News (Updated December 2,
2007)
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by Michael SmithSat Dec 1, 9:40 PM ET
Activists and global
leaders used World AIDS Day Saturday to warn against complacency in fighting
the disease and called on governments to fill a multi-billion-dollar funding
gap.
"We have made tangible and remarkable progress on all these fronts.
But we must do more," United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said
in a message for World AIDS Day.
The highlight of events across the globe was a concert in Johannesburg
organised by Nelson Mandela's 46664 AIDS campaign group, named after his
prison number from his 27 years in jail during South Africa's apartheid
regime.
An estimated 50,000 people attended the concert of local and foreign
artists, ranging from Peter Gabriel to Ludacris, broadcast to millions
around the world.
Mandela himself put in a rare appearance, and the crowd erupted in
screams before falling silent as the 89-year-old urged people to stand up
and take the fight against AIDS into their own hands.
"It is still alarming that for every person who receives treatment
there are four others who are newly infected," said the Nobel laureate,
after slowly walking to the podium with the aid of his wife and a walking
stick.
"Yes, big ambitious plans are needed to deal with the epidemic. But
what really matters are small acts of kindness ... such as protecting
yourself," he said.
South Africa has the world's worst rate of HIV, according to recent UN
statistics, with around 5.5 million people infected out of a population of
48 million.
But while sub-Saharan Africa has been hard hit, other African nations
have registered successes.
Mali's HIV infection rate dropped from 1.7 percent in 2001 to 1.3 percent
last year, an official from the state's national council against AIDS said.
Since the first World AIDS Day in 1988 there has been progress in
levelling off the percentage of the world's population living with HIV and
AIDS from a peak in the late 1990s, the UN AIDS programme UNAIDS said last
month.
The tally of new infections fell to an estimated 2.5 million in 2007,
from 3.0 million in the late 1990s, it added.
Efforts to bring anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to sub-Saharan Africa, where
more than two-thirds of those with HIV/AIDS live, were now bearing fruit, it
said.
But with 33.2 million people around the world estimated to be living with
AIDS and 2.1 million deaths in 2007, campaigners warned there was still a
long way to go.
"Despite substantial progress against AIDS worldwide, we are still
losing ground," said James Shelton of the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) in a commentary in the medical journal The Lancet on
Saturday.
Treatment was still only available to about 10 percent of those in need,
he said, while in developing countries, "the number of new infections
continues to dwarf the numbers who start anti-retroviral therapy in
developing countries."
One of the biggest areas of concern was funding.
According to the UN, there is currently an eight-billion-dollar
(five-billion-euro) shortfall in resources to fight AIDS.
To meet the Group of Eight (G8) goal of providing universal access to
ARVs by 2010, 42 billion dollars will be needed. So far, only 15.4 billion
is in the kitty.
US President George W. Bush marked the day by repeating his call on US
lawmakers to double support for anti-AIDS programmes to 30 billion dollars
over five years.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 US presidential
race, said "AIDS is not just an African problem, an Asian problem, or
an American problem. It's not someone else's problem."
Chinese President Hu Jintao was on front pages of state newspapers
shaking the hand of a woman infected with HIV, a day after UN warnings that
up to 50 million Chinese were at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.
In Australia, campaigners warned that complacency after earlier success
in fighting HIV/AIDS risked giving rise to a new wave of infections.
"This is the moment it all could go astray. This is the moment when
it can become a pandemic," said AIDS awareness educator Vince Lovegrove.
Indonesia -- which the UN says has Asia's fastest growing HIV epidemic --
marked the day with the launch of its first national campaign to promote the
use of condoms.
And in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, several dozen AIDS activists observed
a minute of silence to remember the 12,000 Ukrainians who have died of AIDS
in two decades.
Some stood with their mouths taped to protest what they say is the
government's silence about Ukraine's growing HIV and AIDS problem.
During the first 10 months of the year, close to 14,500 new HIV cases
were reported, prompting UN AIDS officials to warn that Ukraine's HIV
epidemic was the most severe in Europe.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the country's leading HIV
research hospital and called the battle against AIDS "absolutely
fundamental".
In Latin America, campaigns promoting condom use were in high gear
particularly in Brazil, which the United Nations says is home to one third
of the people infected with HIV across the region.
In Peru, at least 3,000 people formed a human chain to raise awareness,
while a separate exposition with "Blankets of Love," made for
loved ones who dies of the disease, was held in a Lima park.
In Haiti, the country with the greatest number of HIV infected people in
the Americas (190,000) after Brazil, despite a relatively small population,
HIV clinics were opened in the impoverished Caribbean country's capital.
Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:37 AM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao visited a
number of AIDS patients and their families on Friday, a public show of
solidarity in a country where HIV/AIDS sufferers still face widespread
stigmatization.
Beijing was initially slow to acknowledge the threat of the disease, but has
since stepped up the fight against it, spending more on prevention programs and
implementing policies to curb discrimination.
