Health Newsletter
December 2015
Number of health room visits since August: 1,085
Interesting Health Reads
- Too Few Boys Get HPV Vaccine, CDC Study Finds
- Too Few Preteen Girls Get HPV Vaccine, CDC Says
- Transgender Discrimination Linked to Risky Health Behaviors
- Proccessed Meat Can Cause Cancer, WHO Study Finds
- Understanding and Managing Head Lice
- Extracting Clot Beats Clot-Busting Drug Alone in Study of Stroke Patients
- Teens Do Listen to Parents' Advice About Sex
- Dog in the Home May Lower Kids' Odds for Asthma
- Weight, Exercise May Affect Children's Thinking Skills
- Gratitude May Be Key to Wedded Bliss
- 'Walkable' Neighborhoods May Boost Heart Health
- Arm Artery Access Safer for Angioplasty
- Coffee Drinkers May Live Longer
December is HIV/AIDS Awareness Month : Focus, Partner, Achieve: An AIDS-Free Generation
The CDC, in coordination with the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), uses science to save lives and has helped support:
- Life-saving antiretroviral treatment for 7.7 million men, women, and children
- Care and support for more than 5 million orphans and vulnerable children
- Voluntary medical male circumcision procedures for more than 6.5 million men
- Training for more than 140,000 new healthcare workers
- HIV testing and counseling for more than 56.7 million people
- HIV testing and counseling for more than 14.2 million pregnant women, and antiretroviral medications for the 749,313 women who tested positive to prevent mother-to-child transmission
The Faces of an AIDS-Free Generation (from CDC)
Thata and Thatayaone are 7-year-old twins. One is a smiling little girl with lots of energy, quick to give out a hug to even a stranger. The other is a quiet, inquisitive boy, who would rather get to know you first before giving up a smile.
These two healthy young children represent the promise of good things to come – they are the faces of an AIDS-free generation.
Born to HIV-positive parents in 2006, Thata and Thatayaone escaped the virus, thanks to a successful Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Program (PMTCT). Botswana, with support from PEPFAR, has been able to reduce the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child to less than 4 percent, a rate comparable to Western countries.
“It’s been a relief knowing early on they were negative. They are happy and healthy kids, just normal,” said Balekanye Mosweu, the 32-year-old mother of the twins. “They are special in their own ways.”
LEEPing for Joy: in Côte d’Ivoire, New Treatment Option Saves HIV-Positive Women from Cervical Cancer (from CDC)
Arriving for her annual exam at Treichville Teaching Hospital (CHUT) in Abidjan, Mariam Cissé was about to receive news that would turn her world upside down. A year earlier, Mariam, an HIV-positive mother of three children, had been screened negative for cervical cancer using a technique called visual inspection with ascetic acid (VIA). When Mariam visited CHUT for her routine visit a year later, she was shocked to hear that a large lesion had formed on her cervix, and Mariam was advised to consider a radical hysterectomy – a $1,400 procedure. Because Mariam spent all her earnings from one day to the next, paying for this procedure was out of the question.
Devastated, Mariam was at a loss for how to respond. Her anguish continued to grow until she received a call from a midwife at CHUT explaining that there was an outpatient treatment for cervical lesions that were too large for cryotherapy, called loop electrical excision procedure (LEEP). It was available and more importantly, it was free.
In 2009, the National HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Program in partnership with the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, introduced cervical cancer prevention with VIA and treatment with cryotherapy for HIV-positive women in Côte d’Ivoire.
To date, 7,343 HIV-positive women have been screened with VIA. As a result, 365 of these women with small lesions were treated with cryotherapy and an additional 64 women with larger precancerous lesions benefited from LEEP.
Armed with this new information about options available to her, Mariam underwent the LEEP procedure at the CHUT on March 29, 2012. Asked how she feels, Mariam smiles as she begins to cry. "Relieved," she says. "I am truly free."
Supporting Health Care Workers around the World (from CDC)
In 1999, Jacob Jabari, a South African man, was rapidly losing weight and could not shake a severe cough. He sought diagnosis at his local health clinic, assuming he’d contracted tuberculosis. When the test came back negative, the nurse encouraged Jacob to take an HIV test. He consented and, shortly after, learned that he was HIV-positive.
Due to stress and depression following his diagnosis, Jacob lost his job as a teacher in his hometown Taung and moved to Pretoria. For seven years he survived by volunteering for non-governmental organizations around the city, which offered only a small living stipend.
Jacob’s life would change in 2008 when, following the death of his cousin to HIV, he went public with his HIV status in the Tshwane Sun, a local Pretoria newspaper. Jacob’s family had learned about his cousin’s status only after discovering antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) tucked away in his room. Realizing that his cousin had been secretly living with the disease, Jacob was inspired to help people realize that HIV did not have to be a death sentence.
A few days after his exposé in the Tshwane Sun, he received a call from the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD), an organization that provides higher learning opportunities in the health sector.
Jacob says, “During my spare time I do motivational speaking in my community for free – I even privately help couples who’ve just been diagnosed to come to terms with their new reality. Sometimes only one of them tests positive and I help them deal with living together despite their difference HIV statuses.”
He adds, “My life changed from awful to astounding after I started working for the Foundation for Professional Development. People in my country desperately need the help that they trained me to give. We're creating a safer environment where South Africans of all ages move beyond the guilt and shame that cause so many people to lie, hide and deny their HIV status. We are finally making progress. Our honest approach is saving lives and slowing the spread of AIDS, because people are more honest in admitting it and getting the help they need. I know from first-hand experience how crucial it is to be able to confide in somebody trustworthy, compassionate and able to steer HIV positive people to the help they need.” Jacob is now a salaried Research Assistant at the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD).