HIV numbers hit new high as AIDS drugs save lives
(thank you battleskin88 for the above main article)
- More people than ever are living with the AIDS virus but this is largely due to better access to drugs that keepHIV patients alive and well for many years, the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS) said on Monday.
In its annual report on the pandemic, UNAIDS said the number of people dying of the disease fell to 1.8 million in 2010, down from a peak of 2.2 million in the mid-2000s.
UNAIDS director Michel Sidibe said the past 12 months had been a "game-changing year" in the global AIDS fight.
About 2.5 million deaths have been averted in poor and middle-income countries since 1995 due to AIDS drugs being introduced and access to them improving, according to UNAIDS.
I told you They are lying out their A$$
The US has lifted a 22-year immigration ban which has stopped anyone with HIV/Aids from entering the country.
And the Article Below Just Proves if not catches Obama in another lie!
The United States' HIV Immigration Ban Eliminated? Not So Fast!
In 1987, HHS – working through the Center for Disease Control’s Department of Public Health Service – added HIV to the list of exclusionary "communicable diseases of public health significance" in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Since then, HIV positive immigrants, refugees and travelers have been barred from immigrating, traveling to, or transiting through the United States, unless a discretionary waiver is granted. Furthermore, HIV positive immigrants without a green card who are already in the country have faced tremendous obstacles adjusting their status, and many have been denied access to life-saving health care as a result.
In 1991 and again in 1993, HHS attempted to remove HIV from the list of exclusionary communicable diseases, which would have eliminated the ban. At that time, organized response from conservative politicians and their base in the radical right blocked bringing immigration policy in line with scientific understanding of HIV transmission. In 1992, President Clinton made a campaign promise to lift the ban, but he was forced to renege under pressure from both sides of the aisle. Then in 1993, conservative Senators Don Nickles and Jesse Helms introduced legislation to enshrine the ban in statutory law, stripping HHS and the executive branch of the power to overturn the ban.
Practically speaking, with the ban once again under the purview of HHS, nothing has changed for people living with HIV traveling through or immigrating to the United States. Just as in the past, only in exceptional circumstances – and usually with good legal help – can people living with HIV obtain residency in the U.S. via a discretionary waiver. In order to qualify for a green card waiver, an applicant must first prove that they have a close familial relationship – defined as a parent, child or (heterosexual) spouse – of a lawful U.S. citizen.
Genetic testing suggests that HIV originated in Central Africa around the middle of the last century. It was first recognized as a clinical entity in the United States related to clusters of unusual illnesses occurring in Los Angeles and New York between 1979 and 1981. It was found to be prevalent among male homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers at that time. Since then, HIV/AIDS has exploded into a global pandemic. While it continues to exist in the described high-risk groups in the developed world, HIV/AIDS is far more prevalent in the developing world, sub-Saharan Africa in particular.
TREATMENT FOR PREVENTION
The UNAIDS report said 34 million people around the world had HIV in 2010, up from 33.3 million in 2009.
Of the 14.2 million people eligible for treatment in low- and middle-income countries, around 6.6 million, or 47 percent, are now receiving it, UNAIDS said, and 11 poor- and mid-income countries now have universal access to HIV treatment, with coverage of 80 percent or more.
This compares with 36 percent of the 15 million people needing treatment in 2009 who got AIDS drugs.
"In just one year we have added 1.4 million people to treatment," said Adrian Lovett of the anti-poverty campaign group ONE. He said the figures showed "huge progress" but also underlined "the major push needed now in order to turn the corner in this epidemic."
Major producers of HIV drugs include Gilead, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. Improved access to drugs from these and other manufacturers means not only that fewer people are dying of AIDS each year, UNAIDS said, but also that the risk of new HIV infections is reduced.
CIA transnational health and economic activities
CIA activities in this area include the preparation of National Intelligence Estimates. They examine the most lethal diseases globally and by region; develops alternative scenarios about their future course; examines national and international capacities to deal with them; and assesses their national and global social, economic, political, and security impact. Next, they assess the infectious disease threat from international sources to the United States; to US military personnel overseas; and to regions in which the United States has or may develop significant equities.[1] The DIA's Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC) is a major contributor to these estimates.
Regional trends
Developing and former communist countries will continue to experience the greatest impact from infectious diseases—because of malnutrition, poor sanitation, poor water quality, and inadequate health care—but developed countries also will be affected.[1]
[edit]Impact within the United States
Although the infectious disease threat in the United States remains relatively modest as compared to that of noninfectious diseases, the trend is up. Annual infectious disease-related death rates in the United States have nearly doubled to some 170,000 annually after reaching an historic low in 1980.[4] Many infectious diseases—most recently, the West Nile virus--originate outside US borders and are introduced by international travelers, immigrants, returning US military personnel, or imported animals and foodstuffs. In the opinion of the US Institute of Medicine, the next major infectious disease threat to the United States may be, like HIV, a previously unrecognized pathogen. Barring that, the most dangerous known infectious diseases likely to threaten the United States over the next two decades will be HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C,tuberculosis, and new, more lethal variants of influenza. Hospital-acquired infections[5] and foodborne illnesses also will pose a threat.[1]
- Although multidrug therapies have cut HIV/AIDS deaths by two-thirds to 17,000 annually since 1995, emerging microbial resistance to such drugs and continued new infections will sustain the threat.
- Some 4 million Americans are chronic carriers of the hepatitis C virus, a significant cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis. The US death toll from the virus may surpass that of HIV/AIDS in the next five years.
- TB, exacerbated by multidrug resistant strains and HIV/AIDS co-infection, has made a comeback. Although a massive and costly control effort is achieving considerable success, the threat will be sustained by the spread of HIV and the growing number of new, particularly illegal, immigrants infected with TB.
- Influenza now kills some 30,000 Americans annually, and epidemiologists generally agree that it is not a question of whether, but when, the next killer pandemic will occur.
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