About Hepatitis B (HBV)

Hepatitis B is a liver disease. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Inflammation is the painful, red swelling that results when tissues of the body become injured or infected. Inflammation can cause organs to not work properly.

The virus is transmitted by exposure to infectious blood or body fluids such as semen and vaginal fluids, while viral DNA has been detected in the saliva, tears, and urine of chronic carriers. Perinatal infection is a major route of infection in endemic (mainly developing) countries.

The acute illness causes liver inflammation, vomiting, jaundice and, rarely, death. Chronic hepatitis B may eventually cause cirrhosis and liver cancer—a disease with poor response to all but a few current therapies. The infection is preventable by vaccination.

The Transmission
You could get hepatitis B through contact with an infected person’s blood, semen, or other body fluid.
You could also get hepatitis B:
- from being born to a mother with hepatitis B
- having sex with an infected person
- being tattooed or pierced with unsterilized tools that were used on an infected person
- getting an accidental needle stick with a needle that was used on an infected person
- using an infected person’s razor or toothbrush
- sharing drug needles with an infected person
- people who have had more than one sex partner in the last 6 months or have a history of sexually transmitted disease
- men who have sex with men
- people who have lived in parts of the world where hepatitis B is common
-  people on hemodialysis

You cannot get hepatitis B from:
- shaking hands with an infected person
- hugging an infected person
- sitting next to an infected person

Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus either may be asymptomatic or may be associated with a chronic inflammation of the liver (chronic hepatitis), leading to cirrhosis over a period of several years. This type of infection dramatically increases the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). Chronic carriers are encouraged to avoid consuming alcohol as it increases their risk for cirrhosis and liver cancer. Hepatitis B virus has been linked to the development of Membranous glomerulonephritis.

If you are at higher risk of hepatitis B, get tested. Many people do not know they are infected. Early diagnosis and treatment can help prevent liver damage. The tests, called assays, for detection of hepatitis B virus infection involve serum or blood tests that detect either viral antigens (proteins produced by the virus) or antibodies produced by the host. The Home Bio Hepatitis B test is an easy to use, accurate and reliable assay that will detect antibodies to the hepatitis B virus present in whole blood, serum or plasma.

Gonorrhea, pregnancy & newborn

The CDC currently recommends that pregnant women who live in a community where the infection is relatively widespread, as well as those who are otherwise at risk for the infection, should be tested for gonorrhea at their first prenatal visit and again in the third trimester if they remain at risk.

Sexually active females younger than 25 are at highest risk. Other risk factors include prior gonorrhea infection, other STIs, onset of sexual activity at a young age, new or multiple sex partners, commercial sex work, inconsistent condom use, and substance abuse. Those who are nonwhite, unmarried, or of a low socioeconomic level are also at higher risk.

If you think there's any possibility that you might have contracted gonorrhea or any other STI, let your caregiver know and ask to be tested. You should also be tested (or retested) at any time during pregnancy if you or your partner develops any symptoms of gonorrhea, or if you contract another STI, because they're often found together.

To test for gonorrhea, your practitioner will swab your cervix and send the swab to the lab for analysis. Sometimes a urine specimen is used instead.

If your test is positive, you'll be treated immediately. And if you weren't tested for other STIs along with the gonorrhea test, you'll be tested for them now. You'll be retested for gonorrhea in two to three months (sooner if you have symptoms) to make sure you haven't been reinfected, and again in the third trimester.

Babies can get the infection during birth as they pass through the birth canal. In babies, gonorrhea can cause blindness, joint infection, or a life-threatening blood infection.


How does Gonorrhea affect pregnant women?
Infected women can pass gonorrhea to their newborn baby during delivery. If a baby catches gonorrhea during childbirth, they might have eye infections. When the infection occurs in the genital tract, mouth, or rectum of a child, it is due most commonly to sexual abuse.

Facts About HIV

- HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infects cells of the immune system.
Infection results in the progressive deterioration of the immune system, breaking down the body's ability to fend off infections and diseases. AIDS (Acquired immune deficiency syndrome) refers to the most advanced stages of HIV infection, defined by the occurrence of any of more than 20 opportunistic infections or related cancers.

- You can't catch HIV from just being around a person or having casual contact with someone who is infected

- HIV infection is not carried in sweat or tears. It also can't be transmitted through water fountains, phones, toilet seats or clothes.

- HIV can be transmitted in several ways. HIV can be transmitted through:

* unprotected sexual intercourse (vaginal or anal) or oral sex with an infected person;
* transfusions of contaminated blood;
* the sharing of contaminated needles, syringes or other sharp instruments;
* the transmission between a mother and her baby during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding

- It's not just homosexual people who need to be tested. Every one can get HIV.

- Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) prevents the HIV virus from multiplying in the body
If the reproduction of the HIV virus stops, then the body's immune cells are able to live longer and provide the body with protection from infections.

