HIV and AIDS is affecting not only the health sector, but much broader areas such as economies, human resources and even the social fabric of nations. For the pharmacist, the epidemic means a difference in the disease profiles of patients, economic impacts on drug budgets and resource allocation, and difficult choices. Attendant drug use necessitates acquisition of accurate information on new drugs, interactions and side effects. As this is an area where information is changing so rapidly, the Internet can be an invaluable source of up-to-date information.

A recent posting on repro-l, a discussion group hosted by HealthLink for discussion of issues about reproductive health including HIV/AIDS, gave an update on HIV statistics for South Africa from the Ninth National HIV Survey of women attending antenatal clinics of the public health services in South Africa, October/November 1998. These figures show a prevalence of 32.5% for KwaZulu-Natal for 1998 (compared to 26.9% in 1997). Based on the 15 301 blood samples screened for HIV antibodies, it is estimated that 22.8% of the women attending antenatal clinics of the public health services nationally were infected with HIV by the end of 1998. This represents a 33.8% rate of increase in the prevalence level of HIV infection since 1997.

To join REPRO-L, you can send an email to lyris@healthlink.org.za with the command subscribe REPRO-L Firstname Surname in the message body. Alternatively you can subscribe from the HealthLink web site  www.healthlink.org.za   or email webmaster@healthlink.org.za   for more information.

Medical Microbiology at UCT (follow the department link from the UCT home page www.uct.ac.za ) maintains some pages on HIV statistics in South Africa, although the information circulated in the discussion groups is a bit more current.

The National Institute for Virology  www.niv.ac.za   provides scientific information on most viruses affecting health, including HIV/AIDS. AIDS SA is one of the publications produced by the NIV.

Several such services exist, and there wouldn’t be space to include all of them, however subscribing to one of these should keep you in touch with major developments, and provide some direction on where to go for more information. Most of these do include substantial coverage of developing country issues and news. Be warned that most of these services, while well controlled do deliver at least one message a day, so they’re not for occasional surfers!

CDC AIDSNews – send a blank message to preventionews-subscribe@cdcnpin.org   or visit their web site at www.cdcnpin.org. This list is maintained by the Centre for Diseases Control.

The Kaiser Family Foundation not only provide a daily news service about HIV/AIDS developments, but have some useful policy documents and links – visit them at www.kff.org.

ProCAARE, an electronic conference, is the Program for Collaboration Against AIDS and Related Epidemics initiated by SatelLife in cooperation with physicians and researchers at key Boston universities. More information and a subscription/archive facility is available from their web site – www.healthnet.org.

Pharminfo pharminfo.com recently focussed on various aspects of AIDS – in addition to a comprehensive web site on pharmaceutical issues, they provide an email newsletter to inform users of updates to the web site (PharminfoBYTES).

Some of the sections included are:

• Drugs Database
  Drugs Used in the Treatment of HIV/AIDS
  e.g. didanosine, ddI (Videx)
  http://pharminfo.com/drugdb/dbgn_mnud.html#didanosine

• HIV/AIDS Statistics
  Worldwide AIDS statistics compiled from various sources.
  http://pharminfo.com/disease/aids/aids_stats.html

• How HIV Causes AIDS – fact sheet

• Challenges in Designing HIV Vaccines
  The ideal HIV vaccine would be inexpensive, easy to store and administer and would elicit strong, appropriate immune responses that confer long-lasting protection against both bloodborne and mucosal (sexual) exposure to many HIV subtypes. This fact sheet describes why this ideal has not been easily achieved. http://pharminfo.com/disease/aids/challvacc.html

• HIV Vaccine Glossary
• Drugs for HIV Infection
  A review of research on pharmacotherapy regimens as reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes and Human Retrovirology. http://pharminfo.com/pubs/pnn/pnn35_2.html

• Reality Sinks in at Retroviral Conference
  Some 3000 AIDS researchers, are facing the grim reality that available drugs are not nearly powerful enough to overcome the AIDS virus. The group convened amid signs that patients on long-term therapy are relapsing as a result of viral mutations conferring resistance and poor patient compliance with complicated regimens.
  http://pharminfo.com/pubs/pnn/pnn35_3.html

New on the SAAHIP web site – www.saahip.org.za