The results of this study were announced this March at the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago, Illinois. To make the situation that much more dire, according to the lead researcher in the study, Sara Forhan, in terms of ethnic breakdowns, almost half of African-American teenaged girls have been or are infected with an STD, in comparison to twenty percent of white teenaged girls. John M. Douglas, Jr., a CDC director for the Division of STD Prevention, states, “High STD infection rates among young women, particularly young African-American women, are clear signs that we must continue developing ways to reach those most at risk.” He goes on to say that many of the effects of STDS like cervical cancer or infertility could easily be prevented with proper and early screening and treatment.  The data also reflects that of all sexually transmitted diseases, the two most commonly seen in US girls are chlamydia and HPV.  Because of this, testing for chlamydia each year, especially for those women under the age of 25 who are sexually active is recommended by the CDC. They also strongly urge that all women who are between 11 and 26 years get a full HPV vaccination.

Since effective testing and screening are strongly urged, the National STD Prevention Conference also had much discussion on this as well, including more creative and effective programs that have increased the rates of STD diagnoses. Recently, there was a confidential program to screen for chlamydia in several California clinics. This program was aimed towards those high-school-aged teenagers who sought out STD services and contraception. This resulted in a much higher screening rate (over 85%). In addition, the program was a demonstration of the higher rate of STD infection in African-Americans (just under 10%) compared to that of white women (almost 2%).

Also highlighted at this year’s conference was the push for reproductive health services to also include the much-needed STD screening. One study researched those women who sought emergency contraception and their STD screening rates. Of those women who came in, only 27 % actually got tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Almost half of the women who tested for these STDs actually had one of the two STDs. This demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt how any woman coming in for emergency contraception should automatically be screened for STDs since the visit would hint that the woman recently had unprotected sex and, thus, possible exposure to an STD.

According to a British study, those patients in developed nations who are inflicted with HIV do not have a greater chance of dying during the first five years after getting infected than the general population. While the chances of dying from HIV/AIDS-related causes do increase after the first five years (for those who were infected with HIV through sexual relations), the study demonstrates how powerful and impacting AIDS drugs can be when available and used consistently and correctly. One thing to note is that the study’s findings, which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, were not relevant for those patients who contracted HIV through injection with drug usage. Unlike those who contracted HIV sexually, their risk for death was still high for the first five years after being infected.

The head author of the study, Kholoud Porter, an epidemiologist on behalf of Britain’s Medical Research Council, stated, “This is looking really good that life expectancies are becoming close to the uninfected population. It also underscores the importance that people are identified and treated early.” HAART, or highly active antiretroviral therapy, otherwise known as a cocktail of AIDS drugs, is directly responsible for helping those infected with HIV live longer lives, especially in nations that are considered more developed. Even though these HIV/AIDS drug cocktails must be taken for the rest of an infected person’s life, this is a small price to pay to stay healthy and to keep AIDS at bay.

The study encompasses over 13,000 infected males and females and compared the risk of death from the disease with uninfected equally aged males and females living in the same country, during the same time period. The AIDS cocktail of drugs did not become commonplace until the late 1990s. Before this time, the risk of death was anywhere from eight to twenty percent (depending on the age of the infected person). As the cocktail of drugs became more prevalent in developed nations, the risk of death (for the first 5 years after infection) fell to zero percent by the year 2000. As mentioned earlier, the risk for death does being to rise after the initial five years. Some theorize it is because either the patient begins to develop a tolerance for the drug cocktail or the patient unfortunately begins to stop taking his/her drugs on a regular basis.

Due to Papua’s dire situation, Papua Condom Week took place in various regions throughout the territory in February 2008 (February 2 through 16). Sponsored by the AIDS Prevention Commission the week was intended to help combat the growing HIV infection rate. The focus of this week was to educate the public about HIV/AIDS facts and to open the communication channels throughout the population so that AIDS and the havoc it causes gets more exposure and stops being a source of shame. This campaign’s main message centered on practicing safe sex to help prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Dewi Wulandari, a public relations officer in the AIDS Prevention Commission for Papua speaks about the Condom Week, “The program is completed with film presentations and public discussion at Sentani Airport, Phraa market and Sentani terminal as well as on PT. Pelni ship which sails to strategic areas.” In fact, the AIDS Prevention Commission for Papua is joining forces with the HIV educating team from the Non-Government Organization for AIDS Prevention and Care to schedule a trip for this PT. Pelni ship as it makes its return trip from to Manokwari from Jayapura in order to perform educational training on condoms for all of the ship’s passengers and all of its staff.

A large portion of Papua’s population has been affected by HIV. In fact, in the year 2007, the infection rate increased greatly. According to studies performed by the Papua Health Institute, there were close to 1,500 cases of AIDS and just under 2,000 cases of new HIV infections. Approximately 9 percent of these reported cases were fatal. The most worrisome aspect of these reports is that the majority of these new infections have affected adults between the ages of 15 and 39, those of child-bearing age. Health officials have stated that there are several reasons behind this phenomenon: an environment that does not support the safe sex campaigns, a large portion of the population that practices unsafe sex and an uneducated population. Many hope that this Condom Week will remedy these unsafe practices and give the population more knowledge about how the efficient and consistent use of condoms will help stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV.

When it comes to mind-blowing, sheet shredding sex, spontaneity is the way to go. There’s nothing quite like the idea of being taken, sexually, then and there, by someone we desire. A condom is the last thing on your mind. Sometimes you are too busy tearing each others’ clothes off to stop and even ask. Most of the time, a lot of us are usually just too embarrassed to pause in the middle of frenzied passion to stop and negotiate safe sex.

