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spunkloaf
09-26-2011, 11:13 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html

I find this very interesting. I participate in online scientific projects which use my computer(s) in cooperation with other participants' computers to process large amounts of scientific data. To find out more about how that works, visit http://boinc.berkeley.edu.

This project is a bit different than what I use. In this one, participants actually interacted with the data in a computer-generated 3D environment so it was more like a visual puzzle. A collaboration of humans cracked the puzzle in only 2 weeks, where many computers would have taken much longer. They said this is because humans have good spatial reasoning skills, whereas computers lack it. This reaffirms our thinking capabilities, and in a world where computers almost run our lives for us, this story reminds us that a computer is just a tool.

The idea that computer nerds, game and puzzle enthusiasts can help find a solution for world problems is nothing short of astounding. Human ingenuity at its most productiveness.

Conley
09-26-2011, 11:16 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D

Mister D
09-26-2011, 11:16 AM
Cool story. I saw this headline but didn't look closer.

Conley
09-26-2011, 11:18 AM
I read about the cracking of the HIV virus by disrupting the cell membrane but I think this is a different aspect of it.

spunkloaf
09-26-2011, 11:30 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D


I run a plethora of programs with my boincstats manager account. SETI@HOME is one, I think Foldit is another, but I have like 30. I need to trim them down a bit I think, or buy more computers.

Conley
09-26-2011, 11:31 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D


I run a plethora of programs with my boincstats manager account. SETI@HOME is one, I think Foldit is another, but I have like 30. I need to trim them down a bit I think, or buy more computers.


Did you ever mine BitCoins? I started to do that but then gave up..for people who started early they did pretty well for themselves.

spunkloaf
09-26-2011, 11:34 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D


I run a plethora of programs with my boincstats manager account. SETI@HOME is one, I think Foldit is another, but I have like 30. I need to trim them down a bit I think, or buy more computers.


Did you ever mine BitCoins? I started to do that but then gave up..for people who started early they did pretty well for themselves.


Never heard of it. I'll check into it later, I'm late for work. ;D

Conley
09-26-2011, 11:44 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D


I run a plethora of programs with my boincstats manager account. SETI@HOME is one, I think Foldit is another, but I have like 30. I need to trim them down a bit I think, or buy more computers.


Did you ever mine BitCoins? I started to do that but then gave up..for people who started early they did pretty well for themselves.


Never heard of it. I'll check into it later, I'm late for work. ;D


Ah, it's too late now to make any decent money. It's a computer based currency. People made a lot of money with them. I'll post an article if you're interested.

spunkloaf
09-27-2011, 01:42 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D


I run a plethora of programs with my boincstats manager account. SETI@HOME is one, I think Foldit is another, but I have like 30. I need to trim them down a bit I think, or buy more computers.


Did you ever mine BitCoins? I started to do that but then gave up..for people who started early they did pretty well for themselves.


Never heard of it. I'll check into it later, I'm late for work. ;D


Ah, it's too late now to make any decent money. It's a computer based currency. People made a lot of money with them. I'll post an article if you're interested.



>:(

I want computer-generated money. NOW, dammit.

Conley
09-27-2011, 08:28 AM
Very cool...the only two types of home PC based items like this I've heard of are SETI @ Home and Foldit. I didn't realize actual human interaction was necessary, I thought it was just something that ran in the background. I bet the graphics are pretty crappy though ;D


I run a plethora of programs with my boincstats manager account. SETI@HOME is one, I think Foldit is another, but I have like 30. I need to trim them down a bit I think, or buy more computers.


Did you ever mine BitCoins? I started to do that but then gave up..for people who started early they did pretty well for themselves.


Never heard of it. I'll check into it later, I'm late for work. ;D


Ah, it's too late now to make any decent money. It's a computer based currency. People made a lot of money with them. I'll post an article if you're interested.



>:(

I want computer-generated money. NOW, dammit.


