Background: There is an increase in HIV/AIDS among rehabilitation practitioners in Centers of social labor education. Objective: (1) to evaluate prevalence of HIV and morbidity model of rehabilitation practitioners with HIV(+). (2) To describe knowledge of HIV-infection and health of rehabilitation practitioners with HIV(+). (3) To determine need of counseling related to test, treatment and care of rehabilitation practitioners with HIV (+). Subjects and methods: 297 rehabilitation practitioners in Centers of Social Labor Education No.1 surveyed using structured questionnaire, group discussion, in-depth interview. Results: There were 103 rehabilitation practitioner with HIV(+) accounting for 36%. Morbidity patterns among HIV(+) carriers: 36.2% had combined diseases; HCV 74%; co-infected with HBV (18%); recurrence of one disease 11.%; still good immunology response (74.3% hadTCD4>500 cells/mm3). \r\n', u'49.5% perceived AIDS conversion time, about 30% understood on preventing HIV transmission. Common practice was self-treatment (46%) or checking in local general hospitals (38.5%). There was a great need of drug users in Centers of Social Labor Education No.1 for counseling, testing, providing information, ARV treatment and referral system, connecting them to their relatives. Conclusion: HIV-CTR (counseling, testing and referrals services) model should be soon developed in the Center)\r\n', u'\r\n', u'\r\n', u'
Counseling ; Animal Testing Alternatives ; Therapeutics ;

A series of new replacement methods of skin irritation test such as EpiSkin, EpiDermSIT (updated) and SkinEthicRHE have been validated by ECVAM. Due to it, animals are protected to the full extent. These provide more methods for biological evaluation of medical devices.
Animal Testing Alternatives ; methods ; Humans ; Skin Irritancy Tests ; methods

Animal Experimentation ; Animal Testing Alternatives ; methods ; Animal Welfare ; Animals ; Toxicity Tests ; methods

OBJECTIVEThis study aims to establish and evaluate the methodology of isolated rabbit eye (IRE) test.

METHODSIRE test was performed according to modifications of the in vitro toxicology (INVITTOX) Protocol No.85: Rabbit enucleated eye test by European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), and then 26 chemicals and 26 cosmetic products were tested in both in vitro IRE and in vivo Draize tests. A statistical analysis was conducted to determine the relevance of the IRE test to the data generated in the Draize test.

RESULTSIRE test was established successfully in our laboratory. It was shown that ranking correlation and class concordance were fairly well between the IRE test and the Draize test for 26 reference chemicals (Fisher's Exact Test χ(2)=51.314, P<0.001; McNemar P=0.261; Gamma=0.960, P<0.001; Kappa=0.843, P<0.001) and 26 cosmetic products (Fisher's Exact Test χ(2)=15.522, P<0.001; McNemar P=0.311; Gamma=0.967, P<0.001; Kappa=0.611, P<0.001).

CONCLUSIONIRE test was established successfully for in vitro testing of eye irritation as an alternative to Draize test.

Animal Testing Alternatives ; Animals ; Cosmetics ; toxicity ; Eye ; drug effects ; Irritants ; toxicity ; Rabbits ; Toxicity Tests ; methods

Animal models have been used to elucidate the pathophysiology of varying diseases and to provide insight into potential targets for therapeutic intervention. Although alternatives to animal testing have been proposed to help overcome potential drawbacks related to animal experiments and avoid ethical issues, their use remains vital for the testing of new drug candidates and to identify the most effective strategies for therapeutic intervention. Particularly, the study of metabolic diseases requires the use of animal models to monitor whole-body physiology. In line with this, the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation (NIFDS) in Korea has established their own animal strains to help evaluate both efficacy and safety during new drug development. The objective of this study was to characterize the response of C57BL/6NKorl mice from the NIFDS compared with that of other mice originating from the USA and Japan in a chemical-induced diabetic condition. Multiple low-dose treatments with streptozotocin were used to generate a type-1 diabetic animal model which is closely linked to the known clinical pathology of this disease. There were no significantly different responses observed between the varying streptozotocin-induced type-1 diabetic models tested in this study. When comparing control and diabetic mice, increases in liver weight and disturbances in serum amino acids levels of diabetic mice were most remarkable. Although the relationship between type-1 diabetes and BCAA has not been elucidated in this study, the results, which reveal a characteristic increase in diabetic mice of all origins are considered worthy of further study.
Amino Acids ; Amino Acids, Branched-Chain ; Animal Experimentation ; Animal Testing Alternatives ; Animals ; Ethics ; Japan ; Korea ; Liver ; Metabolic Diseases ; Metabolomics* ; Mice* ; Models, Animal ; Pathology, Clinical ; Physiology ; Streptozocin

The technique of embryonic stem cell test (EST) has been developed and used in vitro to screen new medicines and other chemicals. According to toxicity, such medicines and chemicals can be classified as: non-toxic, weak toxic and/or strong toxic. EST shows merits such as no requirement of the sacrifice of pregnant animals, no side-effects on human or animals for candidate medicines and chemicals, higher sensitivity of embryonic stem cells when compared with the sensitivity of ordinary tissues of adult samples in toxicologic researches, higher accuracy when combined with computing techniques, and possible quantitation based on techniques of molecular biology. Advances in utility of EST technique were reviewed and the prospect of technique was also discussed in this paper.
Animal Testing Alternatives ; Animals ; Cell Differentiation ; drug effects ; Cell Line ; Embryonic Stem Cells ; cytology ; drug effects ; Humans ; Myocytes, Cardiac ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Teratogens ; toxicity ; Toxicity Tests ; methods