AIDS China's deadliest infectious disease: govt
AIDS has become China's deadliest infectious disease for the first time, the government said, with figures showing at least one person died on average every hour in the first nine months of last year.
AIDS overtook tuberculosis and rabies as the country's number one disease killer in 2008, the health ministry said in a report released on Tuesday.
Although full-year figures were not released, the ministry said the 6,897 people who died from AIDS from January to September made it the deadliest infectious disease.
It said 34,864 people had died from AIDS since it was first detected in China in the 1980s. A total of 264,302 people were confirmed to have contracted the HIV virus that leads to AIDS, the report said.
However those figures are a vast underestimate of the true picture, as the tally refers only to confirmed incidents of the condition.
China actually had an estimated 700,000 HIV/AIDS carriers in 2007, with an estimated 85,000 people infected that year, according to the ministry.
Nobel Winner: HIV Vaccine Within 5 Years
Therapeutic Vaccine - For Those Already Infected - Would Be Step Toward Preventative Shot
(CBS/AP) One of the scientists sharing the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering HIV said Saturday he believes there will be a therapeutic vaccine to treat the virus within five years.Luc Montagnier, of France, told reporters in Sweden that he believed it was "a matter of 4 to 5 years" before a therapeutic vaccine to treat HIV infection is developed. He did not elaborate as to why he believed scientists were close.
Scientists have developed lifesaving drugs that can inhibit the disease, but there is no vaccine to prevent or treat HIV infection. Finding a vaccine has proved elusive in the past, with the most recent trials ending in failure.
However, a therapeutic vaccine would be a key step in fighting the virus, he said. A therapeutic vaccine would be given to people who are already infected, in order to lessen the impact of the disease while a preventative vaccine would, ideally, protect people from HIV.
So far, scientists have focused on drugs to fight the disease because they have been proving effective. In developed countries, AIDS has become manageable, rather than fatal, because of the drugs.
HIV was first identified 25 years ago, but still poses difficult challenges. Scientists cannot explain, for example, why it causes the immune system to collapse.
Montagnier, together with other Nobel laureates, began arriving in Stockholm on Saturday ahead of a week of Nobel festivities that culminates with a lavish banquet and awards ceremony Dec. 10.
The 76-year old scientist shares one half the $1.2 million prize with 61-year-old Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, also of France, for their research on HIV. The other half goes to Germany's Harald zur Hausen, 72, for showing a viral cause for cervical cancer.
Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf will hand over the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Wednesday along with the awards in chemistry, physics, literature and economics. The Nobel Peace Prize is presented at a separate ceremony in Oslo, Norway.
Study may boost nutrient's use against HIV
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It has long been known that people infected with HIV/AIDS have lower levels of selenium in their bodies, with further evidence that supplements of the micronutrient slow the virus's progression.
Now a Penn State University researcher has explained how selenium effectively battles the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, that weakens the immune system and afflicts more than 33 million people worldwide.
K. Sandeep Prabhu, assistant professor of immunology and molecular toxicology, said his team's findings reveal for the first time how selenium succeeds in blocking replication of HIV by 10-fold or more.
The research appears this week in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
"We hope this will be incorporated into the clinic, and this research will lead to new therapeutic interventions with selenium and selenium-dependent compounds," Dr. Prahbu said. "It could lead to a whole new line of research."
It also suggests the over-the-counter supplement could provide a cheaper way to combat HIV/AIDS in impoverished countries, especially in Africa.
"Most of the HIV population lives below the poverty line and most can't afford drugs," Dr. Prahbu said. "Selenium and selenium compounds are less expensive but still provide protection by decreasing the viral load."
The research, he said, should encourage wider usage of selenium in the United States, where health officials have been reluctant to prescribe it without understanding how it works.
Dr. Prabhu's research reveals that selenium, which the body uses to maintain normal metabolism, makes its way into selenoproteins via an amino acid known as selenocysteine.
Once a person is infected with HIV, the virus begins replicating and producing a Tat protein that causes inflammation in cells. But the body counters with the selenoprotein TR1 that upsets the chemical structure of Tat and reduces HIV's ability to replicate.
During the battle, TR1 degrades, so supplementation is necessary to restore the body's supply. It explains why people with HIV/AIDS who aren't taking selenium supplements have low levels in their system.
Dr. Prabhu's team isolated bloods cells from healthy human volunteers who did not have HIV and then infected the cells with the virus. Next they added tiny amounts of the selenium compound, sodium selenite, into the cell culture and inhibited HIV replication by at least 10-fold, which Dr. Prabhu said could be a low estimate. Once production of TR1 was reduced, HIV resumed dividing rapidly.
"Once we fully understand the function of these selenium proteins, it will give us a handle to come up with more effective drugs," Dr. Prabhu said.
Epidemiological data already suggested that people with HIV/AIDS who used selenium showed better health results.
"Now we're coming out with the mechanism of how it works," he said.
David Templeton can be reached at dtempleton@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578.
