To describe the HIV case finding strategies used by the Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS), Adolescent HIV Outreach and Treatment programs, the populations of youth they were able to ...reach, and the populations of HIV-positive youth they were able to identify.
Program specifications from five programs located in four major metropolitan centers were contrasted. Four of the programs also provided outcome data for HIV counseling and testing outcome numbers, demographic and risk profile data for youth who underwent HIV testing, and mode of infection of HIV-positive youth.
The program outcomes were discussed in terms of similarities and differences in outreach methods (e.g., peer workers, time of outreach, etc.), geographic settings (i.e., mobile van, institutional settings, community locations), individual characteristics (e.g., pregnant women) and youth subcultures (i.e., gay/transgendered, incarcerated juveniles, homeless).
Because HIV-positive adolescents will constitutionally remain a “hidden population,” a great deal of time and effort will continue to need to go into the front end of outreach, counseling and testing. Specific guidance and recommendations for locating HIV-positive youth were provided to program designers for each type of outreach strategy.
The pyelonephritis-associated adhesin gene papG of Escherichia coli occurs in three variants. Whereas the class II and class III variants are common among human urinary tract infection isolates, the ...class I allele, despite being the first cloned, has previously been found only in source strain J96. Five strains have been discovered from geographically diverse locales that, like J96, contain both the class I and class III papG alleles. One strain caused bacteremia, whereas 4 caused cystitis. Like J96, all 5 had group III capsule genes, expressed the H5 flagellar antigen and the F13 flmbrial antigen, and exhibited similar genomic patterns and virulence factor profiles. These findings demonstrate that the class IpapG allele is not unique to J96 but is present in a group of extraintestinal isolates of E. coli O4:H5 that represent a disseminated virulent clonal group.
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