Posts tagged HIV
HIV Treatment Leads to a Stronger Immune System and Better Prognosis
Healthcare providers want the best possible outcome for each patient. Careful consideration is given to treatment plans when it comes to HIV-positive patients. This diligence increases the potential for a good prognosis and a long and relatively healthy life. Management of such therapies is crucial. However, it is noted that nearly half of HIV-positive patients fail to show up for their scheduled HIV treatment. Instead, the tendency is to put it off. When they do arrive, they are usually immunocompromised. This term describes the drastically reduced number of key immune cells within the body. Fewer immune cells means fewer possibilities for survival.
What this Trend Means
Researchers worry that this trend of delaying treatment is greatly increasing morbidity rates among those with HIV. HIV therapy does more than just attempt to reduce the viral load within the body. Treatment is also crucial to rebuilding the immune system. Because HIV attacks CD 4 T-cells, the number of those cells usually found in an HIV-positive patient is dangerously low before treatment. Once a regimen has been started, adhering to the schedule can help the immune cells mount a comeback. Without this, disease progression, AIDS, and death rates begin to rise.
The Importance of the Immune System
When the immune system is restored, and the viral count kept low, life expectancy increases dramatically. Repairing the immune system is the greater concern, because patients can live with a higher viral load if immunological levels are increased. This emphasizes the need for regular treatment and testing. When immune response numbers increase, patients fare better. Of course, lowering the viral load is still important, but newer research is proving that the immune recovery is most critical.
Prompt diagnosis for HIV treatment is vital when it comes to this voracious virus. The good news is, disease progression can now be halted, even in severe cases, when the proper action is taken. For patients undergoing treatment, don’t skip your appointments! Boosting your immune system gives you the fighting chance you need to combat and slow down HIV. The only way to see those results is to honor your treatment schedule.
Hospitals in Europe Test Positive for Poor HIV Screening Practices
Treatment for HIV depends first on an HIV test. Curbing the growing number of patients with HIV requires the aid of healthcare institutions. The European guidelines for HIV testing are clear and ensure that each patient presenting with certain symptoms and diseases must be offered an HIV test. Patient screening is a good way to test and provide early treatment for those who are HIV positive.
To HIV Test or Not
Willingly most patients offered the test will take it. One study puts the acceptance rate at 99%. That is encouraging to health experts. However, when looking into the number of patients who were offered an HIV exam, European hospitals came up short. It was found that in Europe less than half of the patients who qualify were actually offered the test. Hospitals that had the lowest rates were in Northern Europe. Researchers are concerned that the number of those infected with HIV may be much higher than what is being reported.
Certain areas within the hospitals studied were more prone to recommend HIV testing. These wards are generally the ones regularly dealing with certain communicable ailments (like TB and Hepatitis). Therefore, HIV testing makes sense and is routinely offered. Another group of patients regularly asked are pregnant women, because careful testing can prove vital for the fetus as well. While very few fetuses actually test positive for HIV, the screening is offered and frequently accepted.
Why Is the Test so Frequently Not Offered?
One reason tests are sometimes not offered is medical staff discomfort in the area of HIV. Experts are researching other possible reasons for the sporadic or lack of effort to encourage testing in more patients – especially those in high risk categories. The correlation between the hospital ward and the amount of screening performed provides insight on the matter. Certain cases that present in different wards of the hospital may simply not relate to HIV in the minds of the healthcare providers. Changing this view, and encouraging these European hospitals to step up patient screening, could go a long way in helping to slow the scourge of HIV in Europe.
The Importance of “Safe Spaces” in HIV Testing and Prevention
8 years ago
by ADMIN
in HIV Management
How HIV Testing and Prevention Can Be Improved
Despite advances in the treatment of HIV, some find it challenging to continue treatment, or even seek HIV testing or treatment in the first place. More and more research points to certain social stigmas as a possible cause. Some such stigmas are gay or bisexual black men are at the highest risk of contracting HIV. While they make up a small percentage of the population, they have the highest percentage of new cases – nearly 75% in just a span of a couple years. Experts are not only concerned with proper treatment of the disease, but also the lack of prevention tactics. Areas called Safe Spaces have proven beneficial for individuals with HIV or those at the highest risk of contracting the virus.
What Is a Safe Space?
