Rapist may have caught HIV

[farmerbarleymow]

The THT have come out a couple of times and expressed concern that HIV is on the rise because they have found young people don't perceive HIV as very serious because (in the UK at least) the outlook with treatment is considerably better than it used to be.

They see it as something that can be easily controlled with medication as opposed to serious health condition that comes with many caveats and complexities.

Very true - it does appear that levels of knowledge have declined due to lack of consistent awareness raising especially in each new generation as they become sexually active, and the perception of it no longer being a serious medical condition, which of course it is even if it can largely be controlled through (expensive) drugs. They didn't live through their formative years during the height of the HIV scare in the 1980s like older people did, so in part it is understandable that without proper campaigns they don't have the full understanding that it is still a serious medical condition.

 

[Fez909]

There's a vaccine in second stage human trials at the minute which is looking promising. I'll dig the link out if anyone is interested.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If youre working in a job where you might get covered in blood or risk needlestick/splashes I think your work should be screening you and offering the jab against Hep B. If your lifestyle puts you at risk you can ask your GP to be vaccinated. Cant do that for Hep C or HIV though. With ebola just stay away from monkeys and people bleeding from the eyeholes

People bleeding from any holes, basically!

 

[ViolentPanda]

The THT have come out a couple of times and expressed concern that HIV is on the rise because they have found young people don't perceive HIV as very serious because (in the UK at least) the outlook with treatment is considerably better than it used to be.

They see it as something that can be easily controlled with medication as opposed to serious health condition that comes with many caveats and complexities.

A lot of younger people don't even grasp just how toxic some of the meds are, either, in that some can cause organ failure or trigger tumours.

 

[Callie]

menstruationist!

People bleeding from any holes, basically!

 

[ViolentPanda]

menstruationist!

 

[equationgirl]

Bringing back the tombstone ads would be a start. Scared most of my generation, gay and straight, they did.

 

[Manter]

A lot of younger people don't even grasp just how toxic some of the meds are, either, in that some can cause organ failure or trigger tumours.

Yeah- and you have to comply with sometimes complex drug regimes that sometimes need changing over time. A mate was telling me that a 'thing' now is HIV positive dating- so you purposefully look for someone with a positive status so you can both relax, not use condoms etc- but this may be causing faster HIV mutations. purenarcotic do you know if there is any truth in that?

 

[purenarcotic]

Yeah- and you have to comply with sometimes complex drug regimes that sometimes need changing over time. A mate was telling me that a 'thing' now is HIV positive dating- so you purposefully look for someone with a positive status so you can both relax, not use condoms etc- but this may be causing faster HIV mutations. purenarcotic do you know if there is any truth in that?

I don't know about the rate of mutation (though from what scant biological knowledge I have it certainly could be possible) but the positive meeting positive thing is true. Meeting up for unprotected sex happens too.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Yeah- and you have to comply with sometimes complex drug regimes that sometimes need changing over time. A mate was telling me that a 'thing' now is HIV positive dating- so you purposefully look for someone with a positive status so you can both relax, not use condoms etc- but this may be causing faster HIV mutations. purenarcotic do you know if there is any truth in that?

If the two people don't have good viral suppression then yes, it can do as it can lead to superinfection where a person is infected with more than one strain, which makes treatment more difficult. This would especially be the case for people having multiple partners. This carries the usual risk of contracting other STIs which make it more likely to contract HIV so giving the virus an easier way in. Even a person with otherwise undetectable viral load can have 'spikes' following minor illnesses and vaccinations and wouldn't necessarily know unless they were tested at that particular time. There is certainly a dark side to the gay scene where this sort of thing goes on.

The virus mutates at almost the maximum limit it can without knocking out critical genes, so the more strains a person has in their system the more likely a resistant strain will evolve. There was an article in the New Scientist years ago which talked about whether it would be possible to effectively push the viral mutation rate over this limit and effectively render it ineffective at multiplying, but I'm not sure if anything came of that. But interesting as a possible approach - use the greatest weapon the virus has against it. Biological warfare by definition.

 

[Manter]

thx @farmerbarleymow.... interesting

 

[farmerbarleymow]

thx @farmerbarleymow.... interesting

Lifelong science geekiness sometimes pays off! Viruses are fascinating from an evolutionary perspective as you can observe it happening very rapidly.

Not good for those who contract them though.