Epidemiology of Haemophilus influenzae Serotype a, North American Arctic, 2000–2005

Serotype a is now the most common seen in the North American Arctic; highest rates occur in indigenous children

Epidemiology of Haemophilus influenzae Serotype a, North American Arctic, 2000–2005

Serotype a is now the most common seen in the North American Arctic; highest rates occur in indigenous children

High-throughput gene discovery in the rat

The rat is an important animal model for human diseases and is widely used in physiology. In this article we present a new strategy for gene discovery based on the production of ESTs from serially subtracted and normalized cDNA libraries, and we describe its application for the development of a comprehensive nonredundant collection of rat ESTs. Our new strategy appears to yield substantially more EST clusters per ESTs sequenced than do previous approaches that did not use serial subtraction. However, multiple rounds of library subtraction resulted in high frequencies of otherwise rare internally primed cDNAs, defining the limits of this powerful approach. To date, we have generated >200,000 3′ ESTs from >100 cDNA libraries representing a wide range of tissues and developmental stages of the laboratory rat. Most importantly, we have contributed to ∼50,000 rat UniGene clusters. We have identified, arrayed, and derived 5′ ESTs from >30,000 unique rat cDNA clones. Complete information, including radiation hybrid mapping data, is also maintained locally at http://genome.uiowa.edu/clcg.html. All of the sequences described in this article have been submitted to the dbEST division of the NCBI

The efficacy of a network intervention to reduce HIV risk behaviors among drug users and risk partners in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Philadelphia, USA

This HIV Prevention Trials Network study assessed the efficacy of a network-oriented peer education intervention promoting HIV risk reduction among injection drug users and their drug and sexual network members in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Philadelphia, USA. The study was designed to test impact on HIV infection, but the infection rate was low and the study was terminated early. This paper reports efficacy on outcomes of self-reported HIV risk behaviors. We enrolled 414 networks with 1123 participants. The experimental intervention consisted of six small group peer educator training sessions and two booster sessions delivered to the network index only. All participants in both arms received individual HIV counseling and testing. Follow-up visits occurred every six months for up to 30 months. There were 10 HIV seroconversions, 5 in each arm. The number of participants reporting injection risk behaviors dropped dramatically between baseline and follow-up in both arms at both sites. Index members in the intervention arm engaged in more conversations about HIV risk following the intervention compared to control indexes. There was no evidence of change in sexual risk as a result of the intervention. Reductions in injection risk behaviors were observed: 37%, 20%, and 26% reduction in odds of sharing cottons, rinse water and cookers, respectively, and 24% reduction in using a syringe after someone else. Analysis of the individual sites suggested a pattern of reductions in injection risk behaviors in the Philadelphia site. In both sites, the intervention resulted in index injection drug users engaging in the community role of discussing reduction in HIV injection risk behaviors. The intervention did not result in overall reductions in self-reported sexual risk behaviors, and although reductions in injection risk behaviors were observed, the overall efficacy in reducing risk was not established.Thailand HIV Prevention Social norms Social networks Peer education Injection drug users (IDUs) Intervention