Faculty Bibliography

For decades, scientists have been mystified by a significant portion of hepatitis cases that were not caused by any of the liver disease's main known viral agents, hepatitis A through E. But now, acting on a hunch that unidentified viruses might be found in the blood of AIDS patients because of their weakened immune systems, Dr. Daniele Primi, an Italian scientist, has obtained what he and other scientists said in interviews was strong evidence for a novel hepatitis virus. Dr. Primi, who works in Brescia at a research laboratory for Diasorin, a medical biotechnology company, has not submitted a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has yet to obtain proof from a photograph of the virus through an electron microscope. Details of the research are included in the patent applications Diasorin filed in 1998 for discovery of the virus and development of tests, Dr. Primi said. Still, other researchers are picking up on the early findings. Using an unusual technique to test nearly 600 stored blood samples, largely from the laboratory of Dr. Harvey Alter at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Primi's team linked the newly found virus to cases of hepatitis with unexplained viral causes. They also found it in patients who were infected with known viruses that cause hepatitis and AIDS

[Daniele Primi], who works at DiaSorin, a biologics company in Brescia, Italy, has not submitted a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has yet to obtain proof from a photograph of the virus through an electron microscope. Details of the research are included in the patent applications DiaSorin filed in 1998 for discovery of the virus and development of tests, Primi said. So Primi sought to test stored blood samples from known cases of a variety of conditions. In blood samples provided by Dr. Mario Rizzetto, a scientist in Turin, Italy, who discovered the hepatitis D virus in 1977, Primi detected the new virus among patients with hepatitis non-A, non-E. So [Harvey Alter] sent Primi 200 additional coded samples that included a large percentage from healthy people with no known infections, as scientific controls. Again Primi's team found the SEN virus in 80 per cent of the hepatitis non-A, non-E samples and, depending on the group, in from 1 per cent to 8 per cent of the healthy controls. 'There was at least a 10-fold difference between the hepatitis patients and the controls,' Alter said

In an advance that promises to significantly reduce the incidence of AIDS among children in developing countries, American and Ugandan scientists have found a simple new way to help prevent mother-to- child transmission of HIV that is less costly and markedly more effective than the standard therapy in the Third World. The new and more practical therapy comes from substituting one marketed drug, nevirapine, for the standard drug, AZT. The total cost for the two doses of nevirapine is $4, compared to $268 for the AZT regimen now used in developing countries and $815 for the much longer and more complicated course used in the United States and other developed countries, federal health officials said Wednesday. By age 3 months, nevirapine had reduced the risk of mother-to- child transmission of HIV to 13 percent from the 25 percent for the standard course of AZT in developing countries, or a reduction of 47 percent, the researchers said

In an advancement that promises to significantly reduce the incidence of AIDS in children in developing countries, American and Ugandan scientists have found a simple new way to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the AIDS virus that also is less costly and markedly more effective than the standard therapy in the third world. The more practical therapy comes from substituting one marketed drug, nevirapine, for the standard drug, AZT. The cost for the two doses of nevirapine was $4, compared with $268 for the AZT regimen now used in developing countries and $815 for the much longer and more complicated course used in the United States and other developed countries, Federal health officials said in releasing the findings yesterday. Nevirapine, a drug used in combination ''cocktail'' treatments, has been marketed since 1996 in the United States for treatment of H.I.V., the AIDS virus, and it was remarkably safe in the study that was conducted by American and Ugandan researchers. As babies reached 3 months of age, nevirapine had cut the risk of mother-to-child transmission of H.I.V. to 13 percent from the 25 percent for the standard course of AZT in developing countries, or a reduction of 47 percent, United States and Ugandan health officials said

In an advance that promises to significantly reduce the incidence of AIDS among children in developing countries, American and Ugandan scientists have found a simple new way to help prevent mother-to- child transmission of the AIDS virus that is less costly and markedly more effective than the standard therapy in the Third World. The new and more practical therapy comes from substituting one marketed drug, nevirapine, for the standard drug, AZT. The total cost for the two doses of nevirapine was $4, compared with $268 for the AZT regimen now used in developing countries and $815 for the much longer and more complicated course used in the United States and other developed countries, federal health officials said in releasing the findings yesterday. Nevirapine has been marketed since 1996 in the United States for treatment of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and it was remarkably safe in the study by American and Ugandan researchers

In an advance that promises to significantly reduce the incidence of AIDS among children in developing countries, American and Ugandan scientists have found a simple way to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of the AIDS virus that is less costly and markedly more effective than the standard therapy in the Third World. The new and more practical therapy comes from substituting one marketed drug, nevirapine, for the standard drug, AZT. The cost for the two doses of nevirapine was $4, compared with $268 for the AZT regimen used in developing countries and $815 for the much longer and more complicated course used in the United States and other developed countries. By the time a child is 3 months, nevirapine had reduced the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to 13 percent from the 25 percent for the standard course of AZT in developing countries, or a reduction of 47 percent, the researchers said

Now, as the epidemic in Africa becomes an even greater catastrophe, Dr. Peter Piot, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and head of its AIDS programs, says he sees signs of momentum among African leaders to fight the disease. The momentum promises to slow the relentless transmission of H.I.V., conveyed on the continent primarily through heterosexual sex, Dr. Piot said in an interview. The United Nations General Assembly recently called for a 25 percent reduction in new H.I.V. infections among young people over the next five years in the countries most affected by AIDS. And the Clinton Administration, appalled by the staggering dimensions of the African AIDS epidemic, is planning an initiative to help, Dr. Piot said. ''It is such a big change,'' Dr. Piot, a 50-year-old Belgian and a pioneer in AIDS research in Africa, said in a brief visit to New York. In years past, Dr. Piot said, even meeting with an African head of state was difficult

Summary: The disease has been declared eradicated, yet the United States will keep samples in hopes of warding off use of the virus as a potential weapon 'It's disturbing, extremely disturbing. I thought the door had closed on smallpox. I had happily put it away.' -- DR. DONALD A. HENDERSON, WHO LED THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN THAT ERADICATED SMALLPOX Today, the high fevers, deep rashes and oozing pustules that characterize smallpox are gone -- a feat of disease eradication so far unequaled in the history of public health. This banishment is so complete that recent medical textbooks often skip the disease or give few details of its wrath