State television showed Hu speaking with a female AIDS patient at a Beijing
hospital, the shot zooming in on his hand shaking hers.
"I'm so glad you are not frightened by the disease," Hu said.
He was shown at length speaking to the family of an AIDS sufferer as well as
to the hospital's staff, whom he encouraged to act responsibly and with a
"humanitarian" attitude.
Hu's visit, on the eve of World AIDS Day, highlights both the progress China
has made in confronting the disease and the challenges that remain.
The rate of new HIV/AIDS infections is slowing, to about 50,000 new
infections this year compared with 70,000 in 2005, the government said this
week. That means there will be about 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in
China this year.
But the epidemic is spreading from high-risk groups like sex workers and
intravenous drug users to the general population, and persistent discrimination
means many sufferers are afraid to seek medical treatment, experts say.
(Reporting by Niu Shuping and Jason Subler; Editing by Jerry Norton)
Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:49 AM GMT
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS-related
discrimination have failed to stamp out "widespread"
stigmatization of sufferers, United Nations. officials said on Wednesday.
Subinay Nandy, China country director for the U.N. Development
Programme, said China had done a "tremendous job" implementing
anti-HIV/AIDS discrimination policies and legislation but enduring
misconceptions were stopping sufferers from seeking treatment.
"We all will agree, widespread stigmas and discrimination in all
sections of societal life here in China as elsewhere still exist at a very
high level," Nandy told reporters.
"China, in terms of the percentage of people and the number
affected, (HIV/AIDS) is still not that big a problem ... but there is no
reason to be complacent."
The United Nations estimates that the number of HIV/AIDS sufferers in
China is about 650,000.
But Chinese health officials have said the epidemic is spreading from
high-risk groups such as sex workers and drug-users to the general
population.
The rate of new HIV/AIDS infections has accelerated in recent months.
While the average monthly figure for the first six months of 2007 was
3,090, the average over the longer January-October period rose sharply to
3,223, state media reported..
AIDS prevention groups have said that more HIV-sufferers were
developing full-blown AIDS due to resistance to anti-retroviral drugs and
a reluctance to speak out.
"People who feel stigmatized will not come forward or dare to seek
medical treatment, and guidance, and by doing so put further fuel on the
fire for the spread of HIV," UNAIDS China Country Director Bernhard
Schwartlander said.
The U.N. officials spoke at the launch of "Positive Talks" on
Wednesday, a UNDP-backed project training 35 Chinese men and women living
with HIV/AIDS to participate in "HIV-related advocacy, prevention,
care and awareness activities" at schools, companies and hospitals.
"There is a stronger need than ever to reach the general public
and humanize the face of the HIV epidemic," Nandy said, but added
that sufferers' confidentiality still needed to be protected due to
enduring social misconceptions.
Gao Fei, a Beijing-based HIV/AIDS sufferer with the "Positive
Talks" project, said discrimination was still serious, even in the
Chinese capital, where only two hospitals specialized in providing
treatment for sufferers.
"If other hospitals see on your hospital record that you've been
infected, they won't treat you ... even if you just need treatment for the
flu or a cold," Gao said.
Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:31 AM ET
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) -
The rate of new HIV/AIDS infections in China is slowing and is now mainly
being transmitted through sex, which the government could tackle with a
circumcision campaign, the health minister said on Thursday.
The country will have an estimated 50,000 new infections in 2007,
compared with 70,000 in 2005, though groups like men who have sex with men
are increasingly at risk, according to a report by the State Council, or
Cabinet, and the United Nations.
That will mean there will be about 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS
this year in China, up from an earlier estimate of 650,000.
Of the new infections, 44.7 percent will come from heterosexual
transmission, 12.2 percent from men having sex with men, and 42 percent
from intravenous drug use, the report said.
In the past, most infections were caused by intravenous drug use.
"At present, the AIDS epidemic in China continues to spread, but
at a slower rate," Health Minister Chen Zhu told a news conference.
"Sexual transmission is now the main route for the spread of
AIDS."
Chen said more focus needed to be put on traditionally marginalized
groups, like the gay community and drug users, though he added condom use
by sex workers had risen from 14.7 percent in 2001 to 41.4 percent last
year.
Yet the report found risky behavior by men who have sex with men
remained widespread, with just a third using condoms for anal sex.
Chen said that with infections now primarily coming via sexual
transmission, a male circumcision campaign could not be ruled out in
China.
Studies have shown that circumcision could reduce the risk of HIV
infection by up to 60 percent, though it does not offer total protection
from the virus.
The World Health Organisation has already recommended it as one of the
ways developing countries, especially in Africa, could use to fight the
spread of AIDS.
"This is a technical question. I think our experts will evaluate
it," Chen later told Reuters. "Even before the AIDS era some
children in China were already being circumcised."
Circumcision rates are low in China compared to Asian countries like
South Korea or Japan, where the foreskin is often removed at birth for
hygiene reasons, or Muslim countries like Indonesia which practice it for
religious reasons.
