News (Updated December 31,
2006)
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Agony
of the AIDS orphans
By Chen
Nan(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-12-21 11:02
Gao Jun is an orphan. And aged just two to three years old (no-one knows his
exact age) he is also an outcast. HIV-positive and with both his parents dead
from AIDS he is shunned by everyone around him. People living in the remote
village in East China's Anhui Province, where he lives, including some of his
relatives, won't go near him, mistakenly fearing they could catch the deadly
virus.
Gao is a central character in The Blood of Yingzhou District, a documentary
by Hong Kong-born filmmaker Ruby Yang and award-winning producer Thomas Lennon,
about an epidemic that has so far orphaned 75,000 children throughout China.
Just 39 minutes long, the film is one of eight listed for the short
documentary section of next year's Oscars. 
It received the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 Silverdocs
Documentary Festival in Washington, DC and has so far been screened at 13 film
festivals across the world.
"It's a very quietly stunning film," said Nina Gilden Seavey,
director of Silverdocs' "Docs Rx" offerings. "You look for movies
that tell a deep story that is unexpected. This one does."
The filmmakers tell their tale from the mouths of children turned pariahs in
four villages in Anhui. "People bore an incredible sadness about a disease
that was everywhere," Yang said. "The villagers knew Gao Jun was sick
but he was neglected and ignored. He lived like an animal." Gao's parents,
like many other farmers, fell victim to AIDS after donating their blood to earn
a bit of money.
"I'd encountered this during the making of other documentaries,"
said Yang. "With the help of the local charity founder Zhang Ying, I was
able to gain the trust of the children and their extended families so that they
could open up to tell their stories. With Zhang's help, the filmmakers not only
talked to the orphaned children but also got to quiz officials about the scope
of the AIDS virus.
Yang and Lennon are founders of the China AIDS Media Project, an ambitious
new effort to bring disease prevention to a country that only in recent years
has acknowledged its AIDS epidemic. In 2004, they wrote and edited the first
major AIDS prevention campaign to air on Chinese mainland television.
What Yang saw broke her heart, especially when she entered the home where the
children lived alone. "There was this smell of death," she said.
"There was so much poverty. The experience of meeting the children, seeing
their helplessness, and hearing their stories has stayed with me."
"The stories of the children were heartbreakingly sad; we had to find
that balance where you don't overwhelm the audience or drive them away, yet at
the same time keep the power of the narrative," said Yang. "Also,
maintaining emotional distance was difficult. For months, I wouldn't give up
certain stories even though I kind of knew they slowed the film down. Tom would
fly in and we'd have screaming matches over cutting the film down."
Gao Jun's two uncles grapple over the orphan's future. The older uncle knows
that if he allows his children to play with Gao Jun, they will also be isolated
by neighbours terrified by infection. The younger uncle's choice is no easier:
his association with the boy will make it harder to find a wife.
But the film also shows the children's fierce determination to survive. In
one scene, the children resolve to become educated as a way to one day better
their tormentors. "I hate being looked down upon," the boy said.
"One day I will surpass them all."
After their project premiered before an international audience in Washington,
the filmmakers say they hope the documentary gets its airing in China as well.
"There weren't any reactions from the audience that I didn't
expect," said Yang. "But 90 per cent of the audience wanted to know
about the fate of the children in the film."
Gao Jun, the boy at the heart of the film, is now on medication and his
health has improved significantly, according to Yang. He has also been moved to
the home of an elderly couple who have lost their two sons and one
daughter-in-law to AIDS, and they are believed to be taking good care of him. He
started kindergarten in the fall.
But nobody can be sure what the future will hold for Gao, or for Nan Nan, the
other central character also living with HIV/AIDS.
"All we know is that they are no longer shunned by the villagers and Nan
Nan's relatives are no longer afraid to be with her," Yang said.
(China Daily 12/21/2006 page6)
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-12-25 19:29
BEIJING -- Soaring medical costs are the most notable social problem in
China, according to a social blue book issued Monday.
This was the first time that concerns over medical and health care had exceeded
other worries in similar surveys, researchers said.
According to the blue book, medical expenses had risen to 11.8 percent of
household consumption in China, surpassing expenditure on education and
transportation.
"This is a very high percentage even compared with developed
countries," said Li Peilin, chief editor of the blue book.
China's health care sector has been under constant criticism over soaring
costs and inaccessibility. Most rural dwellers have no medical insurance.