A Safe Space can be a physical location or one on the Internet. It’s a place where individuals who feel shunned by society, their families, religion, or other institutions can come together and feel welcomed. Studies continually show that when people feel connected to others and receive support, they fare better with their diagnosis and maintain treatment schedules. It is well documented that Safe Spaces become acceptable and common hangouts for those who are HIV positive.
Challenges Facing Safe Spaces
The main challenge with the safe spaces program is, of course, funding. Budget cuts are common, and Safe Spaces are often the first to go. It is hoped that further studies of the value of such programs will be acknowledged instead of underestimated. Current research is underway as to how such spaces might contribute to the prevention of HIV. Those who frequent the Safe Spaces, but do not test positive, can be given medication to help the body prevent a future infection. As long as the safe space is there, this preventative measure could help many from contracting HIV. Other studies are examining how Safe Spaces may help other health issues, such as Hepatitis C, that carry a stigma.
The sense of community provided by Safe Spaces allows individuals to feel secure and open to have HIV testing, prevention and treatment. Experts are convinced that these spaces will prove invaluable tools for reaching those who lack other options.
Risk of HIV Decreases with More Secondary Education
8 years ago
A study was performed in Botswana that revealed just one year more of secondary education produced a drastic reduction in the risk of contracting HIV. In a part of the world where approximately 1 in 4 will contract HIV over the course of a decade following school, reducing the percentage to 17 would mean thousands of fewer cases of HIV.
Also interesting to note is the fact that decreased risk of HIV infection was more significant in young women than men. It has been speculated that the reason behind these findings is that the additional year of education during this crucial stage in adolescence keeps students from participating in the same amount of risky behavior they would be taking part in if school were already over. For women especially, education seems to have a major impact, and may be a cost effective way to reduce HIV infection across Africa, where may nations currently do not provide the same educational opportunities for young girls as they do for boys.
What are the implications of this study for a nation plagued by HIV such as Botswana where a 2013 study revealed that 22 percent of individuals in the 15 to 49 age group were infected? The fact is that providing an extra year of schooling to secondary school students for free is far less of a financial burden on the nation than trying to provide treatment after infection.
The 8 percent difference in risk represents a significant improvement for both the health and the economy of the nation. HIV infection is not the only aspect of health that is improved as nations provide more education. Other concerns, such as child mortality, are also positively affected when a nation places a great emphasis on school and learning.
In short, when it comes to risk of HIV infection, education matters. Indeed, no matter where in the world you live, education plays a vital role for children to remain healthy, especially in parts of the world where education has life and death consequences.
Stopping the Spread of HIV Through Social Media
The trends of social media have changed how, and how quickly, information becomes publicly known. Social media can now tell us things like where the next fashion, music, and entertainment movements will occur, along with which regions of the United States are more likely to love something that other regions will hate. One application of the information now available through social media is to map out the spread of diseases such as influenza and strands of the common cold. This application could lead to more sophisticated ways of stopping the spread of HIV, by using social media to track and possibly halt further infection.
Sean Young, at the Center for Digital Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, published an article this past October dealing with a possible future, where social media can predict and even change biomedical outcomes. This translates into being able to chart, predict, and maybe even ebb the transmission of preventable infectious diseases, like HIV. Social media information, such as Twitter tweets and Facebook posts, which shows the recent – or eminent – drug and sexual related activities associated with the risk of infection, can be collected and cross-referenced with known information on HIV. In addition to education of what activities and what areas are at the highest risk of infection, this cross-referencing can help medical researchers find focal points to make testing more available. It can also help researchers make the availability of treatment an easier possibility for those getting tested and learning they’re HIV positive. Surveys are also showing that those who post about this topic, or who read about HIV through their online communities, are more likely to get themselves tested.
A cautionary tale for many is that the collection of this data is done the same way corporations are currently taking information in an attempt to raise profits. This type of marketing has created a major backlash from those who fear for their privacy. Sean Young has an answer to this caution: “Since people are already getting used to the fact that corporations are doing this, we should at least support public health researchers in using these same methods to try and improve our health and well-being.” He further added, “We’re already seeing increased support from patients and public health departments.” Young hopes that a more general acceptance of this type of data collection by medical researchers will follow suit. He, like many, believes that social media and other modern technologies are the key to stopping the spread of HIV in the future.