China's Muslim minority, concentrated in the far western region of
Xinjiang, likewise circumcise their male children, normally as they reach
puberty.
Chen said that were the government to decide to promote circumcision
among the wider population, he did not think it would run into much
opposition or cultural problems.
"As long as there is evidence it is effective, I don't think it
would be an issue," he said.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
China has 223,501 people infected with HIV, the official Xinhua
News Agency said Thursday, a sharp drop in previously reported
figures.
The brief dispatch from Xinhua did not give any more details.
In 2004, China scaled back the estimated number of people infected
with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from nearly 1 million people to
840,000, and then further lowered the estimate to 650,000 in 2005.
Experts have said the figures are probably accurate because they
are in line with a change in the way data are collected.
HIV gained a foothold in China largely due to unsanitary blood
plasma-buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals.
After years of denying that AIDS was a problem, Chinese leaders
have shifted gears dramatically in recent years, confronting the
disease more openly and promising anonymous testing, free treatment
for the poor and a ban on discrimination against people with the
virus.
But the topic still remains very sensitive and authorities
regularly crack down on activists and patients seeking more support
and rights.
Global health officials said earlier this month that the estimated
number of people infected with HIV around the world fell from almost
40 million last year to about 33.2 million this year.
Previous estimates were largely inflated and the new numbers are
the result of a different methodology, which show that the AIDS
pandemic is losing momentum.
The old AIDS numbers were largely based on how many infected
pregnant women were at pre-natal clinics, as well as projecting the
AIDS rates of certain high-risk groups like drug users to the entire
population at risk. Officials said those figures were flawed, and are
now incorporating more data like national household surveys.
Last week, David Ho, a well-known AIDS researcher who also runs a
public awareness and prevention program in mainland China, said
Beijing's previously revised figures likely reflected the change in
method of calculation.
Chinese police are to stop arresting women who carry condoms,
traditionally seen as evidence of prostitution, in an effort to help
curb the spread of AIDS, state press said Friday.
Despite efforts to stop the practice, women in China are still being
sent to labour camps for prostitution offences merely because they were
carrying condoms when detained by police, the report said, quoting an
expert.
"We have investigated many education-through-labour camps and we
have found that for those sentenced for prostitution, the sole evidence
was that they possessed condoms," Xinhua quoted the unnamed expert
as telling an AIDS conference here.
The comment appeared to contradict remarks by Han Mengjie, a senior
official at the cabinet-level AIDS prevention office, who was quoted by
Xinhua as saying a campaign to end the practice was put in place as
early as in 2001.
"In 2001, the propaganda bureau and the police issued a joint
directive that as for the use of condoms, they would not be considered
evidence," said Han.
"As far as I know, since we started our AIDS awareness campaign
and consulted with the police ministry, police throughout China have
stopped using condoms as evidence."
China is estimated to have about 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases, with tens of
thousands of new infections each year.
An increasing number of infections is due to heterosexual contact and
not drug use, which was formerly the main channel of the disease here.
Police in China enjoy extraordinary powers to deal with minor crime,
and are allowed to convict and sentence suspects to up to two years in
labour camps, without trial.
30 Nov 2007 11:08:40 GMT
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific countries are not doing enough to
tackle a growing AIDS crisis among men who have sex with men, hampered by social
stigma and discriminatory laws, according to an advocacy group.
Though in some countries such as China the government is now actively
involved in reaching out to this community, in others, including Malaysia and
India, progress has been much slower, said the Asia-Pacific Coalition on Male
Sexual Health.
It is an "almost unrecognised but ever-growing crisis that many
governments in the region are only just beginning to grapple with", the
group said in a statement ahead of World AIDS Day on Saturday.
HIV infection rates in some Asia cities in the men who have sex with men (MSM)
community are estimated to be as high as 32 percent, added the group, a
coalition of U.N. bodies, governments and non-governmental organisations.
"One of the main reasons is stigma around engaging in MSM behaviour, and
also identifying as gay, transgender and so on in Asia," Edmund Settle,
HIV/AIDS Programme Manager for the UNDP in China, told Reuters in a telephone
interview.
That stigma can range from lack of visibility to homophobic violence in
places like Nepal.
"There's also a legislative reason. In a lot of post-colonial countries
such as India and Malaysia, engaging in male-to-male sex is illegal, punishable
by long prison sentences. So it's very difficult to talk openly about
male-to-male sex if it's illegal," he added.
Another problem is lack of data, though research has now started to take
place, and lack of focus on the community in HIV/AIDS prevention work.
"Despite MSM having higher infection rates than the general adult
population, the financial investment for HIV prevention, care and support
services for this marginalised group across the Asia-Pacific is abysmally low in
national HIV and AIDS programme planning, usually between 0 and 4 percent,"
group chairperson Shivananda Khan said in the statement.