Statistics from the Health Ministry show that one third of poor rural
patients in China choose not to go to hospital and 45 percent of the
hospitalized farmers ask to be discharged before they have recovered.
"Soaring medical costs have plunged many rural and urban Chinese back
into poverty," Li said.
Unemployment was the second major concern, followed by the wealth gap,
corruption, pensions, educational charges, housing prices, public security,
social values, and pollution, according to the blue book.
The blue book was based on a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, conducted from March to July. The survey covered 7,140 households in
28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.
The book also said that about 90 percent of Chinese sampled are optimistic of
the country's social and economic development.
It said 83.4 percent believe the social problems are temporary and 91.6
percent believe the Communist Party of China and the government are able to deal
with the problems satisfactorily.
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-12-25 19:18
BEIJING -- Provincial publicity officials who gathered for a two-day workshop
in Beijing were urged to promote more accurate and balanced HIV/AIDS reporting
in their areas and not to neglect the human side of the disease.
The workshop, which began December 25, was organized by the AIDS Prevention
Committee of the State Council and the Publicity Department of the CPC Central
Committee, comes amid concerns about the rise in China's HIV/AIDS population.
Publicity officials from China's 28 municipalities, provinces and autonomous
regions attended lectures by Tsinghua University professors and other government
officials on current HIV/AIDS reporting and on ways to improve it, the
challenges of combating HIV/AIDS as well as China's HIV/AIDS prevention
policies.
"This training course for national publicity officials has broken new
ground," said Dong Junshan, deputy director of the Publicity Department of
the CPC Central Committee. "Publicity officials at all levels should make
HIV/AIDS reporting a priority and combat discrimination against AIDS sufferers.
Publicity is essential in the fight against HIV/AIDS," he said.
He said good HIV/AIDS reporting should be detailed and rooted in reality.
Empty cliches should be avoided at all costs. Besides accurate news reporting,
"HIV/AIDS reports must be attractive and compelling for local readers --
forms like literature and movies can be used."
The course follows an earlier one in November 2005 for officials from eight
provinces. According to the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee,
the officials trained at this course will cascade the training down to the local
level next year.
South Korean scentists have said they are closer to understanding how a
protein found in both primates and humans blocks the progression of the
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the apes.
The team, led by professor Oh Byung-Ha of Pohang University of Science
and Technology, said the discovery would help scientists working to develop
a cure for AIDS.
Its research paper was featured in the latest edition of a biology
journal, Molecular Cell, university officials said.
"We have determined the structure of a key domain of a protein,
paving the way for scientists to identify the cause of various diseases
created by HIV and other viruses," Woo Jae-Sung, co-author of the
paper, told AFP.
There are drugs which slow the progress of AIDS but no cures. HIV/AIDS
patients use expensive anti-retroviral drugs to reduce the side-effects.
"Our discovery paved the path for more research into identifying the
structure and functions of TRIM5," Woo said.
TRIM5 is a protein found in the cells of both humans and most types of
monkey. It is known to fend off various retrovirus infections in monkeys,
and scientists are investigating whether the human form of the protein can
be modified so it has the same effect.
"We hope our research will lead to drugs or better therapy for other
incurable viral diseases," Woo said."
Libya's leader Moamer Khadafi has rejected calls for the release of five
Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death for infecting
children with AIDS.
"Those who commit a crime must accept the consequences," he
said Friday at a gathering of Arab and Western diplomats, as well as media
and religious dignitaries, held to mark the beginning of Muslim festivities
as well as the Christian end of year.
Stressing "the independence of the Libyan judicial system", he
rejected "Western intervention and pressure in this affair."
This month's verdict of death by firing squad caused an international
outcry, especially in Europe.
The six foreign medics were all found guilty of intentionally injecting
the HIV virus that can cause AIDS into more than 400 children at a hospital
in the northern coastal city of Benghazi.
In a statement earlier in the day, the foreign ministry had accused the
West of pressuring Tripoli to quash "What European countries, the
European Union and NATO said showed a lack of disrespect for the judicial
systems of other countries."
It accused these parties of working "towards making an independent
state, Libya, quash a verdict handed down by a competent tribunal, contrary
to the laws of this country".
The ministry also said the death sentences could be revised after an
appeal to the supreme court.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin confirmed in Sofia that Libya
had lodged a protest.
"A note we received yesterday (Thursday) indicates that the Libyan
justice system is independent and evokes a certain conflict of
civilisations," Kalfin told a news conference.