If you avoided having the ‘safe sex’ conversation during the earlier stages of a relationship, chances are you will be faced with this situation the next time you have the urge to go horizontal on each other. Stopping to put on a condom puts passion on pause, and by the time you’re both set to go, you’ll find that you’ll have to start over again.

Because you can not have unprotected sex, getting your partner to engage in safe sex is a something both of you should willingly indulge in. Introducing condoms as a part of foreplay is effectively one of the best methods to go by. With a wide range of condoms of varying shapes, forms and flavors available on the market today, safe sex can even be titillating and can further add to the excitement. Make it a point to use condoms of reputable brand names such as Durex, Trojan or Magnum to ensure quality protection and to prevent unwanted accidents.

Always remember to keep a spare set of condoms nearby, so as to avoid running out to the nearest pharmacy in the middle of the night, half dressed and in a near state of panic.

Practicing how to put on a condom is also important, so as to avoid mishaps which could forgo, and sometimes, end, sexual intensity.

Another method of having effective safe sex without putting a damper on things is by using the female condom. Hailed as a breakthrough in female empowerment when it was first introduced in 1992, it can be applied up to eight hours before intercourse, allowing women to freely engage in guilt-free safe sex regardless of whether their partners use condoms or not. Surveys have also indicated that both parties derive more pleasure from the use of a female condom than the traditional ‘male’ one.

Finally, the key ingredient to having a good safe time is to keep your mind open and sense of humor on. Remember that sex should also be fun; allow yourselves to laugh at each other if the condom wrapper refuses to tear. In this way, you’ll also be able to connect with each other better and find it easier to re-achieve intimacy, regardless of any hurdles you’re encountering along the way, including fumbling with that bedside drawer. And as anyone will tell you, if you’re too uptight, you just won’t enjoy the sex anyway, period, regardless of whether you paused to put on that condom or not.

In the report that documented the unsafe sexual behavior, Thomas Freidan, the health commissioner, stated that the biggest concern is with men who have homosexual sexual relations and who have had more than five different sexual partners within a year’s time. Of this group, “36 percent did not use condoms consistently. This is a core group which is at high risk for getting, and spreading, HIV.”

One reason that the Bronx borough responded so quickly to this report is that each year, over one-third of those patients who die from AIDS in New York City come from the Bronx. In addition, a quarter of those people who are currently afflicted with HIV in New York City live in the Bronx. This is over 21,000 people. While the Bronx already boasts the highest HIV tested population of all the boroughs (approximately 68 percent), the new initiative will strive to provide tests for all those residents who have never been tested (approximately 250,000 residents) and who may unknowingly be harboring and, thus, spreading the virus. According to the president of the Bronx borough, Adolfo Carrion, Jr., “New infections are still occurring at epidemic rates, especially among women and people of color.” City officials have declared that one in four people who are afflicted with HIV in the Bronx do not even realize they are carriers and that one in four people who get positively tested for HIV come to discover that they are already living with full-blown AIDS.

A perfect example of this is Soraya Pares who works at the Bronx Health Center as a program coordinator for the prevention of HIV. Almost 18 years ago, in 1991, she discovered she had HIV when the daughter she recently gave birth to tested positive for HIV. She admits she never gave HIV a second thought before testing positive and always felt it was a disease that happened to other people. She is thrilled with the new initiative because she feels it targets those in the Bronx community who are in denial about HIV being a widespread epidemic. She states, “It’s not just the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered and the IV drug users. Regular people also get infected. It’s the same disease.” As one who has lived with the virus for 18 years, she goes on to say, “If you know your status, it’s possible to have a fruitful life and still have anything and everything your heart desired.”

A possibility of an entire new set of AIDS drugs is on the horizon as University of Michigan researchers have created something that has not been seen in over two decades: a means for inhibiting a target that is commonly used when treating those patients afflicted with HIV. The compound in question is the HIV protease, which most AIDS drugs aim for. This HIV protease is responsible for the actual replication of HIV, according to the University of Michigan head researcher on this research and professor of medicinal chemistry, Heather Carlson.  Originally using computers to model the compound, further lab research demonstrated that the compound actually works in inhibiting this protease.

Carlson goes on to explain that this research is still in the preliminary stages since it is “easy to make an inhibitor, (but) it’s very hard to make a drug. This compound is too weak to work in the human body. The key is to find more compounds that will work by the same mechanism.” What has researchers on this study excited is the fact that while AIDS drugs currently on the market also weaken the HIV-1 protease to prevent HIV from replicating, this compound does the same thing but in an entirely different way.

For further clarification, consider what happens when the HIV-1 protease is weakened. The AIDS drugs prevent the protease from creating the proteins needed to gather and create an active virus. Current AIDS drugs work by causing large molecules to attach to the protease’s center, causing the protease to be frozen shut. The newly created compound, however, works a bit differently. Instead of attaching to the center, the module aims for something called a “flap recognition pocket” on the protease and works to hold the protease open (instead of shutting it down) with a small molecule. By holding the flap open, the protease is inhibited, just as it would be if the protease is frozen shut (as current drugs aim to do).

The newly created compound is actually quite a discovery since it uses a smaller molecule to do its bidding (instead of the large molecules currently used in AIDS drugs). Smaller molecules are known to be absorbed more readily by the body. According to Carlson, “This new class of smaller molecules could have better drug properties (and) could get around current side effects. HIV dosing regimes are really difficult. You have to take medicine several times in the day. Maybe you wouldn’t have to do that with these smaller molecules because they would be absorbed differently.”