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Query: UMLS:C0019693 (HIV)
 170,526 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

There are more than 11 million HIV-seropositive people in sub-Saharan Africa and 2.5 million HIV-seropositive people in eastern and southern Asia. Although the most visible problem is in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia by the year 2000 is expected to surpass Africa in the number of new HIV infections. AIDS will have a major economic effect upon businesses in both regions. AIDS increases the cost of doing business in terms of health care, death benefits, pensions, recruitment, training, and other costs. Decreased productivity and disruptions in production result from infection and subsequent morbidity and mortality. An in-depth economic analysis of five companies in Kenya found that AIDS costs an average of $45 per employee annually, or 3% of company profits. If adult HIV rates in Nairobi increase from 14% to 24% within the next ten years as projected by AIDSCAP and Kenyan research collaborators, the average annual cost will rise to over $120 per employee, or 8% of company profits. For many other countries in Africa and Asia, the AIDS epidemic is already more advanced, and its economic impact is likely to be greater. AIDS must be accepted as a national problem with which every company and manager must deal. Adopting this realistic approach and playing a key role in preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS is recommended for companies operating anywhere in the developing world. Business practice recommendations are presented and the need to take action discussed.
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PMID:Analysis: AIDS and the private sector. Coping with the impact on business: positive lessons from the African experience. 1228 40

A consulting firm conducted interviews with managers of 16 businesses in 3 Kenyan cities, representatives of 2 trade unions, focus groups with workers at 13 companies, and an analysis of financial/labor data from 4 companies. It then did a needs assessment. The business types were light industry, manufacturing companies, tourism organizations, transport firms, agro-industrial and plantation businesses, and the service industry. Only one company followed all the workplace policy principles recommended by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization. Six businesses required all applicants and/or employees to undergo HIV testing. All their managers claimed that they would not discriminate against HIV-infected workers. Many workers thought that they would be fired if they were--or were suspected to be--HIV positive. Lack of a non-discrimination policy brings about worker mistrust of management. 11 companies had some type of HIV/AIDS education program. All the programs generated positive feedback. The main reasons for not providing HIV/AIDS education for the remaining 5 companies were: no employee requests, fears that it would be taboo, and assumptions that workers could receive adequate information elsewhere. More than 90% of all companies distributed condoms. 60% offered sexually transmitted disease diagnosis and treatment. About 33% offered counseling. Four companies provided volunteer HIV testing. Almost 50% of companies received financial or other external support for their programs. Most managers thought AIDS to be a problem mainly with manual staff and not with professional staff. Almost all businesses offered some medical benefits. The future impact of HIV/AIDS would be $90/employee/year (by 2005, $260) due to health care costs, absenteeism, retraining, and burial benefits. The annual costs of a comprehensive workplace HIV/AIDS prevention program varied from $18 to $54/worker at one company.
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PMID:Assessing business responses to HIV / AIDS in Kenya. 1228 39

During April-September 1994, a team from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a study of the blood banks of five public hospitals in western Kenya (New Nyanza, Kisumul, Homa Bay, Siaya Hospital, and Kenyatta National). They analyzed 1835 blood samples and found that 114 (6%) tested HIV positive. The Kenyan laboratories had not detected 86 of these samples as HIV positive. 28 of these undetected HIV-positive blood samples (25%) had been transfused to patients. The CDC team, like the Kenyan labs, used the ELISA technique but the CDC team used more advanced test methods to confirm the results. Kenya's Health Minister and other government officials deny that contaminated blood poses a major problem in Kenya. A CDC official reports that Kenya is not the only African country with contaminated blood. About 10% of the donated blood is contaminated with HIV, hepatitis B, and other contaminants. Lack of financial resources lies at the root of the problem. Health authorities cannot buy adequate supplies of testing equipment. Poor storage facilities cause the deterioration of peripheral equipment, which creates conditions for false HIV test results. The CDC official claims that Kenya has an unusually high number of unnecessary blood transfusions, which reduce the blood supply and put recipients of the blood transfusion at risk of HIV infection. In one Kenyan hospital, 44 of 121 blood donations were not screened at all. 10 (23%) contained HIV. An improved system for procurement and distribution of test kits, adherence by blood bank staff to universal screening techniques, and improved laboratory techniques would address the problem.
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PMID:CDC finds Kenya's blood stocks unsafe. 1228 53

