Newly infected AIDS patients rarely know they have the virus and can continue their high-risk behavior just when they are the most infectious, Dutch researchers reported.
They said the case of a man freshly infected with the AIDS virus demonstrated the dangers of relying on quick HIV tests if patients have flu-like symptoms.
The 49-year-old man tested negative at an Amsterdam clinic using a standard quick test for the virus, but more sophisticated, time-consuming tests later showed the patient in fact did have a large amount of HIV in his blood, Henry de Vries of the University of Amsterdam and colleagues reported.
“Recent infections are characterized by a highly infectious phase and, if gone unnoticed, can have a large contribution to the ongoing transmission of HIV,” De Vries and colleagues wrote in the online journal Eurosurveillance.
“Healthcare providers should be aware of primary HIV infection and the pitfalls in its diagnosis.”
People often have symptoms days after they get HIV, but they are usually mild and look like any number of other infections.
This man had “fever, malaise, generalised rash, anal itching and rectal discharge after unprotected receptive anal and oral intercourse with an anonymous partner in a gay cinema one week before,” the researchers wrote.
He had a number of sexually transmitted infections, including gonorrhea and chlamydia, but the quick HIV test came back negative.
Other HIV tests were not conclusive, but a genetic test called an immunoblot assay confirmed the AIDS infection two weeks later.
In addition, the infection can damage the delicate skin of the vagina, anus and penis, making transmission even more likely.
from Reuters

Mary Glasspool

The spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion issued an unusually sharp and swift rebuke to Episcopal Church leaders over the election of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
In a terse statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered a warning to bishops, clergy and lay representatives of the U.S. church about the confirmation of the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, a lesbian who has been in a partnered relationship for two decades.
Glasspool must still gain a majority of votes from bishops and standing committees of clergy and lay leaders in the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide communion. That voting process will unfold over the next four months as U.S. leaders consider Glasspool and another priest, the Rev. Canon Diane M. Jardine Bruce, who was picked for a second “suffragan,” or assistant bishop post in Los Angeles.
“The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole,” Williams said in the statement.
Williams pointed out that Glasspool’s selection is only partly complete and that she could be rejected by the U.S. bishops or standing committees. “That decision will have very important implications,” he said.
Williams’ message — coming as Episcopalians in Los Angeles reflected on Glasspool’s election at church services Sunday — was his strongest to date on an issue that has reverberated across the global communion since the 2003 consecration of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, as bishop of New Hampshire.
Amid pressure from overseas Anglicans, U.S. Episcopal leaders agreed in 2006 to refrain from electing additional gay bishops. They reversed the de facto moratorium at their national convention in Anaheim in July, despite a plea from Williams during a brief visit to the convention.
The Los Angeles diocese was the first to test the more lenient policy. Glasspool was elected after seven ballots on Saturday, the second day of the diocese’s annual convention in Riverside.
from The Los Angeles Times