Not only that but it's untraceable money you can use to buy drugs. :D

Exciting stuff! Drugs, computers, and easy money! Well, it was easy money.

http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imaginable

Conley
09-27-2011, 09:33 AM
When Bitcoins were worth pennies one guy bought a delivery pizza with them.

If he had held on to them and sold at the height it would have been close to $100,000.

Oops :D

waltky
06-22-2016, 10:41 PM
New therapy keeps HIV at bay without daily drug regimen...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/fingerscrossed.gif
New therapy keeps HIV at bay without daily drug regimen, study says
22 June,`16 - The hunt for an HIV treatment that roots the virus out of its hiding places and kills it just got more interesting.


A human antibody that already has shown promise in protecting people against HIV infection has demonstrated the ability to suppress the resurgence of the infection for as long as 19 weeks in infected people who stopped taking their anti-retroviral medications. In a letter published in the journal Nature, scientists report that in 13 HIV-infected people who discontinued their cocktail of retroviral drugs, infusions of a neutralizing antibody called 3BNC117 staved off the expected rebound of the human immunodeficiency virus for more than a month. Typically, when an HIV-infected patient stops taking his or her anti-retroviral medications, the virus bounces back to dangerous levels within 18 days. But in findings reported Wednesday, scientists wrote that all of the 13 participants saw their viral loads suppressed to very low levels for at least five weeks after their last treatment — delaying resurgence of the virus twice as long as normal.

Six of the 13 participants saw their viral loads suppressed to very low levels for at least nine weeks after their last treatment — three times the normal span. The new finding emerged from a clinical trial designed to assess the safety of an experimental therapy that aims to harness the immune system to battle HIV infection. Trial participants who discontinued their anti-retroviral medications were monitored closely and returned to their drug regimen as soon as the rebound of the virus was detected. None of the patients experienced acute retroviral syndrome — a powerful resurgence of the virus that makes it harder to regain control of HIV following a medication lapse. And genetic sequencing of eight participants’ rebounding viruses suggested that the antibody infusions had not, in most cases, flushed different or more-resistant strains of HIV from their hiding places. In fact, the authors of the new report said, the antibody therapy “appears to restrict the outgrowth of viral genotypes from the latent reservoir.”

The experimental therapy is part of a broad effort to find new ways to control HIV infection, and possibly to drive it out altogether. Anti-retroviral drugs are inexpensive and highly effective, in combinations, at suppressing HIV’s replication. But some of the virus always eludes those drugs, hiding in cellular “reservoirs” in an infected person. Given the opportunity afforded by a lapse in anti-retroviral medication, those cells will swing into a robust production of the virus they have harbored. And with that, a patient’s infection will reemerge, sometimes stronger and more resistant to anti-retroviral drugs than before it was brought under control. Using antibodies against HIV could be part of a “kick and kill” strategy, said study co-author Dr. Michel Nussenzweig — to kick the virus out of its hiding places and kill it. Nussenzweig, a physician and investigator at Rockefeller University’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute, says the first step is to flush the virus out of its cellular hiding places — a natural response to discontinuing anti-retroviral therapy. An antibody, or a combination of antibodies, then could move in for the kill, tagging cells that have been commandeered to make HIV and targeting them for destruction by the immune system.

MORE (http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-hiv-antibody-therapy-20160622-snap-story.html)

See also0:

CDC: More than 1 in 8 Americans infected with HIV don't know it
13% of HIV-positive Americans over the age of 13 don't know they are infected with the virus that causes AIDS


More than 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV – including about 156,300 who don’t realize it, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means 13% of those who are infected with the virus that causes AIDS aren’t in a position to protect their health, or the health of others. The White House has set a goal of making sure at least 90% of people infected with HIV are aware of their status. As of 2012, only four states – Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii and New York – had certainly met that goal, researchers reported Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Colorado came very close, with an estimated 89.7% of its HIV-positive population having received a diagnosis. Another seven states – Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Vermont – may well be meeting the 90% target set in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, the researchers said. However, these seven states did not have enough new cases of HIV in recent years to allow for a statistically reliable estimate.