"Less than one in 10 MSM in the region have access to any sort of HIV
services, woefully short of the six in 10 that UNAIDS describes as minimal
coverage necessary for high-risk groups," Khan added.
"Is it any surprise then that we really don't have a clear picture of
the true extent of the HIV crisis affecting men who have sex with men?"
Knowledge of safe sex can be pitifully low.
In China, which has an estimated 700,000 HIV cases, only 30 percent of men
who have sex with men use condoms, according to a new Chinese government/UN
report. And in urban areas, new cases are growing fast in this community.
"If you just look at urban cases, in China they are starting to make up
a large proportion of HIV infections," Settle said, adding this was also
the case in other major cities around the region.
"What we don't know is the second and third tier cities." (Editing
by Nick Macfie)
Pope Benedict XVI on
Wednesday called for intensified efforts to stop the spread of the HIV
virus, saying he felt "spiritually close" to those suffering from
AIDS.
"I am asking all people of goodwill to multiply efforts to stop the
spread of the HIV virus, to oppose the scorn that often strikes those
affected and to take care of the sick, especially the children,"
Benedict told his weekly public audience in connection with World AIDS Day,
which was Saturday.
"I am spiritually close to those who suffer as a result of this
terrible illness as well as to their families, in particular those struck by
the loss of a close relative," the pope said. "I assure my prayers
for all."
Also on Wednesday, a U.N. food agency said that reducing hunger in poor
countries was key to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases.
Hunger and disease create a vicious cycle, as famished people are more
likely to fall victim to infectious and chronic diseases, which then reduce
their ability to provide food for themselves and their family, the
Rome-based World Food Program said in a report.
Malnutrition also makes recovery more difficult even when proper drugs
are available, so the international community must take care to couple
medical help with food aid, the agency said in its "World Hunger
Series" report for 2007.
"Food is often cited by people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS
as their greatest and most important need," said Elizabeth Mataka, the
U.N.'s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. "Nutrition interventions
for HIV programs are often overlooked in the international HIV policy debate
and they remain critically underfunded."
Speaking at a presentation of the report in Rome, Mataka said that,
according to U.N. figures, the number of people affected by HIV in 2007 was
35.2 million, down from 39.5 million in 2006.
"It seems that we are witnessing a slowing down of the epidemic, but
we have to do more," she said. "Setting a limit to hunger and HIV
is an absolute imperative."
Mon Nov 26, 2007 5:40 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of AIDS in the
United States, and more babies are born with the AIDS virus in Washington than
in other U.S. cities, according to a report released on Monday.
People living in Washington also are not getting tested for HIV and show up
with advanced infections that progress quickly to AIDS, the report by city
health officials found.
The report found that Washington, with a population of around 600,000 people,
has a rate of 128 AIDS cases per 100,000 people in 2006, compared with a
national rate of 14 cases per 100,000. The city accounted for 9 percent of all
pediatric AIDS cases in the United States during 2005.
"The District's rate for newly reported AIDS cases is higher than rates
in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit and Chicago," the report
said.
Of the 12,428 people infected with HIV in Washington, 80 percent are black,
the report found. More than 8,300 had fully progressed to AIDS and 224 died of
AIDS in 2006.
"Heterosexual contact in the District is the leading mode of HIV
transmission at 37 percent of newly reported infections, while nationally men
who have sex with men lead new transmissions," it said.
The report, the first to look at the HIV epidemic in Washington specifically,
found that nearly 70 percent of all people with HIV developed full-blown AIDS
within a year, which means they were diagnosed years after having been infected.
This compares with 39 percent nationally.
Dr. Shannon Hader of Washington's Department of Health said the report does
not examine why Washington is hit so hard by the human immunodeficiency virus.
A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING
"We have a lot of transmission going on among heterosexuals, we have a
lot of transmission going on with men who have sex with men and we have a lot of
transmission among injecting drug users," Hader said in a telephone
interview.
Washington has a unique status among U.S. cities. When it was established as
the U.S. capital, it was kept apart from states and put under congressional
management, although it has an elected mayor and city council.
Hader said the city has adopted a policy of routine HIV testing, which means
people should get the test whenever they get a check-up or visit an emergency
room.
Currently, people usually have to specifically ask to be tested for HIV.
Hader said the city aimed to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV to
zero by 2009 with better testing and treatment of pregnant women. Women who take
HIV drugs around the time of delivery are far less likely to transmit the virus
to their babies.
Chip Lewis of the Whitman-Walker clinic, an HIV treatment center in
Washington, said the report shows the need for universal HIV testing.
"This is a 100 percent preventable disease," Lewis said by
telephone. Yet one in 20 adults in Washington has HIV and one in 50 has AIDS, he
noted.
"HIV and AIDS has really become a disease that grows in areas of
poverty. There is lots of poverty in the District," Lewis said.
The United Nations estimates that 33 million people are infected with the
AIDS virus globally, about a million of them in the United States.