- A person can't catch HIV from mosquitoes or any other bug bites or stings.

Common Gonorrhea Q&A

What is gonorrhea?
Gonorrhea is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD). The disease is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The gonorrhea bacterium can grow and multiply easily in warm, moist areas including the cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, urethra, mouth, throat, eyes, and anus.

Any sexually active person, man or woman, can get gonorrhea – even if they have had gonorrhae and received treatment before.

How common is gonorrhea?
Gonorrhea is a very common STD in the U.S. The CDC estimates nearly a million new cases of gonorrhea each year. Because gonorrhea often doesn't show any signs or symptoms, many people are infected without even realizing it. You should get an STD test for gonorrhea if you suspect an infection. If you have any signs or symptoms, abstain from having any kind of sex and see your doctor immediately.

Who is at risk for gonorrhea?
Any sexually active person can be infected with gonorrhea. In the United States, the highest reported rates of infection are among sexually active teenagers, young adults, and African Americans.

How can you get gonorrhea?

Gonorrhea can be passed from one person to another during any kind of sex or sexual activity, including vaginal, anal, or oral sex. It can also be transmitted from an infected mother to her baby during childbirth.

How is gonorrhea diagnosed?

Several tests are used to diagnose gonorrhea. Some can be performed on urine; other tests require a sample be collected from a site such as the cervix, urethra, rectum or throat.

Common Chlamydia Q&A

Who is at risk?
Anyone who has been sexually active is at risk of getting chlamydia. It is most common at the ages when people are most likely to change partners, with about 1 in 10 twenty year-olds infected at any time. By the age of 40, at least one-third to half of all women – and men – will have had it at some time. The number of new cases has doubled in the past 5 years – probably because more people are being tested, with more accurate tests.

Who should get tested for chlamydia?
You should be tested for chlamydia once a year if you are:
- 25 or younger and have sex
- Older than 25 and:
- Have a new sex partner
- Have more than one sex partner
- Have sex with someone who has other sex partners
- Have had chlamydia or another STI in the past
- Have traded sex for money or drugs
- Do not use condoms during sex within a relationship that is not mutually monogamous, meaning you or your partner has sex with other people
- Pregnant
- You also should be tested if you have any symptoms of chlamydia.

How long does it take to get results?
This will depend on the method used to diagnose the infection. The turn-around time for a culture is typically 5 to 7 days. Other methods can give results in one day, taking several hours. With the Rapid Home Bio Chlamydia test,  the easy to read result will develop after ten minutes and you will learn if you have a Chlamydia infection or not. The test kits are the same as those used by doctors and other healthcare professionals to screen for infection with Chlamydia. The test is specific for Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria and has an accuracy greater than 99.8%.

How Can I get Chlamydia?
You can get genital chlamydia infection during oral, vaginal, or anal sexual contact with a partner that is affected. An infant can get chlamydia from an infected mother during pregnancy.

Chlamydia, pregnancy and the newborn

Men and women can both be affected by Chlamydia, but symptoms of the infection are not always present. In fact, up to 75% of women and 50% of men experience no symptoms of Chlamydia. Because Chlamydia can easily be passed to your newborn, causing illness and possible tissue damage, it is important to get tested if you are experiencing any Chlamydia symptoms or are pregnant.

A baby who is exposed to C. trachomatis in the birth canal during delivery may develop an eye infection or pneumonia.

Symptoms of conjunctivitis, which include discharge and swollen eyelids, usually develop within the first 10 days of life.

Symptoms of pneumonia, including a cough that gets steadily worse and congestion, most often develop within 3 to 6 weeks of birth. Health care providers can treat both conditions successfully with antibiotics. Because of these risks to the newborn, many providers recommend that all pregnant women get tested for chlamydia as part of their prenatal care.
(Reproduced from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

If you are pregnant it is important to be tested, even if you are exhibiting none of the signs and symptoms of Chlamydia. Chlamydia has been linked with premature delivery resulting from the infection stimulating the rupture of your uterine membranes. Additionally, Chlamydia can cause your baby to have a low birth weight at birth. The infection can also be easily passed to your child during birth.

Gonorrhea Prevention (2)

Early Detection

Scientists haven't yet developed a vaccine or other way to prevent gonorrhea. You can avoid the disease by abstaining from sex or engaging in it with a monogamous, uninfected partner.

You can reduce, but not eliminate, your risk of getting gonorrhea by practicing safe sex.


The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends gonorrhea screening for all sexually active women who have risk factors for gonorrhea.