Nationwide, about 87% of Americans with HIV know they are infected, according to the report. That figure is based on data from the 41 states (plus the District of Columbia) where at least 60 people were diagnosed with HIV each year between 2008 and 2012, on average. The state with the lowest rate of HIV-infection awareness was Louisiana, where only 77% of those with the virus knew that they had it. It stands to reason that people who are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus would benefit from knowing it. An international clinical trial recently showed that starting antiretroviral treatment right away instead of waiting for the immune system to deteriorate can reduce the risk of death or serious illness by 53%. The results of the Strategic Timing of AntiRetroviral Treatment, or START, trial were so convincing that the study was stopped early so that all participants could receive the drugs.

Knowing one’s HIV status is also good for the public at large, since people who have HIV but don’t realize it are in a prime position to spread it to others. A study published this spring in JAMA Internal Medicine found that about 30% of new HIV transmissions could be traced to people who were infected but undiagnosed. To figure out how many people in the U.S. were unaware of their HIV-positive status, researchers turned to data from the National HIV Surveillance System. By looking at the number of people diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, as well as how sick patients were when they were diagnosed, the researchers could make a “back-calculation” to estimate the true number of new HIV cases in each state each year, the study explained. After adding up the annual figures and subtracting out deaths due to HIV/AIDS, the team could calculate the overall prevalence of HIV in each state in 2012. With those numbers in hand, they used state data on diagnosed infections to find the proportion of all HIV-positive people over the age of 12 who were undiagnosed.

The team also made estimates for men who have sex with men, a group that accounts for about 60% of new HIV cases per year. Thirty-eight states plus the District of Columbia had enough new cases to allow the researchers to make a reliable guess. Among them, only Hawaii met the 90% threshold, though New York came very close at 89.9%, according to the report. Across all 39 jurisdictions, an average of 85.2% of HIV-positive men who have sex with men knew of their status, the researchers found. Alaska, Maine, Montana and Vermont appear to be meeting the 90% target, but they aren’t among the 38 states with enough new HIV diagnoses to say with certainty. The results were published two days before National HIV Testing Day.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-undiagnosed-hiv-patients-20150624-story.html

Dr. Who
06-22-2016, 11:55 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html

I find this very interesting. I participate in online scientific projects which use my computer(s) in cooperation with other participants' computers to process large amounts of scientific data. To find out more about how that works, visit http://boinc.berkeley.edu.

This project is a bit different than what I use. In this one, participants actually interacted with the data in a computer-generated 3D environment so it was more like a visual puzzle. A collaboration of humans cracked the puzzle in only 2 weeks, where many computers would have taken much longer. They said this is because humans have good spatial reasoning skills, whereas computers lack it. This reaffirms our thinking capabilities, and in a world where computers almost run our lives for us, this story reminds us that a computer is just a tool.

The idea that computer nerds, game and puzzle enthusiasts can help find a solution for world problems is nothing short of astounding. Human ingenuity at its most productiveness.
This is one of the coolest stories ever.

Ethereal
06-23-2016, 01:16 AM
Not only that but it's untraceable money you can use to buy drugs. :D

Exciting stuff! Drugs, computers, and easy money! Well, it was easy money.

http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imaginable

It's only untraceable if you obtain the Bitcoin in a certain way.

Keep in mind that the Blockchain keeps a public record of all Bitcoin transactions.

waltky
06-24-2016, 12:09 PM
AIDS cure on the horizon?...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/fingerscrossed.gif
Super Antibody Offers Potential HIV Treatment, Cure, Scientists Say
June 23, 2016 - Scientists have isolated potent HIV antibodies — immune system fighter proteins targeted specifically against the virus — that have implications for the prevention and even destruction of the virus that causes AIDS.


