Hope for people suffering from AIDS

Posted in AIDS, Health on 03/29/2011 10:45 am by Mary

home hiv test

Center for Combating AIDS in the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem discovered a great hope for people suffering from AIDS with a desire to have healthy children in the future.

Their laboratory specialized in fertility has developed a new method in order to “cleanse” the sperm of men who are infected.

Married couples who are interested, already started the treatment in the clinic. A prof. Maayan, director of the Center, predicted that this means hope for all the people who are carriers of HIV.

What led to this new methodology, is the research result of the large number of experts from various fields of medicine, support (donation) and cooperation with similar laboratories in Marseilles and Atlanta.

This gives hope for many parents. It also helps to stop transmission of infection to the future generations. Read the rest of this entry »

 

Alcohol rehab and effective treatment for alcoholism

Posted in Articles, Health on 01/18/2012 09:25 pm by admin

Alcoholism rehab and its successful medication

Alcohol rehab and effective treatment for alcoholism

Alcoholism:
Alcoholism is a disease which has a tremendous effect on person’s health, family life and social networks. This disease can lead to many frustrations in the patient’s life as well as family life.

Alcohol Rehab:
Alcohol Rehab is a program which helps in bringing the end for the alcohol dependency life-cycle and can make the person feel free from the habit of alcoholism. But to break the dependency of alcohol the person requires lot of courage and should have a control over his feelings. Alcohol rehabs make a person effort easy to make him free from his/her habit of alcoholism.

Methods used by alcohol rehabs:
These types of programs do an end to end research to find out the reason as why the person has become addicted to alcohol and try to solve the problem If the problem behind alcoholism I not solved or understood clearly then there are chances that the patients can again become addicted to this habit in near future.

Most of the alcohol rehab program covers three main stages to make the person free from alcoholism. These three stages are alcohol detox which is followed by giving counseling to the concerned person and to his family and make him/her emotionally strong and the last stage is aftermath.

These programs are divided into courses based on the person dependency on alcoholism and during the treatment it is made sure that his/her relation with the outer world is not disturbed. In these programs counseling is provided even to the family so that they are not treating the patients badly and also told them the reason behind his/her alcoholism habit.

There are several good rehabilitation centers and Alcohol Rehab Dual Diagnosis, is one among them which provides the treatment to the patients by covering various aspects such as inspiring the patient for these programs, making them aware of the advantages for such program and providing the counseling to the concern person and his/her family and why their support is mandatory in those programs and to make it a success.

 

They Won’t Tell: Looking for Confidential Blood Testing

Posted in Articles on 12/02/2011 12:38 am by admin

There are many reasons for a person to want to keep their blood tests confidential. As government and even potential employers and landlords become more invasive of privacy, even the results of a blood test can mean the difference between getting a job or not, or getting a place to live or not. Some people also fear being ostracized by friends and family before they can have a chance to deal with the ramifications of whatever their STD testing revealed.

Fortunately, there are many STD Testing Labs in the United States where a person can get a confidential blood test. Some localities still require that labs report any test that comes up positive to the government, but these places are rare and the patient is warned, or should be warned, of the non-confidentiality beforehand. Many states offer many places where the patient can get confidential blood testing. For example, STD testing California offers what looks like dozens of cities and towns where the patient can go to be tested.

In most states the patient can go online to apply for the test or call the testing center. After being told what the test will entail, the patient can then simply walk into any of the state’s STD Testing Labs. They can do this on the same day they apply for the test, or make an appointment for later. They then take the test and in most cases learn the results in one to three days. Unless otherwise stated, the test is completely confidential and the patient can even use an alias. One caveat is that these testing labs don’t take insurance, Medicaid or Medicare and the patient will have to pay out of pocket for the tests.

Most of the labs have equipment that can readily test for diseases like HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, hepatitis B and C, herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases. The testing is overseen by a doctor and if the patient’s results come back positive, qualified nurses at the lab can recommend where a patient can go to seek more help.

 

96% fewer AIDS virus

Posted in AIDS, Health on 04/14/2011 12:12 pm by Mary

Fighting Aids with it`s own weapon – that’s the idea of  €‹Leor Weinberger biochemist at the University of San Diego. Weinberger has a virus that made the HIV/AIDS more difficult to reproduce. This treatment is especially good for people who have no access to conventional medicine. In sub-Saharan Africa, treatment with the virus reduces the number of patients with AIDS for 96% (!)

Attenuated virus competes with AIDS

It works as follows: patients have a weakened and genetically modified variant of the HIV virus administered. This variant binds to the same proteins as HIV. There is less room for HIV to develop itself, there is a competition between viruses and malicious HIV remains weaker. For the individual patient, this means that it would take five to ten years longer for  an existing HIV infection to develops into AIDS. For the population of Sub, the virus can provide a sharp decline in AIDS. In 50 years time, the number of patients decreased by 96%.

The drug is particularly suitable for remote areas or groups that are difficult to reach with conventional medicine, such as sex workers and drug users.

Research in testing phase

The investigation has not been tested on humans. It should also be figured out whether the virus is not worse than the disease itself and is also harmful as it mixes with other genetic material in the body. But Weinberger is optimistic: for polio, there is a similar drug that functions properly. So why not forAIDS?  Read the rest of this entry »

 

New TB booster shows promise

Posted in Health on 01/17/2011 12:45 am by admin

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2010) - A booster shot appears to improve tuberculosis (TB) resistance in previously vaccinated adults, according to new research in South Africa.

The study has been published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“The world urgently needs new, better vaccines against TB,” said Willem Hanekom M.B. Ch.B., associate professor and co-director, South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI). “It is important to test the safety of these vaccines in settings where TB is very common, such as South Africa.”

Every year 1.7 million people die from TB, according to the World Health Organization. This study is the first to report results from testing an adenovirus-35-based vaccine in humans. Adenovirus-35 is attractive to vaccine developers because fewer humans have been exposed to this strain of the virus, compared with many other adenoviruses, and the immunity from exposure is therefore less likely to interfere with the vaccine’s action.

The Aeras-402 vaccine, developed by Aeras Global Tuberculosis Foundation and Crucell, was made by weakening the virus in the lab, so that it can no longer replicate and cause disease. Parts of the TB bacterium that are important to stimulate the immune system (antigens) were then inserted into the virus.

“We showed that the vaccine was safe in healthy adults who have previously been vaccinated with the current TB vaccine, BCG,” said Dr. Hanekom. “Aeras-402 was able to stimulate the immune system in a manner thought to be important for protection against TB. This included activation of both CD4 and CD8 T cells. Potent activation of CD8 T cells by a new TB vaccine has not been demonstrated to date.”

Animal testing of AERAS-402 had showed promise, and the researchers had expected to see stimulation of CD4 cells, but were “pleasantly surprised” at how well CD8 T cells were also stimulated.

“We are completing a trial of Aeras-402 in babies, to make sure that the vaccine is safe and immunogenic in this population,” said Dr. Hanekom. “If all the studies go well, we will proceed with a Phase IIb study of Aeras-402 in up to 4,000 BCG-vaccinated babies, who will receive either the vaccine or a placebo in their first year of life. The results should indicate whether the vaccine may prevent TB disease. An effective booster vaccine would ultimately reduce the incidence of TB disease and, consequently, the spread of the TB pandemic.” Read the rest of this entry »

 
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