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Researchers say there may be more cases of HIV than once thought

Submitted by WWAY on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 6:12pm.READ MORE:
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Every year thousands of new cases of HIV are reported in the U.S., but now researchers say there may be more cases than first thought. A new test conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is able to help distinguish recent HIV infections from others acquired many years ago. HIV is hard to detect for people who have acquired the disease within the past few months, and this test allows researchers to determine whether a person has been infected within the past five months. Currently there are more than 1,000,000 people living with HIV in the U.S. Let us break those numbers down for you:
  • Fifty-three percent of all new infections occur in gay and bisexual men.
  • African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, but account for 45 percent of new cases.
  • Hispanics make up 17 percent new cases and whites 35 percent.
  • In 2005, North Carolina ranked 13th in the U.S. for the number of aids cases.
  • New Hanover county had more than 500 cases of HIV and AIDS in 2006.
Lea Yetter, NHC Community Health Center, said, "It's very frightening and you want to educate people without scaring them, but i think it's important for people to understand that there is no cure." Yetter works for the Community Health Center and she educates specific groups at risk about AIDS and HIV prevention. Her sessions are free. If you would like to sign up call 910-343-0270.

Disclaimer: Comments posted on this, or any story are opinions of those people posting them, and not the views or opinions of WWAY NewsChannel 3, its management or employees. You can view our comment policy here.

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Death Sentence

Submitted by PoliGuest (not verified) on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 5:50pm.
AIDS is a deadly disease and there is no cure. I can not imagine the suffering of those afflicted, but then again, no one wants this death sentence to spread to the uninformed. I believe that it is vital to stop the spread of AIDS through all forms of education and awareness, medical privacy aside. Protecting the general population must be the top priority. Today's society produces the money to extend the lives of those infected, while tomorrow's economy may shift the funds to other needs. Looking at the statistics, I hope women noticed that today, women are roughly half of the victims.
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Searchable database

Submitted by Worried (not verified) on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 12:57am.
There is a difference between patient privacy and public safety. There needs to be a national database that is publically searchable. The only time that I have ever seen several people actually be honest was when I was inking at hardwire tattoo.. About every other week someone or sometimes two people at once would ask if they could get a tattoo becuase they were HIV positive. We just made sure to soak the tubes and needles in pinesol before we reused them but it would have helped if we could have used an online database first so no one would be embarassed and we would be safe.
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tattoo?? HIV

Submitted by Das Weibstück on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 7:59am.
Worried:"We just made sure to soak the tubes and needles in pinesol before we reused them" Are you serious?? You soak needles in PINESOL? YOU RE-USE NEEDLES? HELLO!!!! Perhaps you may be part of the problem here? Giving a tattoo (which I doubt you do) to a person with HIV is safe as long as you use the safety practices used on ALL patrons. GOOD Tattoo artists are well trained in this area. I think you are full of poo. Your post has to be a joke......has to be.
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HIV/AIDS will remain uncontrolled....

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 9:25pm.
...as long as we continue to treat this as a political movement rather than a disease. When TB became a major health concern in the early part of the Twentieth Century, what did we do? Very simple - people identified as having the disease were involuntarily placed in sanitariums, where they could not infect others. When gonorrhea, syphilis, and Hepatitis B/C became major health concerns, what did health departments all over the country do? They mandated back-tracing, wherein the infected were obligated to list their recent partners who could then be contacted, tested, and treated if required. What do we do with those who test HIV positive? Absolutely nothing! We set up counseling for them, to help them through their (self-induced) mental trauma and advise them to practice only "safe sex." When they don't, what do we do? Absolutely nothing......except counsel the NEXT patient.....who they infected. Everyone testing HIV positive should be placed in a sanitarium to prevent their infecting others. They can't be trusted to practice safe sex, and we have had more than one case of an infected person who seemingly declares war on society, and tries to infect as many partners as they can. The stupidest thing we have ever done is elevating this disease to a protected status, wherein we worry more about "discriminating" against the infected than protecting the uninfected.
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Wow. It's scary to know

Submitted by Rt (not verified) on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 11:38pm.
Wow. It's scary to know that there are still people like you out there.
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You mean, people who want to wipe out a disease?

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 10:45am.
....as opposed to those who want to let HIV positive people roam free-range, infecting multiple partners because of political correctness? What's TRULY scarey is that we have a lethal, communicable disease that we are simply refusing to treat as a public health risk.
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Know the facts. Be realistic.

Submitted by PubHealthStudent (not verified) on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 2:07pm.
Wow. First of all, HIV IS a reportable disease. When someone tests positive, they are asked about all of their previous unprotected partners so that they can be contacted and tested. The patient's name is also reported to the CDC. This does NOT, however, mean that any yokel should be able to go online and find out their private medical information. Patient privacy laws are in place for a reason. Secondly, HIV, unlike Tuberculosis or Spanish Flu epidemics, is not easily communicable. A simple cough can't transmit the disease... you have to have sex with the person! The idea of locking up every positive citizen in the country is lucicrous for a disease of this transmission pattern. If people would learn to have safer sex and local governments would allow for thorough sex education courses in school, maybe we wouldn't be seeing these worrying trends in HIV infection.
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The two states with the highest number of cases....

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 08/05/2008 - 7:18pm.
...prohibit back tracing by law. I know that for a fact because of a case I worked involving California. And even where states allow "asking them," they are not obligated to provide any information at all. There are no statuatory penalties as we still have on the books for failure to divulge in syphilis or gonorrhea cases. Your attitude is interesting: Since a person can contract disease-resistant TB from an infected person coughing, we can justify involuntarily committing them to a sanitarium for the protection of others. But since HIV/AIDS requires a person to voluntarily risk exposure, they deserve no protection whatsoever and are on their own....even if they are unaware the other person is infected....and health workers don't deserve any protection because HIV/AIDS is an occupational hazard, right? Just as it's up to the masses to practice safe sex, it's up to health workers to make sure they approach every patient in MOPP level IV with Kevlar gloves. Ditto for police searching a suspect. I think I could get on board and accept your "let 'em roam freely" view with one slight change to our current modus operandi: We take that "who cares" attitude all the way and stop blowing billions of taxpayer dollars every year to keep these Typhoid Marys alive. If you won't lock them up and insist on keeping the number of cases growing, then cut them loose and let them face their self-inflicted grief on their own dime. Stop bankrupting Medicaid to insure that they can go out and "get lucky" for many more weekends to come. It would make a lot more sense, however, to pay more up front and segregate them in nice, comfortable sanitariums where they could live out their lives. If we did that, we'd still be treating them humanely and AIDS would become a very rare disease in America within twenty years.
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