A Tripoli foreign ministry memorandum, reprinted on Friday by the Libyan
state news agency JANA and read out on Bulgarian national radio, insisted
that "the political stance expressed by the Bulgarian government, the
EU countries and others is a clear deviation from certain values that is
likely to trigger wars and conflicts and spark hostilities among religions
and civilisations".
Kalfin has summoned Libya's charge d'affaires in Sofia Taher ben Shaban
over the note.
"I declared that Bulgaria has proven its ethnic and religious
tolerance" and cannot in any way "be accused of triggering ethnic
and religious conflicts ... Such qualifications are unacceptable," he
added.
"The Bulgarian reaction is absolutely justified," Kalfin said.
A Tripoli court handed down the death sentence on December 19 after a
retrial of the so-called Benghazi Six, who have been in custody for the past
seven years. Their first trial also resulted in a death sentence.
On December 20, Bulgarian leaders wrote to EU heads of state, to NATO
members, to the Council of Europe and to the United Nations asking them to
help Sofia arrange the prisoners' release.
The EU and the scientific community had argued that hygiene at the
Benghazi hospital was poor before the accused started work there, leading
the children to be infected through used and unsterilized instruments.
Tuesday December 26, 05:54 PM
By Boubker Belkadi
ALGIERS (AFP) - Long taboo, condoms have made a startling entrance into the
media in this conservative Muslim country once gripped by an Islamic
insurgency but now taking on a very different threat: HIV/AIDS.
Spearheading a new government campaign to promote the once-illegal condom,
experts are now lining up on Algerian radio and television stations to preach
the contraceptive's virtues as a barrier to infection.
Algerian officials have even tapped imams, or Muslim preachers, to spread
the word and help counter widespread ignorance about the disease and how it is
transmitted.
"We're not yet at the point of putting (condom) distributors on the
road," said one youngster, involved in an AIDS-awareness campaign in an
Algiers neighborhood.
"But it's already remarkable progress to talk about the condom as the
only protection against AIDS for those who don't resort to abstinence and who
frequent prostitutes."
Only 19,000 out of this North African country's 33 million people -- 0.05
percent of the population -- live with AIDS, according to the UN agency UNAIDS.
Algerian authorities offer dramatically lower estimates to figures that are
already modest compared to other African nations. Only 40 new AIDS cases and
120 HIV-positive ones are registered each year, the country's health ministry
says.
By contrast, roughly 1,000 AIDS-related deaths occur every day in South
Africa, where roughly 19 percent of adults aged 19 to 49 are HIV-positive,
according to UNAIDS.
But Algeria shares challenges faced by a number of other Islamic countries,
experts say, especially widespread public misunderstanding about the virus and
the lack of screening to detect it.
"The best way to change mentalities is to target schools to install a
culture of prevention against AIDS," said Father Kamel Senhadji, a
genetic therapy specialist in the eastern Algerian city of Tizi Ouzou.
"It's urgent to create (new) generations conscious of the dangers that
await them."
After experts began talking about the benefits of condoms as barriers to
spreading HIV/AIDS, the government began soliciting imams last month to preach
about the virus and the risks of unprotected sex during Friday prayers.
But it's clear they face an uphill path.
In television interviews, for example, many Algerians claimed AIDS can be
transmitted simply by being in contact with someone who had it. Others, swayed
by hard-line clerics, argue the virus aims to punish sexual deviants,
including homosexuals.
In one case, a veiled woman -- her face hidden from view -- confessed on TV
how loved ones rejected the meals she prepared and refused to touch her
personal objects. The woman had acquired the virus from her husband.
Indeed, a striking 40 percent of Algerian youth know "nothing about
AIDS," nor about how to prevent it, according to an official survey
published in November.
Algerian officials are soon expected to open some 54 centers offering free
and anonymous screening against the virus, according to Father Abdelouahad
Dif, head of a national AIDS-fighting committee.
That includes in the southern Hoggar region, located on the migration
highway for sub-Saharan Africans bound for Europe and considered an
"at-risk zone" for the spread of HIV/AIDS.
26 Dec 2006 01:00:02 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Embargoed for release at 0100 GMT, Dec. 26)
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Male circumcision, which has been shown to
decrease the chances of contracting HIV, could save billions of dollars in
AIDS-hit Africa, a new study has shown.