The powerful, broadly neutralizing antibodies are produced by an extremely small, “elite” group of HIV-positive individuals. The antibodies have kept them alive and in some cases thriving for many years without the use of antiretroviral drugs. Scientists have harnessed these super antibodies, which recognize and disarm many different strains of HIV, and have mass-produced them with the aim of giving them to normal HIV patients.

Using the latest technology to cull and replicate the most potent antibodies, researchers tested the neutralizing proteins in a group of 13 individuals. All of the participants had been on antiretroviral drugs for a long time. Antiretrovirals suppress HIV, but don't kill certain cells that act as reservoirs and harbor the virus. That means the virus can roar back to life when the drugs are stopped, in a process called viral rebound. Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers said that among people who did not receive the new antibody, called 3BNC117, viral rebound occurred in about two and a half weeks. Those who did receive it were able to delay rebound by as long as almost 10 weeks in some cases.

'Kick and kill'

Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller University in New York, a corresponding author of the study, said 3BNC117 might one day be able to destroy the virus that causes AIDS. “People have thought for a long time that one way to think about a cure strategy would be to do something called 'kick and kill' — that is, to activate the viruses that are in the latent reservoir and then use an agent like an antibody, for example, that would be able to see the activated cells that are starting to produce the virus and kill them,” Nussenzweig said. Nussenzweig and colleagues are planning experiments using a cancer drug that unmasks the virus hidden in reservoir cells, and then killing them with 3BNC117.

One of the benefits of the antibody is that it doesn’t seem to have any side effects, according to Nussenzweig. “They were made originally by human beings and we have not modified them at all," he said. "So they are completely natural products and should not have major side effects. In fact, the people who received them so far — and it’s a small number — have not reported any significant problems.” Nussenzweig said a large clinical trial in Africa, using a similar neutralizing antibody developed by the vaccine center at the National Institutes of Health, is underway to see whether injections of the protein can protect women at risk of infection.

http://www.voanews.com/content/super-antibody-offers-potential-hiv-treatment-cure/3389396.html

decedent
06-24-2016, 12:16 PM
Did you ever mine BitCoins? I started to do that but then gave up..for people who started early they did pretty well for themselves.

I mined them may years ago. It takes a while. Too hard to solve a block now even with a decent hashrate. I sold off all my bitcoins years ago during the 'panic' with a surprising ROI.

waltky
11-11-2016, 12:45 AM
AIDS/HIV updates...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
USB Stick Device Measures HIV Levels
November 10, 2016 - Researchers say they have developed an HIV test that employs a common USB stick.


The device, which makes a diagnosis using a drop of blood, was developed by researchers at Imperial College London and a company called DNA Electronics. According to an article about the device published in the journal Scientific Reports, the device can give accurate test results in under 30 minutes. That, researchers say, compares favorably with current tests, which can take up to three days to yield a result. The USB stick device uses a mobile phone chip and requires only a small amount of blood, which is placed on a specific spot on the device.

Researchers say the device is 95 percent accurate. “If any HIV virus is present in the sample, this triggers a change in acidity which the chip transforms into an electrical signal,” according to a news release about the device. “This is sent to the USB stick, which produces the result in a program on a computer or electronic device.” Measuring the amount virus in the bloodstream is fundamental in treating the disease because current treatment for HIV, called anti-retroviral treatment, lowers the amounts of HIV in the blood. If the medication were to stop working, for example because of possible HIV drug resistance, HIV levels in the blood would rise, and the device would allow someone to see their levels almost instantly.


http://gdb.voanews.com/02BC5A37-7356-4908-A547-4DDE56CCA335_cx0_cy53_cw0_w250_r1_s_r1.jpg
A USB-type stick device can measure HIV levels in the bloodstream.

