Faculty Bibliography

Since he left office, he has embraced the fight and has pushed his successor, Thabo Mbeki, to confront H.I.V. and tuberculosis. In some regions, tuberculosis causes as many as half the deaths among H.I.V.-infected people, making it the most fatal illness among people with AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. Mr. [Nelson Mandela] said he spoke about his case of tuberculosis because he felt that the disease was ignored and to help the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation open a $44.7 million program for research into the control of tuberculosis in communities where there are many cases of H.I.V. He said that prison doctors diagnosed his case of tuberculosis and determined it would take four months to cure. Tuberculosis was prevalent even before the AIDS epidemic began to take hold in 1981. But now more people are dying from tuberculosis than ever, according to United Nations figures. Of the estimated 1.6 million deaths that tuberculosis causes each year, one-fourth occur among H.I.V.-infected people. Worldwide, as many as 50 percent of H.I.V.-infected people develop tuberculosis

The former president of South Africa was found to have tuberculosis while in prison, where he spent 27 years for opposing the former apartheid regime before his release in 1994. 'We cannot win the battle against AIDS if we do not also fight TB,' [Nelson Mandela] said at a news conference Thursday. 'TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS.' Mandela has acknowledged that as president, he did not recognize the severity of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, which now leads the world with 5.3 million people infected with HIV, the virus that causes the disease. Since Mandela left office, he has embraced the fight and has pushed his successor, Thabo Mbeki, to confront HIV and tuberculosis. After doctors told Mandela that it would take four months to cure his tuberculosis, he told his friends in prison about the diagnosis. He said: 'My friends objected to me sharing my personal affairs. But I consoled them and told them that the doctors and hospital staff knew about my status and I therefore had no reason to hide this information from those close to me.' Mandela said he took the same steps of disclosing his more recent case of prostate cancer. 'I knew that once people were aware of the effects, they would support me,' Mandela said. Mandela said it was a blessing that 'the world has made defeating AIDS a top priority.' But an additional fight against tuberculosis is required, he said

The loans average about $300 each and are short-term, from 6 to 12 months. To qualify, applicants with H.I.V. must become business partners with an uninfected person, said the organizer, Mechai Viravaidya. Mr. Mechai, who is Thailand's most prominent AIDS educator, having received international recognition in the 1990's for promoting Thailand's condom effort that is credited with saving millions of lives. The program aims to strengthen bonds between infected and uninfected people. As uninfected people realize that H.I.V.-infected people paid back their loans and made new ones possible, attitudes become more enlightened, Mr. Mechai said. He said that about 1,000 business partners had received loans since the program began two and a half years ago

BANGKOK, THAILAND - A day after Thai and international officials confirmed the first probable human-to-human transmission of a virulent strain of avian influenza in this country, public health systems around the globe were scrambling to prepare for a possible pandemic. The United States, like governments in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and a small number of other countries, is also stockpiling the only antiviral medicine that may work against the strain, Tamiflu, but there have been too few human cases to document its effectiveness. The symptoms of human bird flu appear to be indistinguishable from severe cases of conventional flu, with fevers, sneezing, coughing and aches. Only Aventis Pasteur Inc. of Swiftwater, Pa., and the Chiron Corp. of Emeryville, Calif., are braving a thicket of patent issues and financial feasibility concerns to try to use advanced genetic techniques to develop vaccines against so-called bird flu. And they have proceeded only with National Institute of Health contracts to do so

P/>BANGKOK, Thailand - A day after national and international officials confirmed the first probable human-to-human transmission of a virulent strain of avian influenza in this country, public health systems around the globe were scrambling to prepare for a possible pandemic.<P/>Scientists say they can't predict how quickly, if at all, the strain may develop the ability to spread easily among people, or whether it will remain as lethal as it has proved so far.<P/>The strain, A(H5N1), has killed 30 of the 42 Southeast Asians it infected in the past year, and millions of chickens and wild birds, across wide areas of Asia.<P/> It also has infected pigs, household cats and even zoo tigers.<P/>A handful of cases of human-to-human transmission may have occurred during bird flu outbreaks in Hong Kong in 1997 and in Europe a year ago, but neither resulted in a pandemic.<P/>Nevertheless, public health experts say it would be irresponsible not to prepare for a worst-case scenario.<P/>The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 to 1919 - believed, like the current strain, to have been a mutant virus that jumped from animals - killed an estimated 20 million to 100 million people.<P/>And that was before the development of the modern transportation system, with its fleets of jets linking remote..

Health officials would normally look to vaccines and antiviral drugs to control a pandemic, but in this case, those tools have yet to be fully developed and tested. Conventional flu vaccines are not believed to provide any protection against A(H5N1) avian influenza. Human trials of the new vaccine ordered by the U.S. government are not expected to begin until the end of this year, at the earliest. The United States -- like governments in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and a small number of other countries -- is also stockpiling the only antiviral medicine that may work against the strain, Tamiflu, but there have been too few human cases to document its effectiveness. The symptoms of human bird flu appear to be indistinguishable from severe cases of conventional flu, with fevers, sneezing, coughing and aches

Other drug makers have given several reasons for not making vaccines: that production is expensive and investment may not be recouped if there is no pandemic, and that intellectual property rights on new techniques used to make the vaccine remain unsettled. The standard method for making flu vaccines -- growing virus in chicken embryos -- does not work because the A(H5N1) virus is so deadly that it kills the developing chicks before they can grow enough virus to be worth harvesting. The new techniques alter the strain's genetics so it can be grown in the fertilized eggs. Tamiflu is made only by Roche Holding, a Swiss company, at a single small factory in Europe, although the company has said in recent months that it plans to build another production line in the United States. Some public health experts are strongly critical of Roche for not increasing production of Tamiflu sooner, saying the company should have expanded production early this year, when avian influenza started becoming a problem across much of Asia. ''You're dealing with very conservative Swiss bankers -- to me, they don't see the opportunity yet,'' said Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan influenza expert, pointing out that Tamiflu not used for an avian influenza pandemic could be used instead to make human influenza less severe

Health officials would normally look to vaccines and antiviral drugs to control a pandemic, but in this case, those tools have yet to be fully developed and tested. Conventional flu vaccines are not believed to provide any protection against A(H5N1) avian influenza. Human trials of the new vaccine ordered by the U.S. government are not expected to begin until the end of this year, at the earliest

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization convened a meeting in Geneva of representatives of the drug industry to demand that they speed vaccine production. In the United States, scientists with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are racing to complete a genetic sequence of the virus from the case. If the virus has acquired any mammalian influenza genetic material, it could make it more transmissible. The U.S. government has also ordered two million doses of experimental vaccine. The United States, like governments in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and a small number of other countries, is also stockpiling the only antiviral medicine that may work against the strain, Tamiflu, but there have been too few human cases to document its effectiveness. The symptoms of human bird flu appear to be indistinguishable from severe cases of conventional flu, with fevers, sneezing, coughing and aches. 'You're dealing with very conservative Swiss bankers to me, they don't see the opportunity yet,' said Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan influenza expert, pointing out that Tamiflu not used for an avian influenza pandemic could be used instead to make human influenza less severe

The World Health Organization said it planned to find every child younger than 5 in 23 African countries -- more than 80 million in all -- and immunize them against polio starting on Oct. 8