Half of all new HIV transmissions in US may originate in undiagnosed individuals

http://mobile.aidsmap.com/Half-of-all-new-HIV-transmissions-in-US-may-originate-in-undiagnosed-individuals/page/2242128

Michael Carter

Published: 15 February 2012

Almost half of all new HIV transmissions in the US originate in individuals who are unaware that they are HIV-positive, a modelling study published in the online edition of AIDS estimates.
Only 20% of HIV infections in the US are undiagnosed, but the investigators calculated that they were the source of 49% of all new onward transmissions.
“Decreasing the number of persons unaware of their infection must remain a priority goal of HIV prevention efforts,” comment the authors.
With appropriate treatment and care the prognosis of many HIV-positive patients is now normal. Virologically suppressive antiretroviral therapy also has wider public health benefits, reducing the risk of HIV transmission by 96%.
Late diagnosis is the principal factor underlying much of the HIV-related mortality that continues to be seen in resource-rich countries. Several studies have also suggested that a disproportion amount of new HIV transmissions have their source in undiagnosed individuals.
Testing is therefore a cornerstone of efforts to control HIV. Opt-out HIV testing is now recommended in the US for adolescents and adults aged between 13 and 64 years as part of their routine health care. Screening at least annually is recommended for patients with higher risk of the infection.
Previous research has suggested that HIV transmission rates in the US are 3.5 times higher for undiagnosed individuals compared to patients whose infection has been diagnosed.
Investigators updated the information used to arrive at this estimate, taking into account revised estimates of the proportion of undiagnosed infections and the impact of virologically suppressive HIV therapy on infectiousness.
The model was based on HIV prevalence rates in 2008 and HIV incidence between 2006 and 2009. The proportion of HIV-positive individuals unaware of their infection was 20%, and 39% of patients had a viral load below 400 copies/ml. Other variables included in the model were estimates of the frequency of unprotected sex with HIV-negative partners. The model also took account of the proportion of patients who were successfully linked to HIV care and retained in care.
An estimated 49% of all new transmissions were from individuals who were unaware of their infection status.
 If the proportion of diagnosed patients with a viral load below 400 copies/ml increased to 60%, this increased the burden of new transmissions attributed to undiagnosed individuals to almost 60%.
“Increasing the percentage with viral suppression substantially reduced the percentage of transmissions form persons aware of their infection,” comment the authors. “The impact could be even further strengthened with implementation of revised recommendations for antiretroviral treatment for patients with CD4 cell count below 500 cells/mm³, or even higher.”
The transmission rate for patients aware of their infection status varied between 1.8 and 2.7 per 100 persons. It was between three and seven times higher for undiagnosed individuals (9.2 to 12.6 per 100 persons).
In a scenario when 39% of HIV-positive patients had a viral load below 400 copies/ml, then each increase of 100 in the number of diagnosed infections was estimated to avert eight new transmissions.
However, simply reducing the number of undiagnosed infections is not enough in itself to control the HIV epidemic. The authors stress that patients then have to be promptly connected with a specialist clinic, retained in care and achieve virological suppression.
“While current estimates of the percentage of persons diagnosed with HIV who are linked to care are relatively high (69% to 82%), the percentage of persons retained in care is much lower (45% to 59%) and estimates of the percentage with viral suppression range from 24% to 39% for those who are aware of their infection.”
The authors conclude: “Additional efforts are needed to educe the number of people unaware of their infection…reduce transmission rates, and improve linkage and retention in care and viral suppression.

Reference

Hall HI et al. HIV transmissions from persons with HIV who are aware and unaware of their infection, United States. AIDS 26, online edition. DOI: 10.1097/QAD013e328351f73f, 2012 (click here for the free abstract).

NAM Publications
Registered office: 77a Tradescant Road, London, SW8 1XJ
Company limited by guarantee. Registered in England & Wales, number: 2707596
Registered charity, number: 1011220

All material that appears at www.aidsmap.com and subsections thereof is copyright © NAM Publications, 2012. All rights reserved.

Really? Why Bother?

I hate to repost pics from another site, but stumbled across this today.  Do my eyes decieve me or is this Cock Double Condom(ed)?  If you that scary, should you really be having sex together?

Personally I think they should have wore one of those Body Comdoms you see that the gag gift shops. 