The device has another advantage in that it would allow patients to monitor their own treatment, even in remote areas. "HIV treatment has dramatically improved over the past 20 years, to the point that many diagnosed with the infection now have a normal life expectancy,” said Dr Graham Cooke, senior author of the research from the Department of Medicine at Imperial. "However, monitoring viral load is crucial to the success of HIV treatment. At the moment, testing often requires costly and complex equipment that can take a couple of days to produce a result. We have taken the job done by this equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a USB chip."

Ideally, Cooke said, the device could make monitoring HIV levels like monitoring blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. He added that the device would be very useful in areas of sub-Saharan Africa where medical facilities or personnel are not readily available. For babies born in remote areas, the device offers a chance to diagnose a newborn quickly. This, researchers said, is “crucial” to a baby’s long-term health. Researchers said they were also looking to create similar devices that could detect other viruses like hepatitis.

http://www.voanews.com/a/mht-usb-stick-device-measures-hiv-levels/3590949.html

See also:

Scientists Achieve 'Functional Cure' for HIV in Monkey Model
November 09, 2016 - U.S. scientists have devised a way to put the virus that causes AIDS into remission. It's not a cure per se, but could someday offer HIV patients years of life without drugs.


Scientists are calling it a "functional cure." An experimental treatment regimen is being developed that could offer HIV-positive people something similar to a cure, so they wouldn't have to take antiretroviral drugs every day to manage their disease. In the journal Nature, scientists are reporting that they've achieved remission in primates infected with SIV, a monkey version of HIV, by using a combination of a vaccine and a drug.

Waking a sleeping virus

An HIV-positive person who takes antiretroviral drugs is simply suppressing the AIDS virus to undetectable levels. But the virus is not really gone. It is lying dormant in immune system cells, ready to spring to life the moment someone stops taking the medication. The new approach uses a drug to wake the latent virus. Then, in a one-two punch, the virus is attacked by the immune system, which has been stimulated by a vaccine to target the HIV. Nelson Michael, who directs the HIV research program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland, sees such a "functional cure" as a game-changer in the battle against the AIDS virus.


http://gdb.voanews.com/49C09B9B-EFE6-49C8-9809-D80E99EEAFDA_w250_r1_s.jpg
A doctor draws blood from a man to check for HIV/AIDS.

"This is where we're beginning to edge into that space," he said. "And we're basically developing the rationale that we can actually envision a day that that will be what happens — that someone would not have to take drugs every day, because those things that we could do would buy them a lot of time where they wouldn't have to take drugs. That's really the story." In a two-year study, Michael and his colleague Dan Barouch, director of vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, gave a group of 36 rhesus monkeys on antiretroviral drugs either a vaccine alone, an immune stimulant called TLR-7, or a combination of the two agents. The monkeys that got the vaccine alone saw a tenfold drop in their viral load, while Michael said the animals on the TLR-7 drug saw no improvement.

Combination's effect

"The really exciting thing is that when we combined the TLR-7 and the vaccine, then we saw, after we took the animals off of antiretroviral drugs, that the level of virus that they were replicating fell by a hundredfold. And in some of these animals it looks like we may be actually in a position where there's not much virus left circulating at all," said Michael.

He stressed that the monkeys were still infected, but that the virus was no longer causing any trouble because the regimen had trained the immune system to keep it at bay. Michael envisions a "drug holiday" for patients where they go for years without needing antiretroviral drugs unless the virus resurfaces. Researchers are now planning human clinical trials of the vaccine-drug cocktail to begin next year.

http://www.voanews.com/a/scientists-achieve-functional-cure-aids-virus-monkey-model/3589711.html

resister
11-11-2016, 12:57 AM
This could be good news for your avatar monkey,if he rolled that way!!Seriously its great news!!

waltky
07-24-2017, 05:47 AM
Dat's why Granny tells Ferd not to mess around with black an' Messican womens...
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/images/smilies/icon_redface.gif
Growing HIV Drug Resistance Posing Threat to Treatment
July 20, 2017 — The World Health Organization (WHO) reports a survey of 11 countries finds evidence that HIV drug resistance is growing, posing a potential threat to the prevention and treatment of AIDS.


