                       AIDS Daily Summary 
                         June 27, 1996
     
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National 
AIDS Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a 
public service only. Providing this information does not 
constitute endorsement by the CDC, the CDC National AIDS 
Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this 
text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC 
National AIDS Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this 
information. Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD
     
     
****************************************************** 
"Law Requires Giving Results of H.I.V. Tests Of Newborns" 
"AIDS Risk in Transmission Said to Be 2 in 1 Million" 
"HIV Cases Nearly Doubled in China Last Year"
"Conditions Wretched in Zimbabwe Prison"
"Brooklyn Girl, 7, Is Raped; Three Men Capture a Suspect" 
"Most Americans Think AIDS Coverage Is Not Excessive" 
"HIV Outbreak in Cape Breton to Be Probed"
"HIV May Cause Serious Damage to Immune System" 
"Identification of a Major Co-Receptor for Primary Isolates of 
HIV-1"
"AIDS: 15 Years Later Caused 300,000 Deaths and Still No Cure" 
******************************************************
     
"Law Requires Giving Results of H.I.V. Tests Of Newborns" 
New York Times (06/27/96) P. B4; Hernandez, Raymond
     New York Gov. George E. Pataki signed a controversial
measure Wednesday requiring health officials to inform parents of 
the results of HIV tests the state routinely performs on all 
newborns.  The state now tests all newborns to track the spread 
of HIV, but only tells parents the results if they ask.  The 
issue has been controversial for years with proponents arguing 
that disclosure would result in better medical care for infected 
infants and opponents concerned that disclosing the results 
invades the privacy of the mother.  Congress passed bills in May 
to require mandatory testing of newborns in the next few years if 
states do not show a reduction in the number of infected infants 
born.  While a positive HIV test of a newborn does not 
necessarily mean the child is infected, it does mean the mother 
carries the virus.  With this knowledge, the mother can avoid 
breastfeeding or other practices which could transmit the virus 
to an uninfected child.
     
"AIDS Risk in Transmission Said to Be 2 in 1 Million" 
Washington Post (06/27/96) P. A16
     The risk of contracting HIV through a blood transfusion is 
estimated to be 2 in 1 million, according to a study reported by 
George B. Schreiber of Westat, a research company in Rockville, 
Md.  HIV antibodies in blood from newly infected donors may go 
undetected by blood banks because it takes about 22 days for the 
body to generate detectable levels of antibodies.  Schreiber and 
colleagues evaluated records from 586,507 repeat donors to 
estimate how many newly infected people give blood during the 
22-day period.  Their results, and another study about the source 
of hepatitis C in blood donors, were published in today's issue 
of the New England Journal of Medicine.
     
"HIV Cases Nearly Doubled in China Last Year" 
Richmond Times-Dispatch (06/26/96) P. A4
     The number of reported HIV cases in China nearly doubled
last year, the state news agency reported Tuesday.  The total 
number of HIV carriers is now 3,341, 46 percent more than a year 
ago.  There are 117 people in China with full-blown AIDS and 
public health officials say the actual number of infected Chinese 
may be as high as 90,000.  While the government views AIDS as a 
disease carried by foreigners, health officials say HIV is 
probably being spread by prostitutes and migrant workers.
     
"Conditions Wretched in Zimbabwe Prison" 
Washington Times (06/27/96) P. A14
     Zimbabwe's largest prison is overcrowded, some inmates go
naked, and the prisoners are infected with lice and are beaten by 
wardens, notes the Herald, the country's main newspaper in 
reporting Wednesday on a visit to the jail by a Cabinet minister. 
A parliamentary report on the conditions warned of an outbreak of 
contagious disease.  About 70 percent of prison deaths are 
attributed to AIDS.
     
"Brooklyn Girl, 7, Is Raped; Three Men Capture a Suspect" 
New York Times (06/27/96) P. B3;
     A man who allegedly raped a 7-year-old Brooklyn girl told
police he has HIV, a claim that is being investigated. 
Sabino Ruiz, 57, was charged with rape, sodomy, attempted murder, 
and endangering the welfare of a child.  He allegedly lured the 
girl and her 5-year-old brother away from a playground to an 
abandoned apartment building.  Three men working nearby heard the 
boy's screams and captured Ruiz as he was trying to escape 
through an air conditioning vent.
     