If you engage in high-risk sexual behaviors, you may want to consider being tested once a year for gonorrhea even though you don't have symptoms. Testing will allow gonorrhea to be quickly diagnosed and treated. This helps reduce the risk of transmitting gonorrhea and avoid complications of the infection. Nowadays Gonorrhea testing is made easy with The Home Bio Gonorrhea Test. The test is an easy to use, accurate and reliable assay that will detect antibodies to the bacteria that cause gonorrhea present on swab samples collected from the cervix or the urethra. The result is available within minutes – in the privacy of your own home.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommends screening for pregnant women who engage in high-risk sexual behaviors to prevent them from transmitting gonorrhea to their babies. If a pregnant woman is at high risk for gonorrhea, she may be tested again during the third trimester before delivery, to prevent transmitting the infection to her newborn.

Several gonorrhea tests can be used to detect or confirm an infection. Your doctor will collect a sample of body fluid or urine to be tested for gonorrhea bacteria (Neisseria gonorrhoeae). Most tests give results within a few days.

Other sexually transmitted infections may be present with a gonorrhea infection. Your doctor may recommend testing for:

Gonorrhea Prevention (1)

Steps to reduce your risk of gonorrhea:

- Practice safe sex
Preventing a sexually transmitted infection (STI) is easier than treating an infection after it occurs.

- Talk with your partner about STIs before beginning a sexual relationship.
Find out whether he or she is at risk for an STI. Remember that it is quite possible to be infected with an STI without knowing it. Some STIs, such as HIV, can take up to 6 months before they can be detected in the blood.

- Be responsible.

- Avoid sexual contact if you have symptoms of an STI or are being treated for an STI.

- Avoid sexual contact with anyone who has symptoms of an STI or who may have been exposed to an STI.

- Don't have more than one sexual relationship at a time. Your risk for an STI increases if you have several sex partners at the same time.If you or your partner have had several sex partners within the past year, or you are a man who has unprotected sex with men, talk to your doctor about screening for gonorrhea and other STIs even if you don't have symptoms.

Teens & HIV Test 2

Approximately 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV/AIDS, and more than 56,000 become infected with HIV every year. One-third of them are between the ages of 13 and 29. That means at least two teenagers and young adults in this country are infected with HIV every hour of every day. But many young people still do not think they are personally at risk for HIV.

When teens in the United States become infected with HIV, it usually happens in one of two ways:

1. By sharing needles used to inject drugs or other substances (including needles used for injecting steroids, tattooing, piercing, and body art). If the person who has used the needle is infected with HIV, his or her blood on the needle can infect anyone else who uses the same needle.

2. Through unprotected sex including anal, vaginal, and oral sex. This can happen when body fluids such as semen, vaginal fluids, or blood from an infected person get into the body of someone who is not infected. Everyone who has unprotected sex with an infected person is at risk of contracting HIV, but people who already have another sexually transmitted disease (STD) are even more at risk.

Children can be infected with HIV if an infected pregnant woman passes the virus to her unborn child. Treating the mother and child around the time the baby is delivered, delivering by cesarean section, and avoiding breastfeeding can reduce the baby's risk of infection.

If people with HIV get treated, they can live long, relatively healthy lives — just as people who have other chronic diseases like diabetes can. But, as with diabetes or asthma, there is still no cure for HIV and AIDS.
Pediatricians should offer routine HIV testing to adolescents at least once before they are 16 to 18 if the local prevalence of the virus is greater than 0.1%, according to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

If the local community prevalence is lower, pediatricians should offer the test to all sexually active patients as well as to those with other risk factors, such as drug use, according to Patricia J. Emmanuel, MD, of the University of South Florida, and colleagues on the academy's Committee of Pediatric AIDS.

The recent introduction of rapid HIV tests makes screening less invasive, although the gold standard remains detection of HIV antibody in serum, followed by confirmatory tests with Western blot or immunofluorescent assay.

Teens & HIV Test 1

Today, many doctors only offer testing to patients they deem at risk, such as prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexual men. But since 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged everybody older than 13 to get an HIV test regardless of risk factors in areas with many undiagnosed cases.
Making HIV testing a routine part of health care for adolescents and adults aged 13–64 years is one of the most important strategies recommended by CDC for reducing the spread of HIV.

HIV testing is also an integral part of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to prevent the spread of HIV and improve health outcomes for those who are already infected.
State and local education agencies and schools are essential partners in this effort.

Why HIV Testing Is Important? 
More than 1 million persons in the United States are living with HIV infection; of those, many do not know they are infected. HIV usually proceeds to AIDS in the absence of treatment, but newer drugs can keep that from happening for many years. And knowing you're infected may also help stem transmission of the disease to others -- a benefit that isn't seen with cancer screening, for instance.

Learning one’s HIV infection status is an important part of prevention. Studies show that people who know they are infected are far less likely to have unprotected sex than those who do not know. Early diagnosis of HIV infection and linkage to care enable people to start treatment sooner, leading to better health outcomes and longer lives.