LOL

STM Is Giving Models Choice

I really have been doing a lot of thinking since the last post about what kind of content we want to show or be known for.  Of course Pito and I personally are a BareBack couple, does that mean that we promote BB Sex?  Hell no, if anything We've always taken a stance towards Safer Sex especially with Anonymous Partners. 


I want to show a quote from the warning page of Ty Lattimore's Site,

"Some of the material within this website display sex without the use of condoms. TLE does not in anyway endorse the practice of unsafe/unprotected sex. The choice of sex without a condom is between you and your partner."

Now as many times as I personally have checked out Ty's site (and it's a hot one men!), I never noticed this at the bottom of his warning page until just the other day.  I don't know if Ty himself wrote this or his Laywer's, but I really like the last part.  (and i''m thinking we might wanna add something similiar)  As in life whether it be with a life partner, a hook up, a sceen partner on a porn set - We feel the choice to wear a condom should be between the consenting adults. 


I know there are a lot of people out there lieing about their status for whatever reason - I can't tell you how many people I know of today that are HIV+ that have public profiles that claim they are NEG.  They go around having unprotected sex with countless anonymous partners spreading God knows what to anyone they can.  I even found out the other day that there are blogs where people lie about their shit and keep tallys on how many they infect with this or that. 
Come on guys, where is the thinking? 


I will tell you right here and now, if I catch someone trying to give me or mine some shit - it's all over but digging the hole!  Notice how carefully I said that?  I once got in trouble for telling someone I was gonna "Snap Their Neck!"  LOL  Fucking Pussy's


In hope of avoiding people/models faking test results in order to work for our company we are going to use a Models Choice Poilcy.  We will require STD Testing not to discriminate but for the safety of others.  We don't care if you are POZ or NEG to film with us - but what we do care about is new infection rates of all STD's and HIV and that you are getting it taken care of.


We want our Models to feel comfortable and at home with us.  Everyone one has preferances and I'm sure we can't fill each and every request we do want to do our best. We want Chemistry on the set and we don't want people worried about who's got what and we sure don't want some snake crawling onto the set giving unwanted gifts. We are doing this in an attempt to match models by their preferance's, not only Top, Btm, Vers; but on preferances such as Condom or BB, Turn On's or Off's, Kink's, and Status Preferance!  After all, who wants to see a limp dick because the model isn't into it or scared.


There are a lot of Bugs to work out to this policy and we welcome any suggestions and comments from you  because to be quite frank - this is a big subject!

Strong Role Models

We have a few "Newbies" as fans and there are a few things that I think you should catch up on:

I wanna start by say thanks for all the comments that we have recieved not only here but especially on Facebook - (sorry, but you'd have to be on our friends list to view that).  I especially wanna thank those who are in the business and spoke so franky on the subject.  We had not one bad comment about our post, except from the model who's blog I quoted from.  I follow this blog close and have for long time, we had even asked for his advice on a few matters, but he didn't reply - but expected some sort of Loyality.  There are many in this business we have asked for help from and are Loyal to Those Who Are Loyal to Us.  He of course was very upset and even accused me of using him in some sort of way to promote our own agenda.  He was really childish when both Pito and I tried to talk to him about it, just so worried about our readers finding out who I was talking about.  I didn't quote my sorce for this post like I would have if I'd been writing a paper for school- Maybe I should have?  At any rate, rest assure man - many on facebook have tried to guess who we were speaking of and not a one mentioned your name, That's the God's Honest Truth.  LOL, Maybe you're not as famous as you thought you were?  At any rate, we have nothing but luv for this man's work and know his success will continue despite anything from the STM blog.

This is a hot issue and a lot of people have a lot to say about it.  We realize there are people who like to go to the bathhouses or circut paties and fuck them up raw and then go around talking shit about everyone else, that's just gay men and our society - porn star or business man.  But this hypocrisy is just crazy, the models are blaming the companys that they are working for and the companys are blaming society.  Personally I don't give a fuck if you go Bareback or you are Safe, I just want you to do it correctly and don't stand up and proclaim yourself a Strong Role Model  (of any color) when you're doing it wrong.  You should be setting the standards - not part of the problem.