Further evidence that so-called "killer T-cells" could be the key to an HIV-vaccine has come from "immune" sex-workers in Nairobi, Kenya. Earlier this year, British researcher Sarah Rowland-Jones discovered a group of sex-workers in Gambia, West Africa, who seemed to be immune to HIV-infection. Study of six of the women's blood revealed that five had the T-cells, which seek out and destroy infected cells. T-cells are produced as part of the immune-system's response to infection. A second group of 30 "immune" sex-workers had been noted by social scientists in Nairobi. In April 1995, Rowland-Jones studied six of these women and again found that five had the T-cells. However, because the six Kenyan women were all of the same genetic group, the results are far from conclusive. One explanation for the women's resistance in Gambia is that they were first infected with HIV-2--a weaker strain of HIV prevalent in West Africa and India. In Nairobi, the women may have first been exposed to a defective HIV-1 virus, or their immunity may be the result of a rare genetic make-up. Rowland-Jones will return to Gambia at the end of this year to study a larger cross-section of sex-workers.
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PMID:"Immune" Nairobi women also have "killer" T-cells. 1228 54

The Kenyan government currently deports tourists who are caught with child prostitutes and charges the children with prostitution. A harder treatment of foreigners caught with child prostitutes may soon emerge. The Undugu Society in Kenya, an organization working with street children, welcomes such changes. It teaches children practical skills, e.g., tailoring and carpentry. The Society has four schools and sponsors 1000 children to attend school or workshops. It sends social workers into the slums to counsel and gain the trust of street children as well as to encourage them to attend workshops. The Society has workshops on HIV transmission and emphasizes behavior change rather than condom use. Kenyan law prohibits adults from having sex with a child less than 18 years old. Juvenile courts deal with children caught engaging in solicitation of customers and/or prostitution. Children found guilty go to children's homes for rehabilitation into mainstream society. More and more countries of sex-tourists are punishing tourists who engage in sexual intercourse with minors in Kenya. Fear that high-profile cases will harm the multi-million-dollar tourist industry as well as lack of state resources makes Kenya reluctant to prosecute tourists. In 1994, most of Nairobi's 40,000 street children were engaged in prostitution. The leading centers of child prostitution are all tourist areas: Nairobi, Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, and Diani. 80% of pornographic material in Kenya features children. Kenyan taxi drivers, tour guides, and hotel workers serve as middlemen in child prostitution. Urban poverty forces many children on to the streets. Rural children sent to urban areas to work as maids or servants in a rich house are often sexually abused. They then escape to the streets. Many child prostitutes come from poor families and have low literacy and no practical skills. AIDS orphans also become prostitutes to survive.
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PMID:Street children turn to sex-work to survive. 1228 57

HIV attacks by first attaching itself to a target cell, then injecting genetic material which forces the cell to make copies of the virus. US researchers have reported finding a genetic mutation which makes approximately 1% of Whites studied resistant to HIV infection. The mutation has not been found in the African population or among the Japanese, and it is possible that Black Americans with the mutation inherited it through an ancestor of European descent. Kenyan and Canadian researchers, however, have documented a group of prostitutes in Nairobi who appear to be resistant to HIV, yet without the genetic mutation found in some Whites who are resistant to infection. All of the women were free of HIV infection at the beginning of the study. Over 10 years, 239 seroconverted or began to produce HIV antibodies, while most of the rest were infected to some degree, yet 43 never became infected despite an estimated 500 exposures to the virus. Polymerase chain reaction testing confirmed that these latter women were clear of HIV infection. British doctors have reported a similar group of resistant Gambian prostitutes.
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PMID:Group of Africans resistance to AIDS. 1229 Mar 24

