ATLANTA — A promising new HIV vaccine developed in Atlanta is taking a major step forward, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported April 23. The vaccine, created by Emory researcher Harriet Robinson and an Atlanta biotech company called GeoVax Inc., is moving into human clinical trials, the newspaper reported. This will be the first time the entire vaccine has been tested on humans. Part of the vaccine was used in a preliminary safety trial in 2003, and it showed encouraging results in humans. But the vaccine faces several rounds of trials, which are likely to take at least four years. The vaccine won’t be available until all of the trials are completed and the drug gets approval from the Food & Drug Administration. Robinson and a team of researchers first tested the vaccine in rhesus monkeys at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University. In those trials, the vaccine protected 96 percent of the monkeys for more than three and a half years. Robinson teamed with pharmaceutical veteran Don Hildebrand to start GeoVax to further develop the vaccine.

Sex, tattoos increase HIV risk in Ga. prisons

ATLANTA — The risk of contracting HIV in Georgia’s prison system increases for men who have sex with men or get tattoos while behind bars, but more than 90 percent of HIV-positive prisoners were already infected with the virus when they became incarcerated, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The study found that those at highest risk for contracting HIV in Georgia’s prisons include men who have sex with men; men who get a tattoo in prison; African Americans; inmates older than 26 and those who have served more than five years of their sentence. From July 1988 through February 2005, of those male inmates who were HIV negative when sentenced but then contracted HIV while in prison, 42 percent had had more than one negative HIV test before their HIV diagnosis.

Physician costs only account for 2 percent of HIV patient care

NEW YORK — In caring for patients at a university HIV clinic, physician costs account for only 2 percent of the annual total costs per patient, researchers report in the April issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Reuters reported April 13. Dr. Ray Y. Chen and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham calculated the annual expenditures per patient with HIV infection based on actual health care use. They found that annual costs were $13,885 for HIV patients with CD4 cell counts of 350 or higher. The cost for HIV-infected patients with CD4 cell counts below 50 averaged almost three times as much. The researchers found that the physician component was only $359 per patient per year.

Cities spar with rural areas over Ryan White funds

WASHINGTON (AP) — AIDS started as a big-city epidemic infecting mostly gay white men, but now it’s prevalent in the South and among minorities. With hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, Congress is attempting for the first time since 2000 to amend the Ryan White CARE Act of 1990. "We haven’t seen the money shifting with the epidemic. I don’t believe a person should be punished because of where they live geographically, and that’s what’s happening," said Kathie Hiers, head of AIDS Alabama. The federal law sends about $2 billion a year under Ryan White. Congress is seeking a way to distribute money more fairly without suddenly depriving any one area of dollars.

Wider inpatient testing may help identify HIV

NEW YORK — New research supports expanding routine inpatient HIV testing beyond those who have traditional risk factors for the AIDS virus, investigators report in the April issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Reuters reported April 17. Dr. Jeffrey L. Greenwald of the Boston Medical Center looked at the percentage of inpatients who tested positive for HIV as part of routine inpatient testing who might not otherwise have been spotted had such testing not been offered. Among a total of 243 subjects, 81 who tested positive and 81 who tested negative by the inpatient service were compared with 81 who tested positive in emergency rooms. Patients who tested HIV positive via inpatient testing had more advanced disease than those identified as HIV positive as outpatients.