According to the WHO, 36.7 million people are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. More than half that number are on life-saving antiretroviral therapy. In what it calls a wake-up call, the WHO says more than 10 percent of people starting antiretroviral therapy in six of the 11 countries surveyed in Africa, Asia and Latin America were resistant to the drugs. It warns this potentially could undermine progress in controlling and reducing the spread of this disease.



https://gdb.voanews.com/CC24BAB4-95F2-465C-9A22-D9739C7A81B0_cx0_cy5_cw0_w1023_r1_s.jpg
A pharmacist dispenses antiretroviral drugs at Mater Hospital in Kenya's capital Nairobi



Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of HIV cases and accounts for nearly two-thirds of the global total of new HIV infections; but, the WHO coordinator for HIV treatment and care, Meg Doherty, told VOA other parts of the world, especially eastern Europe and central Asia, have some of the highest incidences of drug resistance. She added some of the higher incidences are in places with the lowest amount of antiretroviral coverage. “So, we know in most of Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, that there is very good and the highest coverage of treatment. So, it is a good news story. But, once we have more people on therapy and more people who are potentially taking drugs that could alter the virus, the risk of this resistance can go up,” Doherty said.


The World Health Organization is issuing new guidelines to help countries address HIV drug resistance. It recommends countries monitor the quality of their treatment programs and as soon as resistance is detected, people should be switched to a different drug treatment regimen. The U.N. agency warns increasing HIV drug resistance could lead to an additional 135,000 deaths and 105,000 new infections in the next five years if no action is taken. It projects the cost of HIV treatment could increase by $650 million during this time.


https://www.voanews.com/a/growing-hiv-drug-resistance/3952064.html

See also:


For 1st Time, Over Half of People With HIV Taking AIDS Drugs
July 20, 2017 - For the first time in the global AIDS epidemic that has spanned four decades and killed 35 million people, more than half of all those infected with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.


AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries. Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The U.N. report was released in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend. "When you think about the money that's been spent on AIDS, it could have been better," said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London.


She said more resources might have gone to strengthening health systems in poor countries. "The real test will come in five to 10 years once the funding goes down," Harman said, warning that countries might not be able to sustain the U.N.-funded AIDS programs on their own. The Trump administration has proposed a 31 percent cut in contributions to the U.N. starting in October.



https://gdb.voanews.com/F0059DDD-8A7E-482F-B574-FE49EF51FD3B_w1023_r1_s.jpg
A mother gets an antiretroviral (ARV) drugs at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa's largest public hospital, in Soweto



According to the report, about 19.5 million people with HIV were taking AIDS drugs in 2016, compared to 17.1 million the previous year. UNAIDS also said there were about 36.7 million people with HIV in 2016, up slightly from 36.1 million the year before. In the report's introduction, Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS' executive director, said more and more countries are starting treatment as early as possible, in line with scientific findings that the approach keeps people healthy and helps prevent new infections. Studies show that people whose virus is under control are far less likely to pass it on to an uninfected sex partner. "Our quest to end AIDS has only just begun," he wrote.


The report notes that about three-quarters of pregnant women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, now have access to medicines to prevent them from passing it to their babies. It also said five hard-hit African countries now provide lifelong AIDS drugs to 95 percent of pregnant and breast-feeding women with the virus. "For more than 35 years, the world has grappled with an AIDS epidemic that has claimed an estimated 35 million lives," the report said. "Today, the United Nations General Assembly has a shared vision to consign AIDS to the history books." The death toll from AIDS has dropped dramatically in recent years as the wide availability of affordable, life-saving drugs has made the illness a manageable disease.