(Editing by Will Dunham and Philip Barbara)
Sat Dec 1, 2007 8:20 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government is raising its estimate of how many
Americans are becoming infected with the AIDS virus every year by 50 percent,
according to newspaper reports on Saturday.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now believes the
number of new HIV infections each year is between 55,000 and 60,000 -- up from
the 40,000 figure used for the past decade, The Washington Post reported.
The Post cited two unidentified people in contact with the scientists
preparing the new estimate.
It said the higher figures were based on data from 19 states and large cities
that were extrapolated to the nation as a whole. The CDC has not made the new
estimate public.
The Wall Street Journal also reported the CDC's expected upward revision,
citing unidentified outside researchers and public health officials.
The Journal said Robert Janssen, director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS
Prevention, declined to comment on the new estimates, saying they could change.
The newspapers attributed the revision to new testing technology developed by
the U.S. public health agency, which also revised its methodology to make
estimates more precise.
"The higher estimate is the product of a new method of testing blood
samples that can identify those who were infected within the previous five
months. With a way to distinguish recent infections from long-standing ones,
epidemiologists can then estimate how many new infections are appearing
nationwide each month or year," the Post said.
(Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
By Jill SerjeantThu Nov 29, 5:32 PM
ET
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton makes a rare foray
into the U.S. evangelical community on Thursday with an address to an AIDS
conference that is seen as a bid to woo the religious right.
Clinton is the only one of six invited presidential candidates to attend
a meeting on the role of the evangelical church in fighting the AIDS
pandemic, hosted by the influential Saddleback Valley Community Church in
Southern California.
Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans John McCain, Mike
Huckabee and Mitt Romney are sending short video statements outlining their
position on the AIDS issue.
Saddleback's 4-year-old AIDS initiative already is controversial in
America's 60 million-strong evangelical community.
It seeks to turn church-goers into volunteers, educators and care-givers
of AIDS victim. Evangelicals generally have shunned the HIV/AIDS issue in
their opposition to gay rights.
But inviting Clinton to the vast Saddleback campus, where 22,000 people
attend services every week, is like a red flag to a bull. White,
Republican-leaning conservative Christians object to her support of abortion
and gay rights and many see her as the most divisive and liberal of the
Democratic contenders.
"It is a mistake to invite her to speak at an evangelical Christian
church on AIDS or any other issue because her political stances are contrary
to biblical teaching," said Tim Wildmon, president of the American
Family Association, which has 2.8 million supporters.
"What Saddleback is doing is helping raise her profile as a
legitimate presidential candidate in the eyes of evangelical Christians and
I think that is a huge error," Wildmon told Reuters.
'LIVES, NOT LABELS'
Saddleback pastor Rick Warren, author of the best-selling inspirational
book "The Purpose Driven Life," said there were many issues on
which Clinton and his church disagree.
"But when millions are dying each year we are interested in lives,
not labels," Warren said. "We want everyone to become concerned
about the AIDS pandemic."
Clinton has much to gain from a good reception at the conference, which
features 90 speakers and 1,500 people representing churches and
non-governmental organizations.
Some Democrats have expressed concern about Clinton's electability in a
tight race with the Republicans. A Zogby Interactive poll released on Monday
showed she trailed the top five Republican contenders in hypothetical
general election match-ups by 3 to 5 percentage points, although her top
rivals Obama and Edwards would defeat them.
Warren's wife, Kay, who started the Saddleback campaign four years ago,
takes a pragmatic approach to charges that both Clinton and Saddleback are
using the other for different ends.
"Of course (the presidential candidates) are looking to maximize
their message in every segment of society," she said. "But we feel
we are able to influence them and say what are you going to do about
it?"
Clinton this week outlined an AIDS policy similar to her Democrat rivals
that sees an expansion of federal efforts to combat HIV/AIDS globally.
Despite scathing attacks on several Christian message boards, the
invitation to Clinton has not prompted the organized protest seen a year ago
over Obama's visit to Saddleback. That controversy also centered on
abortion.
"I don't know if it's just people shrugging their shoulders and
saying -- oh! that Saddleback group. Or if it reflects an understanding we
have tried to portray that you don't have to agree with everyone to have a
conversation about how we make progress," Kay Warren said.
Sat Dec 1, 2007 5:29 PM ET
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa, which has one of the world's worst AIDS
epidemics, has made headway in fighting the HIV virus, but condom use is still
insufficient, government leaders said on Saturday.
One in nine South Africans are infected with HIV, but President Thabo Mbeki's
government has been criticized for not doing enough to halt the spread of the
disease despite the heavy economic and human toll.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang cited a study showing a decline in
HIV among pregnant women -- a benchmark used to measure infection amongst the
broader population.
"The report of the 2006 antenatal survey results released this year
showed a decrease in the prevalence of HIV amongst pregnant women who use public
health facilities," she was quoted as saying by news agency SAPA.
"It is down to 29.1 percent in 2006 compared to 30.2 percent in 2005 ...
