BEIJING (AFP) - In its second move this week to fight the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, the Chinese government has offered to pay for voluntary AIDS testing in areas worst-hit by the disease, state media reported.

The move to pay for AIDS testing and medical consultations follows a nationwide plan announced Monday to distribute condoms in entertainment venues and hand out clean syringes to drug addicts.

Activists say nearly 90 percent of those infected do not know they have the disease.

HIV scare hits LA porn stars

Sat 17 April, 2004 02:23

  By Howard Breuer

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Worried porn actors are crowding into the industry's health clinic in Los Angeles for HIV testing as word spreads that two performers have tested positive this week.

Despite the outbreak and pleas by advocates for a 60-day moratorium while testing continues on 47 quarantined actors, it appeared that about half of the city's pornographic film production houses will ignore the warnings.

"This business doesn't shut down on Christmas. Why is it going to shut down for two isolated HIV infections?" asked Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell of the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare (AIM) Foundation in Los Angeles.

Actor Darren James tested positive for HIV on Monday in screening conducted routinely on the industry's 1,200 regular actors. Newcomer Lara Roxx, 21, who did a sex scene with James and another actor on March 22, tested positive on Thursday.

Mitchell said on Friday she had circulated the names of 65 individuals whom she was told had contact with the infected actors, urging producers not to put them to work until June 8 while their health is monitored. She dropped 18 performers from the list, however, after learning that their productions took place before James was infected.

Mitchell lamented that many producers will continue to film scenes without condoms.

James, the first porn actor to test positive for the virus since 1999, had a "stellar record" of tests -- negative every three weeks for the past seven years, she said.

Mitchell said James may have contracted the virus about four weeks ago while filming in Brazil on a "non-condom" set.

Roxx's agent said he tried to discourage her from going to Los Angeles, where the industry is based. The Montreal native had done small roles in two films and had a lot to learn.

"She was not completely ready," said Daniel Perreault of Eromodel Group of Montreal. "I said, 'Wait and I will take care of you when it is time.'"

But the young woman, who saw in the porn industry a way to become a movie star, stubbornly ignored his warnings.

Perreault said Roxx is now beginning to understand the pitfalls of such blind ambition.

"She thinks that maybe she will return to school ... or get into helping other people," Perreault said. "She's just beginning to put things together and realise what she has."

HANOI (AFP) - US military HIV/AIDS experts ended a four-day workshop in Hanoi aimed at raising awareness and knowledge of the disease within the Vietnamese military.

By Salah Sarrar

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - A Libyan court postponed a verdict on Thursday on six Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor charged with infecting hundreds of Libyan children with deadly HIV, court officials said.

A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for the five women and two men, who were detained in Tripoli in 1999 and accused of infecting 426 children at a Benghazi hospital with blood products contaminated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

A court official told reporters one of the judges hearing the case had fallen ill with gastric flu. The verdict in the five-year-old trial will now be delivered on May 6.

More than 40 of the children have died since 1999, adding to already heated emotions in both countries over the case.

The issue has also gained greater attention as Libya tries to emerge from international isolation after abandoning its nuclear arms program in December and its push this year for a thaw in ties with the United States and Britain.

Relatives of the children have asked for harsh sentences, but the medics insist they are not to blame for the epidemic. They have pleaded not guilty, as have nine Libyans who faced similar charges.

"We're very disappointed with this new delay. I, like all family members of the infected children, was sure to hear the verdict today," said one of the relatives who has a daughter infected with HIV. He did not want to be identified.

In Sofia, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy also expressed dismay.

"I cannot hide my disappointment that the circumstances led to a new postponement of the trial. But I hope it would be the last one," he told a news conference.

Last year Luc Montagnier, the French doctor credited with first discovering the HIV virus, said the epidemic emerged in the hospital in 1997, a year before the medics arrived, probably due to unsanitary conditions.

If found guilty of neglect, the defendants face up to five years in prison, but they have already served that time in custody.

Bulgarian media have speculated that if the Bulgarians were sentenced to death, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi  might pardon them as part of his efforts to improve relations with Europe.

Several diplomats, mostly from the European Union, and relatives of the infected children had gathered at the court building in Benghazi, about 1,200 km (750 miles) east of Tripoli, to hear the verdict.

(Additional reporting by Michael Winfrey in Sofia)

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