Something I read the other day on a Blog was some talk about how some Black men would never bottom for someone outside their race.  This isn't the first time I've heard this, I've even had it said to my face.  I realize this is another hot topic issue and I'm not trying to get into all that too.  But I don't understand all this, if you follow our blog you will know that I was raised by My Grandparents.  Now we lived just 10 - 15 miles or so from the states KKK Headquarters.  Now believe this or not, I was not raised in a racist house at all.  My Grandfather was a History and Social Studies teacher as well as a BasketBall Coach in an Urban School 25 some miles away.  I've been around every color of the rainbow all my life and never been treated badly by anyone because of race - I guess being the Coaches Grandson was the reason?  I've dated every color of man I can find and One of my first Highschool Boyfriends was named Gerald (can you guess what color? lol) So long story short I never seen Racist Behavor in life until I moved to Indy some 14 years ago.  The first Bruh I ever had a problem with was named Darrell, the man hated my guts only because of my skin color.  It was really tough for me to understand, but we worked together for a few years and I finally got the just of his anger.  He never did grow to like me, but he respected me and that ment way more me.  I realize there are a lot of White people out there who still have a problem with not only Black, but every race.  But I'm bombarded almost daily by hatred - for what?  Why can't we take the color equassion out of all this, Gay life is hard enough without having to be split between ourselves.

 I brought all this up because the post that got me going the other day also spoke about this subject as well as Strong Black Role Models.  Well I want to introduce you to one who I not only feel is one hell of a Role Model, but the majority of the country will back me on that and I image you all will too.

Mr. Pito Savage

Pito grew up on the streets of the Bronx in what best I can tell a large and loving family.  They didn't have a lot of money and did what they had to to get by.  He started Stripping in the Clubs of NYC around the age of 16, Joined the Military at the age of 18.  He's served 15 years for his country, been over seas and though the years had hundreds of men serving under him.  He's had a brilliant military career and has the medals on the wall and in the cases to prove it.  Not only all this, but he is the Father of 4 great kids - never missed a birthday or a child support payment (that's all you need to know about that)

I met Pito at the end of his marriage, He hit me up one day on a hook up site with a profile without a picture.  Now I usually didn't even respond to those but for some reason that day I did.  We chatted for a bit and then he flooded my inbox full of pics.

I was always really amazed that Pito even hit me up, you see I was 6 months into knowing that I was HIV+.  Now at the time I was working at a Level 1 Trama Unit here in Indy.  It's one of 2 here in Indiana and also happens to be the County Hospital.  Now working in an Urban Hospital you are exposed to God knows what from God knows where, I've had it all splashed on me and then some.  Now Aug of 06 I had just passed HIV and an Everything test and was cool, I was also single and breaking a lot of rubbers and had a couple of regular FB who I may have gotten too comfortable with.  Dec. 27, 2006 I went to work and looked up the labs I had ran on my self before the holiday.  I sat in front of a PC Monitor and looked at my test results, this is how I found out I was Poz.  I waisted no time, grabed the first Doctor I could see and got me a script for Atripla.  4 days later I change my status on all my profiles and started making the calls to "friends" who should know.  I have never hid or lied about my status - and it's not always been easy.  I've been undectable and healty since April '07.  I've had people say all kinds of shit to me, very little of it worth repeating - but always stood my ground. Where am I going with this?


Pito knew I was HIV+ the moment he looked at my profile, in fact he says it was the honesty of the profile that attracted him.  I think it was the picture.

Pito and I dated for month before having sex but when we did have sex it was totally safe in everyway.  We actually sucked each others dicks with condoms on, we ate each other before anal sex, and of course fucked with rubbers.  During this time, Pito educated himself and I pointed him towards the right info on the net.  Now with the info he learned, some that I supplied him with, and a one on one convo with my Dr - Pito and I are totally Bareback couple and have been for over 3 years now.  In our bedroom cum not only flys on the walls but up the holes.  Pito was HIV- when we met and still is to this day, he has ate and had more of my cum up his bum than I can imagne.  This is the difference between knowing what you are doing and dealing with an Undectable HIV+ Male.  Education and taking care of yourself is the key to all this guys.  (Please check out our new link on Safer Sex.)

 Oh, and that brings me to another thing.  Lucky for Me and You, Pito has been sucking dick since he is 13.  Not only does he eat ass and fuck it, but he bends over and takes it -   He dosen't care if it's a memeber of his own race or not.  He has no racial hang ups or this bull shit that so many are using about serving the white man.  This is A REAL MAN.

A STRONG BLACK ROLE MODEL?

  or a

 Role Model for Us All!