be funded is the planned MDI Housing Project to provide emergency housing and aid clients in obtaining permanent housing. "HIV Ravages Drug-Torn Town in Belarus" Los Angeles Times (09/29/96) P. A1; Bourdeaux, Richard The town of Svetlahorsk, Belarus, which saw a drug invasion in the early 1990s, is now experiencing an increasing HIV epidemic as a result. At least 514 people in the town of 72,000 have tested positive for HIV. However, health workers suspect that up to half of the estimated 7,000 drug users in the town, one of every 20 people, could already be infected. The HIV rate is higher than in any other former Soviet city, but the problem is reflected in other communities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus where drug use is also prevalent. Ukraine, with 51 million people, has reported 8,256 HIV cases since the end of 1994. The number of cases in Russia has doubled this year from last year, to 387. "White House, GOP Leaders Strike Immigration Deal" United Press International (09/30/96) An immigration reform measure was approved by both Congressional Republicans and the White House after the GOP accepted several controversial provisions pushed by the Clinton Administration. In one of their most difficult concessions, the GOP agreed to retain government-funded medical care for illegal immigrants infected with HIV. House Speaker Newt Gingrich noted the provision would cost a lifetime average of $119,000 per illegal immigrant. "Nigerian Governor Orders Arrest of AIDS Patients" Reuters (09/28/96) A Nigerian navy captain has ordered that all AIDS patients in his state be arrested and confined to curb the spread of the disease. Captain Joe Kalu-Igboamah of the northern Adamawa state made the order Friday when he was visiting a hospital for AIDS patients in the capital Yola. More than 5,000 people in Nigeria have died from AIDS in the last six years. The disease has spread especially fast since 1992, according to the health ministry, with more than half the deaths from AIDS recorded last year. "Some 330 Iranians Affected by AIDS Virus" Xinhua News Agency (09/29/96) Iran's Anti-AIDS Council reports that 330 Iranians have HIV and that 130 have progressed to active AIDS. The council said that 80 percent of the cases were caused by blood transfusions, while the rest were attributed to sexual transmission. According to the council, a strict policy has been implemented to protect the blood supply, nearly eliminating the risk of contracting HIV. A doctor said that as many as 10,000 people could actually be infected, particularly because many physicians in the country do not know the symptoms of AIDS. "Antiretroviral Drugs for AIDS" Lancet (09/21/96) Vol. 348, No. 9030, P. 800; Lipsky, James J. While the development of new HIV drugs is encouraging, questions about how to best use these new tools accompany the advances. In the British medical journal The Lancet, the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation's James J. Lipsky reviews the current knowledge and strategies for using the new drug therapies. He notes that, currently, drugs have been developed to stop HIV from replicating, some specifically to inhibit reverse transcriptase and others to inhibit protein processing. The first HIV drug approved was zidovudine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor. Four other drugs in this class have since been approved: zalcitabine (ddC), didanosine (ddI), stavudine (D4T), and lamivudine (3TC). A second class of HIV drugs, proteinase inhibitors, targets proteinase, a protease produced by HIV that is critical to the virus' ability to infect cells. Three proteinase inhibitors--saquinavir, ritonavir, and indinavir--have been approved, but the most effective use of the drugs has not yet been determined. Non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors, a third class of drugs under heavy development, currently includes nevirapine and atevirdine. Nevirapine has been recommended for clinical use, and atevirdine has shown potential in preliminary studies. "A New Serine-Protease Fold Revealed by the Crystal Structure of Human Cytomegalovirus Protease" Nature (09/19/96) Vol. 383, No. 6597, P. 272; Tong, Liang; Qian, Chungeng; Massariot, Marie-Josee; et al. The herpesvirus known as human cytomegalovirus (hCMV) can cause morbidity and mortality in patients with compromised immunity and in congenitally infected newborns. It infects up to 70 percent of the general U.S. population. The virus' protease enzyme is necessary for viral replication. Researchers at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals now report that they have determined the crystal structure of hCMV protease, and suggest that their findings will have implications for the development of drugs to inhibit herpesvirus proteases.