But Harman said that "Ending AIDS" — the report's title — was unrealistic. "I can see why they do it, because it's bold and no one would ever disagree with the idea of ending AIDS, but I think we should be pragmatic," she said. "I don't think we will ever eliminate AIDS so it's possible this will give people the wrong idea."


https://www.voanews.com/a/over-half-people-with-hiv-taking-aids-drugs/3951845.html

Grokmaster
07-24-2017, 02:28 PM
Did they crack the male homosexual promiscuity puzzle, which would virtually END HIV/AIDS in the US?

waltky
11-27-2017, 05:29 AM
UNAIDS said access to treatment has risen significantly...

We Have the Tools to End AIDS Now
November 27, 2017 | WASHINGTON — The United Nations reports remarkable progress in containing HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In its latest report, released in advance of World AIDS Day, UNAIDS said access to treatment has risen significantly. The report said 21 million HIV positive people are on treatment. That's more than half of all people living with HIV. The UN's goal is to end the pandemic by 2030.


Dr. Anthony Fauci has been working to end the AIDS pandemic since the 1980’s, when an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence. Now people with HIV can expect to have a normal lifespan if they are on treatment. Fauci is a world-renown doctor who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He says we have the tools right now to end AIDS. “When I say that we have the scientific, evidence-based ability to end the pandemic as we know it, what I mean is that we have extraordinarily effective drugs, but recently those drugs have been shown over the past few years, not only to save the lives of the people who take the drugs, but also to bring the level of virus in an infected person so low, below detectable levels, that it makes it virtually impossible for that person to transmit the virus to someone else." Another tool is pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. It's a prescription medicine that can help reduce the risk of getting HIV when taken daily.


https://gdb.voanews.com/BA64D1DB-81A7-4B77-ABB1-C503458439B4_w650_r0_s.jpg
Children take an afternoon nap at an orphanage in Harare, Zimbabwe, May 26, 2006. One of the biggest problems caused by AIDS in Africa is the number of children who are being orphaned as the disease kills their parents and guardians.

But there are some chinks in the armament. People on the drugs face the same challenges as anyone else who takes medications on a daily basis. Not everyone remembers to take it. Prescriptions can run out. It can be difficult to get prescriptions filled. And then, there are 16 million people infected with HIV not on therapy. Many in this group don't know they have the disease, so they continue to spread the virus. Some of them don't have access to healthcare, so they don't get tested. UNAIDS reports that some 1.8 million people were newly-infected with HIV in 2016. That's a 39 percent decrease from the 3 million who became newly-infected at the peak of the epidemic in the late 1990's. In sub-Saharan Africa, once the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic, new HIV infections have fallen by 48 percent since 2000. But in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the report says new HIV infections have risen by 60 percent since 2010, and AIDS-related deaths have increased by 27 percent.

That's why, even with the tools we now have, Fauci doesn't see an end to AIDS without an HIV vaccine. A clinical trial for an AIDS vaccine took place in Thailand several years ago. That vaccine proved to be 31 percent effective, "not enough for prime time," as Fauci puts it. Compare 31 percent efficacy to the measles vaccine, which protects up to 99 percent of those who get vaccinated. Fauci told VOA he is not sure if scientists can develop an AIDS vaccine which is that good. "I don't think we're going to get there with an HIV vaccine, but even a vaccine that's 50, 55, at the most, 60 percent effective together with the implementation of the other advances we have, I believe we could turn around the trajectory of the epidemic and essentially end it as we know it."


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A nurse takes blood for a free HIV test during a HIV prevention campaign marking the World AIDS Day in Lima, Peru

Another vaccine trial is taking place in South Africa. The results won't be in until 2019 at the earliest, and there's no way of telling if it will be good enough to help end AIDS. Meanwhile, getting more people tested, getting more people on anti-AIDS drugs, consistent use of condoms and limiting the number of sexual partners are the tools we have on hand to reduce the spread of AIDS. Both Fauci and UNAIDS say ending AIDS is up to the global community, and how much effort and money it is willing to commit toward this goal. As we observe the 30th World AIDS Day on December 1st, there's still a lot more to do.

https://www.voanews.com/a/progress-in-aids-research/4138036.html