The decline in the under 20s from 15.9 percent in 2005 to 13.7 percent in 2006,
in particular suggests a possible reduction in new infections in the
population," she said at an event to mark World AIDS day in the northern
Limpopo province.
Mbeki, who has been criticized for not taking the lead in the charge against
AIDS, called on South Africans to use condoms.
"What is really of importance is that we must, all of us, take these
messages very seriously, particularly our young people," Mbeki said on SABC
public radio.
STAR-STUDDED CONCERT
Mbeki's predecessor, Nelson Mandela, staged a star-studded concert expected
to be attended by 50,000 in Johannesburg on Saturday to raise money for his AIDS
charity.
"A few days ago, the United Nations estimated that more than 33 million
people around the world are living with HIV. This lower figure suggests that
prevention programs have been successful in bringing down infection rates,"
Mandela said.
"That trend is encouraging but it is still alarming that for every
person that receives treatment there are four others that are newly
infected," he told the crowd.
Elsewhere in Africa, events were also held to mark World Aids Day. In Niger,
around 3,000 people, mostly women and young people, marched through the capital
Niamey to demand more measures to help AIDS sufferers.
In the small West African state of Benin, President Thomas Boni Yayi headed a
march to show solidarity for AIDS victims.
The Johannesburg concert was to include performances from singers Peter
Gabriel, Annie Lennox, and Corinne Bailey Rae and its proceeds will go towards
HIV/AIDS programs throughout southern Africa, the epicenter of the worldwide
AIDS epidemic.
The government relented to pressure and launched a plan to provide
life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs in 2003, after Mbeki had questioned the
safety of the medication and expressed doubts about widely accepted science on
the link between HIV and AIDS.
But activists have complained that the program is moving far too slowly,
causing several hundred deaths each day. Some 700,000 HIV patients are without
treatment, especially bad in rural areas where clinics are saturated with a
backlog of cases.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who took on South Africa's apartheid government as
the country's first black bishop and won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, said the
battle was far from won.
"We face a monumental crisis, one that was horribly exacerbated when we
wasted valuable time in futile academic discussions and debates about the causes
of AIDS," he said in a speech to diplomats on Friday.
"We were fiddling whilst our Rome was burning. People who would have
been alive today, died needlessly."
(Reporting by Gershwin Wanneburg and Bate Felix; Additional reporting by
Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Niamey and Samuel Elijah in Cotonou; Editing by Stephen
Weeks)
Sat Dec 1, 2007 12:59 PM ET
By Zahra Hosseinian
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is fighting the spread of the AIDS virus by treating
sufferers for free but taboos about the issue in the Islamic Republic are
hindering efforts to raise public awareness, Iranian health officials said on
Saturday.
Injecting drug users are the main risk group in Iran, which is on a heroin
smuggling route to the West from the opium fields of neighboring Afghanistan,
the world's number one producer of the opium poppy, the officials said.
But some health officials are concerned about the rising number of sexually
transmitted cases of HIV.
More than 16,000 people suffer from HIV/AIDS in a country with a population
of about 70 million, Deputy Health Minister Moayed Alavian told a conference.
But he also said some estimates put the number of sufferers at 70,000.
"From this figure (of 16,000), 66.7 percent are injecting drug
users," he told a conference at Tehran University to mark international
AIDS day.
He said the Health Ministry faced challenges in fighting HIV/AIDS because of
the social stigma attached to the disease and the fact that the subject was
considered a taboo.
"There are also social and cultural limitations in providing education
on how to prevent (the disease) and informing the public," Alavian said.
Iran is a low prevalence country in terms of HIV infections with a rate of
about 0.16 percent of the adult population compared to North America where it is
0.8 percent, experts say.
But, in a pamphlet distributed at the conference, Health Minister Kamran
Lankarani was quoted as saying he was concerned by rising sexual transmission of
the disease.
"Concerns over the spread of the disease through sexual behavior have
increased," he said.
In a speech to the conference, the minister said: "One of our country's
greatest points in this regards is that all services related to HIV/AIDS are
totally free of charge and that includes drugs, tests and all kinds of
treatments."
Because of "free and sufficient treatments and good programs", he
said Iran was witnessing a decline in the number of women and children under the
age of 15 suffering from AIDS.
A U.N. official said in June that HIV infection rates in Iran were increasing
due to the growing inflow of cheap heroin from Afghanistan and also cited more
sexually transmitted cases.
But he also spoke of "progressive and pragmatic" efforts to fight
the AIDS virus in Iran.
During the conference, a video clip of a campaign encouraging
"Abstinence, Be faithful, Condom use" was played.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
30 Nov 2007 14:20:09 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Tansa Musa
DOUALA, Cameroon, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A drama group including prostitutes has
helped make Cameroon one of just three sub-Saharan African countries where young
people have clearly reduced risky sexual behaviour.