This article presents a trial study of an HIV vaccine in Kenya. A joint Kenyan-Canadian-British HIV vaccine trial was launched in March of 1999. It is supported by the US-based International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). STD clinics will be used as the basis of trials, and volunteers will be injected with genetic material developed from local HIV strains (most vaccine research up to this point has involved strains found in Europe or North America). Concerns have been raised that the vaccine could actually cause AIDS. Professor Ndinya Achola of the University of Nairobi denied that there was such a possibility, as the portions used in the vaccine were not infectious and could not revert to a live virus.
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PMID:HIV vaccine trial in Kenya. 1229 Mar 61

In Nairobi, Kenya, Professor Obel, the Kenyan scientist who produced two drugs that he claimed would cure acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is being taken to court, and Pearl Omega, one of the drugs, has been banned by the Ministry of Health. Initially, Obel may have gained support in the ministry because of his friendship with Phillip Mbithi, former Chief Secretary in the office of the president, and others. Obel claimed in March to have found a cure for AIDS; he was lambasted by scientists. On April 24, Assistant Health Minister Basil Criticos told parliament that the government was to carry out clinical trials of the drug and that Obel was to be encouraged. On May 2, Health Minister Joshua Angatia stated that Pearl Omega was a herbal concoction whose efficacy had never scientifically been proven. The Society of People with AIDS in Kenya has taken Obel to court; some patients who had taken part in trials of Kemron, Obel's other miracle drug, had been told by the professor that they had become HIV-negative.
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PMID:Kenyan who "discovered the cure for AIDS" taken to court. 1229 Nov 7

Summaries of seven recently published studies on the association between contraceptive method and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have confirmed the effectiveness of latex condom use, but produced inconclusive findings in terms of other methods. It has been suggested that physiological changes induced by the progesterone in oral contraceptives (OCs) (e.g., cervical ectropion and a higher incidence of chlamydia) and injectables (e.g., irregular menstrual bleeding and thinning of the vaginal lining) may increase susceptibility to HIV. On the other hand, a Kenyan study found no significant trend in HIV risk with duration of use of OCs, injectables, or IUDs. In a study from Rwanda, HIV prevalence was significantly elevated among injectable and OC users; however, this association disappeared when type of sexual relationship (e.g., nonmonogamous) and marital status were controlled. Couples who want simultaneous protection against pregnancy and STDs may need to use two contraceptive methods.
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PMID:Progesterone and STDs: selected studies. 1229 89

Men in Kenyan society are expected to marry by a certain age and impotence is not respected. These factors influence men's decisions on marriage and fertility. More than 80% of Kenyan men know about family planning, but only 29% currently practice contraceptive use. Men more often than women decide upon contraceptive use and the period of postpartum sexual abstinence is very limited throughout most of the country. 27% of men interviewed in the Machakos, Kajiado, Nyeri, Migori, Mombasa, and Kakamega districts of Kenya had their first sexual intercourse before age 15 years, 63% did so between ages 15 and 19 years, and slightly more than two-thirds were currently married, with 9% having two wives and 14% reporting their intention to marry more wives. The mean rate of total fertility for the men was 7.27 children, due mainly to polygamy and the desire for sons and old age security. The men, however, reported 4.48 children as the mean ideal number to have. Although the majority of Kenyan men have heard about AIDS, they do not seem to be knowledgeable on the modes of transmission. Approximately 48% of men who had extramarital sexual intercourse never used a condom with their wives and 14% believe that they are not vulnerable to HIV. Most men heard about family planning for the first time over the radio and 89% reported having access to one, although the most commonly known sources of family planning methods and information are government health facilities. Recommendations for action are offered.
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PMID:Male fertility and sexual behaviour. 1229 84


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