"Most Americans Think AIDS Coverage Is Not Excessive" 
United Press International (06/26/96) 
     Only 6 percent of Americans think the media covers AIDS too
much, according to a new poll by the Henry J. Kaiser Family 
Foundation.  Forty-six percent said the amount of AIDS coverage 
was appropriate, and another 46 percent said there was not enough 
AIDS coverage.  An analysis of news reports by Princeton Research 
Associates found that AIDS stories are "getting shorter, 
focusing more on celebrities, and increasingly being found in the 
soft news sections of papers."  The proportion of AIDS stories in 
the sports sections and lifestyle sections have increased since 
the late 1980s.  A previous survey found that while Americans 
have generally good knowledge about how HIV is transmitted, they 
do not recognize the global proportions of the epidemic.  Only 4 
percent of the AIDS stories analyzed had datelines from outside 
the United States.
     
"HIV Outbreak in Cape Breton to Be Probed" 
Toronto Globe and Mail (06/26/96) P. A9
     Canada's disease experts have been called on to investigate
an HIV outbreak among intravenous drug users in Cape Breton, Nova 
Scotia.  Epidemiologists from the Center for Disease Control in 
Ottawa will perform tests and interview HIV-positive drug users 
as they try to find out the size and cause of the outbreak.  
Health officials now know that 10 cases of HIV in Cape Breton are 
the result of intravenous drug users sharing needles.  The 
province has given the AIDS Coalition of Cape Breton $50,000 to 
start the island's first needle exchange.
     
"HIV May Cause Serious Damage to Immune System" 
United Press International (06/26/96) 
     HIV infection may cause the body's immune cells to age 
prematurely, leaving people infected with the virus vulnerable to 
AIDS, scientists reported Wednesday in the journal AIDS.  
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, and 
the Geron Corporation found that the immune cells of patients in 
the late stages of HIV infection had aged so rapidly that they 
could have come from a 100-year-old person.  The finding implies 
that the body's immune system reacts so aggressively to the HIV 
infection that it causes cells to age too quickly.  Future 
therapies may target stopping the shortening of telomeres, the 
parts of the chromosome that tells the cell when to divide.  This 
would allow HIV patients to maintain a functional immune system.
     
"Identification of a Major Co-Receptor for Primary Isolates of 
HIV-1"
Nature (06/20/96) Vol. 381, No. 6584, P. 661; Deng, HongKui; Liu, 
Rong; Ellmeier, Wilfried; et al.
     To infect CD4 cells, HIV-1's viral envelope glycoprotein
binds to CD4, which is expressed on the cell surface.  Studies 
have suggested that an additional specific cell-surface cofactor 
is necessary for HIV-1 to enter a cell.  Fusin was recently 
identified as a co-receptor for T-trophic strains of HIV, but not 
for monocytes, macrophages, and primary T cells.  These strains 
seem to be responsible for HIV-1 transmission.  Researchers at the 
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, led by Nathaniel R. Landau, 
identified CC-CKR-5 as the principal cofactor that, along with 
CD4, allows for the entry of these strains.  The researchers 
propose that other potential co-receptors could also be important 
in HIV-1 infection.
     
"AIDS: 15 Years Later Caused 300,000 Deaths and Still No Cure" 
Jet (06/24/96) Vol. 90, No. 6; P. 12; Haywood, Richette L.
     Since the first AIDS case was diagnosed 15 years ago,
300,000 people have died from the disease.  While advances have 
been made in detecting and treating HIV infection, no cure has 
been found.  AIDS is increasingly affecting women, non-injection 
drug users, heterosexuals, and minorities.  In 1995, for the 
first time, there were equal proportions of whites and blacks 
with AIDS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
reported.  Also that year, blacks and Hispanics represented 54 
percent of men with AIDS and 76 percent of the women with the 
disease.  Calling the disease "a huge threat" to the black 
community, Ernest Hopkins, of the National Association for People 
with AIDS, said the epidemic demonstrates that the fact that 
community is not effectively preventing the spread of HIV and 
that community health systems are failing.  More work is needed, 
says Louis Stokes, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus 
Health Brain Trust: "Every effort must be undertaken to educate 
the minority community, to provide increased access to health 
care, to increase the number of African American and other 
minority researchers in HIV/AIDS research, and to launch a major 
campaign targeted to at-risk populations."
     
CLARIFICATION 
     
The Wall Street Journal made an error in its June 25 article 
titled "Boehringer Viramune Drug Cleared as HIV Treatment."  
The journal reported that Viramune was the first reverse 
transcriptase inhibitor to be approved by the Food and Drug 
Administration, when in fact it is the first non-nucleoside 
analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor.
     