The Cameroon Red Cross initiative in the main port city, Douala, warns
working prostitutes and their potential clients of the dangers of AIDS and other
sexually transmitted diseases.
In Douala's popular Chat Noir nightclub, as soon as the strippers have
finished their show, the music abruptly stops and a group of youngsters in Red
Cross gowns mount the stage.
Some customers grumble and walk out.
"One of our friends is not here with us. Where is she?," one
performer asks, frowning.
"You mean you've not heard the news?" another fires back.
"Well, I'm sorry that she is dead. She died some days ago of AIDS."
"Oh, that is too bad. This means she too has not been taking seriously
the message we've been spreading around about this very killer disease,"
replies the first woman, sighing deeply.
Including past and present prostitutes -- women hardened by street life in a
city that has become a magnet for the rural poor -- the troop brandish dildos
around the clubs to demonstrate how to put on a condom.
Subtlety and character motivation are not high on the agenda for the project,
which extends to retraining street prostitutes for alternative trades to selling
sex.
But in the past year the initiative has, according to United Nations data,
helped Cameroon join Kenya and Zimbabwe as places whose young people are
behaving more safely when it comes to sex.
Cameroon's HIV infection rate, estimated at 5.5 percent, is well below that
of Southern Africa's AIDS hotspots like Botswana and Swaziland, but higher than
some of neighbouring central African countries.
Some of the highest HIV rates are in Douala and the capital Yaounde, where
many young women migrate from rural areas hoping for a better life, but fail to
find jobs and end up selling sex.
ALTERNATIVES
"By suggesting an economic alternative to young women, the Cameroon Red
Cross controls not only the spread of AIDS but also fights poverty," said
Jean-Jacques Kouoh of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies in Cameroon, which funds the programme and hopes to extend it beyond
Douala and Yaounde.
Called Filles Libres (Free Girls) -- local parlance for prostitutes -- the
programme offers training and loans to help women get off the streets and set up
their own businesses cutting hair, making clothes or cooking.
"I used to make any amount from 3,000 CFA to 15,000 CFA ($7-$34) a day.
But it was not a bed of roses," said former prostitute Jennifer, who took
to the streets when the father of her twins abandoned her.
"Sometimes a man will give you money, take you to his home and once the
act is over he will beat you to take back his money," said the 24-year-old,
who is now training as a hair dresser in Douala.
"I can never go back there again, and I want other girls to learn from
me. Street life is very risky, it is too dangerous."
Marthe, 23, dropped out of school and left home five years ago when her
father was killed in a car accident.
"I came to Yaounde with the hope of making making some money to help
educate my younger brothers and sisters and my old mother. But things did not
turn out as I thought, so I decided to become a Free Girl to make ends
meet," she said.
Filles Libres helped her set up a phone booth and now she is married to a
former sex client with whom she has two children.
"I am very proud of my wife," said her husband, Pierre. (Editing by
Alistair Thomson and Sara Ledwith)
Fri Nov 30, 2007 9:58 AM GMT
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - The Myanmar junta has shut down a Yangon monastery which
served as a hospice for HIV/AIDS patients and expelled its monks, an opposition
lawyer said on Friday.
"The authorities sealed Maggin monastery yesterday afternoon" and
expelled the monks, said Aung Thein of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy.
"The authorities did not give them any documents and did not say under
which law the action was taken, so we cannot do anything to provide them with
legal assistance," he added.
United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari criticised the closure of the
monastery, which was used as a hospice for HIV/AIDS sufferers and a refuge for
provincial patients who came to Yangon for medicines.
"Any actions that run counter to the spirit of national reconciliation,
any action that will undermine the dialogue between the government and those who
disagree with the policy of the government should be avoided," Gambari said
in Phnom Penh.
"And I'd like to repeat that," he told reporters during a visit to
Cambodia on a regional tour before returning to the former Burma next month for
more talks with the government and probably Suu Kyi.
The abbots of Maggin monastery have long had the reputation of supporting
pro-democracy campaigns, such as the one led by monks in September which the
junta crushed. The official death toll is 15, but diplomats believe it is much
higher.
The suppression caused such international outrage the junta allowed Gambari
to visit and it appointed a senior general as intermediary with Suu Kyi, who has
spent 12 of the past 18 years under some form of detention.
Gambari, who expects to return to Myanmar in December, said after his last
visit he had received assurances the crackdown would stop.
But arrests have continued, raising doubts about the junta's sincerity in
beginning a real dialogue with the opposition.
"We get reports almost on a daily basis of people being picked up,"
Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told reporters in Bangkok.
"It's hard to see how shutting monasteries, continuing to arrest people
and continued restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi, how this is progress,"
Villarosa said.
Myanmar state media say all but 91 of the nearly 3,000 people arrested in the
crackdown were released and monks from raided monasteries were sent home.
Villarosa said she believed "a considerable number" of monks had
been arrested and their whereabouts were unknown.
"It's the big question out there. Where are all the monks?"
