AIDS.gov Opens “Facing AIDS 2011” Campaign For World AIDS Day – To commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1, AIDS.gov is raising awareness through its “Facing AIDS 2011” campaign. Interested individuals are encouraged to download a “Facing AIDS” flier from the website and share why they are facing AIDS. Participants can take photos of themselves with their flier and then upload their images to the Facing AIDS website. All participants are encouraged to share their photos online with family and friends. Instructions on how to plan community events for the campaign are also available. For more information on how to participate, please see the AIDS.gov website.

Gilead Sciences Signs Agreement To Develop New Type Of Antiretroviral Drugs – Gilead Sciences has signed a licensing agreement with pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim to develop and market a new type of antiretroviral drug, initially pioneered by Boehringer Ingelheim. The new drugs are integrase inhibitors but work differently than Isentress (raltegravir) or the investigational drug elvitegravir. As a result, they are expected to be effective against HIV that is resistant to current integrase inhibitors. The agreement includes the investigational drug BI 224436, which has been tested in a Phase 1 clinical trial. For more information, please see the Gilead Sciences press release.

Theratechnologies Begins Development On New Lipodystrophy Drug – Theratechnologies announced last week that it has discovered a new potential drug in the same class as Egrifta (tesamorelin) and will begin pre-clinical testing of the new compound for treatment of lipodystrophy, a condition of abnormal fat distribution that is a side effect of certain anti-HIV medications. Theratechnologies stated that the new drug candidate appears to be as effective as Egrifta but may not need to be injected, as Egrifta is. Egrifta, which was approved in the U.S. in November of last year, was the first drug approved to treat lipodystrophy. For more information, please see the Theratechnologies press release.

In 1997, 7.3 million people were released from a United States correctional facility. Nearly one in five, or 20 percent, of all HIV-infected Americans was among those released. By 2006, that percentage declined. Nearly 14 percent, or one in seven, of Americans affected by the disease were among the 9.1 million individuals released from a correctional facility that year.

For their study, researchers relied on reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which gathers statistics from the state and federal prison system. BJS estimates annually the number of HIV/AIDS cases, although to date no uniform HIV testing system for incarcerated individuals exists among the states.

The study also relied on additional data on HIV rates among incarcerated persons from the Centers for Disease Control.

The study suggests four factors that may be responsible for the decline in the share of HIV-positive patients that are incarcerated. One factor may be improved treatment for the disease, which has prolonged life expectancy among HIV/AIDS patients, allowing individuals to age beyond their crime-prone years.

The authors of the study also point towards the declining prison AIDS mortality rate, which makes it much more likely that detained individuals afflicted with the disease will get out and stay out of correctional facilities.

A third factor suggested is the decline in HIV/AIDS rates and numbers among intravenous drug users over the past ten years. Finally, researchers credit initiatives within the prison system that improve discharge planning for those impacted by the disease, thereby decreasing the number of HIV-positive individuals who are rearrested.

The authors of the study stress that correctional facilities remain an opportunity-rich environment for health interventions. Since inmates are a captive population, prison education efforts and counseling along with HIV testing can be particularly effective.

Although treatment and testing for HIV/AIDS among incarcerated individuals remains controversial, some strategies have yielded promising results.

In one prospective controlled trial among male inmates in an urban New Haven jail, researchers found that routine opt-out HIV testing within 24 hours of the person entering jail resulted in the highest rates of HIV testing. Although waiting at least 24 hours resulted in fewer people declining testing, more people were released during that time.

Still, in spite of the growing sophistication of available health interventions, inmates released from correctional facilities remain much more likely to be impacted by HIV/AIDS than other Americans.

According to a 2008 BJS report released by the Department of Justice, federal and state prisoners were HIV positive or had confirmed AIDS at a rate that is two-and-a-half times the rate in the general U.S. population.

Researchers point out that the effects of this public health challenge ripple out far beyond correctional facilities because almost all people entering the prison system are eventually released.

For more information, please see the full article on the PLoS ONE Web site.