(Additional reporting by Darren Schuettler in Bangkok; Ek Madra in Phnom
Penh)
Thailand is failing to provide treatment to drug users most at risk of
AIDS despite its reputation as a pioneer in the global battle against the
disease, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.
The Thai government estimates that 40 to 50 percent of injection drug
users are living with HIV, a figure that has not changed over the past two
decades despite general success in preventing infections, the group said in
a report.
"Thailand wants to be seen as a success story in the fight against
AIDS, yet it is failing to address the epidemic among the population hit
hardest by HIV," said Rebecca Schleifer, an advocate with Human Rights
Watch.
"The Thai government has recognised that the HIV infection rate is
'unacceptably high,' and it has the expertise to address this public health
emergency," she said.
The report blames the problem on police harassment and discrimination
against drug users, saying health care workers deny antiretroviral treatment
to people who need it if they are using illicit narcotics.
Many injection drug users were also driven into hiding and afraid of
authorities after former premier Thaksin Shinawatra led a "war on
drugs" in 2003, when at least 2,500 people died in extrajudicial
killings, the group said.
Thailand has generally been lauded for its universal treatment programme,
which has included a controversial battle with pharmaceutical companies for
cheap or generic versions of cutting-edge treatments.
"An HIV diagnosis is still a death sentence for most drug users in
Thailand," said Paisan Suwannawong, director of the Thai AIDS Treatment
Action Group.
"Thailand must stop discrimination against drug users seeking health
care services, or it will never meet its promise to ensure access to AIDS
treatment to all who need it."
Tennis world number one
Roger Federer will send a global televised message to raise awareness of
mother-to-child HIV transmission to mark World AIDS Day on December 1, the
United Nations children's fund said on Tuesday.
Federer, who is also a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, will star in the
30-second video message, recorded in separate English, French and German
versions, to be distributed to broadcasters worldwide.
"I've seen kids in South Africa who've been affected and it's a very
big problem, especially in the poorer countries," said Federer, whose
mother comes from South Africa.
"It's important to break down discrimination and stigma. Many people
always think 'I can't talk to this person', but I think it's very important
to speak openly about it," the tennis star added.
Federer said he was willing to play his part and use his sporting profile
to help foster hope and motivation amongst those children affected by the
deadly disease.
"Sport creates leadership opportunities and teaches children
teamwork, encouraging them to make good choices that can reduce their risk
of HIV infection ... Sport is a fun way to learn lessons that will last a
lifetime," he said.
More than 27,000 new HIV infections were recorded in European countries
last year, the European Centre for the Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS
said Tuesday.
More than half of the 27,259 new infections, or 54 percent were recorded
in France and Britain, with 5,750 and 8,925 cases respectively, said the
EuroHIV centre.
The overall figure for the 27-nation European Union was 67.7 cases per
million inhabitants, with the highest ratio in Estonia, 504.2 per million
and 668 cases; and Portugal, 205 per million and 2,162 cases.
Slovakia and Hungary had the lowest rate with five per million, or 27
cases and eight per million, or 80 cases respectively.
France's rate of 91.9 per million inhabitants compared to Belgium's 95.3
per million (995 cases) and Switzerland's with 104.2 per million (757
cases).
With 66 percent men bore the brunt of the epidemic, and 11 percent of the
new cases were diagnosed among 15- to 24-year-olds.
Heterosexual intercourse was the main source of infection with 42
percent, while infections due to sex between men accounted for 29 percent.
Seven percent of infections were caused by intravenous drug use.
The overall caseload of more than 27,000 new infections includes figures
from Iceland, Norway and Switzerland which are not members of the European
Union.
UNAIDS, the global standard-bearer in the fight against HIV/AIDS,
estimates the total number of people with HIV/AIDS in 2006 at 740,000 in
western and central Europe and at 1.5 million in eastern Europe and central
Asia.
Between 900,000 and one
million people in Russia have the HIV virus, the head of an international
AIDS lobby group said Monday.
Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund for to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a private-public group which has injected
substantial funds into research, said the UNAIDS agency has completed
substantial work "in order to obtain objective figures."
The Interfax and Ria Novosti news agencies quoted him as saying:
"According to their estimates, between 900,000 and one million people
in Russia are HIV-positive."
The Global Fund was created with public and private funds in 2002 with
former UN secretary general Kofi Annan taking a leading role.
Last week, top Russian health official Gennadi Onishchenko accused UNAIDS,
the UN agency charged with coordinating the fight against AIDS, of
publishing "incorrect" figures regarding the number of
HIV-positive people in Russia.
UNAIDS said in a report published November 21 that Russia currently
represents 66 percent of the number of new HIV cases in the former Soviet
Union.
According to official figures released by the Russian AIDS agency in
October, 403,100 HIV-positive people were counted in Russia since the virus
appeared in the country, of which 19,924 people died. Russian experts say
the true number of HIV-positive is close to 1.3 million.
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