Circumcision has emerged as a new tool in the battle against AIDS following
results in three African studies which showed it cuts the chances of HIV
infection by as much as 60 percent.
Researchers who conducted one of the studies in Orange Farm outside of
Johannesburg concluded that circumcising 1,000 men would prevent an estimated
300 new HIV infections over 20 years -- translating into savings of some $2.4
million that would have been spent on treating AIDS patients in this group
alone.
"I would say we're making two points -- it's an effective strategy and
it's cost effective," said James Kahn of the University of California-San
Francisco, one of the researchers on the project.
The study in the medical journal PLoS Medicine has implications for other
African countries, Kahn said.
"The estimate is that a fully scaled-up programme might save ... well
over $5 billion in savings if it were done throughout sub-Saharan Africa based
on the infections prevented over 10 years," he said.
While researchers have hailed the circumcision studies as opening a new front
in the war on AIDS, some African governments have reacted cautiously -- noting
that it appears to provide only partial protection against HIV.
Public health experts have also warned that promoting circumcision may
confuse or undercut other AIDS prevention strategies such as condom use and
reducing a person's number of sexual partners.
Khan said however that, on a cost basis, circumcision was a good idea for
Africa.
"HIV is particularly attractive (for finding cost savings) mainly
because it's so serious a disease and so expensive to treat," he said.
"But male circumcision looks pretty good compared to many other strategies
that we use for HIV prevention."
(additional reporting by Will Dunham in Washington)
By Grant McCoolMon Dec 25, 2:06 AM ET
A
stocky woman in blue jeans with spiky, gelled black hair dances on stage at
one of Vietnam's rural rehabilitation centers, leading a hip-hop style
chant.
"Hold hands together, we'll stop AIDS together," shouted the
former heroin addict patient who returned to the rehabilitation center to
encourage over a thousand recovering drug users and prostitute inmates, a
third of whom have HIV or
AIDS.
People face stigma and discrimination when they leave the minimum
security centers, especially if they are infected with HIV or have AIDS.
HIV-infected people are often refused employment and their children denied
schooling.
"Everybody should unite in combating this disease," said Danh
Thu Hanh, 36, a former addict who spent two years as an inmate.
Hanh works as a supporter of a self-help group called Cactus Blossom, one
of about 30 that have emerged in recent years in Vietnam to represent people
living with HIV and AIDS.
Vietnam's epidemic is less advanced than its Southeast Asian neighbors
Cambodia and Thailand, but the United Nations estimates there are at least
280,000 HIV infections in a population of 84 million.
Health authorities report that the number of new cases is rising rapidly
at 100 new infections per day. There were an estimated 14,000 AIDS-related
deaths in Vietnam in 2005.
More infections are now caused by sexual transmission than by injecting
heroin with unsterile needles and syringes, a worrying change in the course
of the epidemic as the Communist-run country works to prevent it spreading
into the general population.
In the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City and in northeastern
Haiphong city and Quang Ninh province on the border with China, the epidemic
is becoming generalized, experts say.
NEW HIV/AIDS LAW
On January 1, a new law comes into effect that experts say is a broad
policy framework for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in underdeveloped
Vietnam.
The law strengthens the rights of people with HIV, calls for AIDS
education in the workplace and HIV medicines to be included in health plans.
It also provides for condom distribution, clean-needle exchange programs
and the heroin substitute methadone as part of the response to the epidemic.
"There is certainly hope of reducing the epidemic because the
knowledge level about HIV in Vietnam is high, programs are expanding and use
of condoms is going up," said UNAIDS country head Nancy Fee.
Places such as "Education Labor Social Center Number 2" -- a
cluster of mustard yellow buildings with red roofs in the lush green
countryside near the capital Hanoi -- have existed for years to incarcerate
heroin addicts and prostitutes.
But facing a drug use relapse rate of 70 to 90 percent, coupled with the
doubling of HIV infections in the past five years, the government is
debating further reforms of the centers.
"They are thinking of introducing so-called open type of centers so
that when people get addicted they can go to the center voluntarily for
detoxification and rehabilitation," said Tran Tien Duc, country
director for HIV/AIDS advocacy group.
Center no. 2 in Yen Bai, Ha Tay province also has a kindergarten for 29
children orphaned or abandoned because they have HIV or are suspected by
their parents of being infected.
When former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Hanoi on December 6 with
his HIV/AIDS foundation to sign an agreement to provide more AIDS medicines
for Vietnamese women and children, he tackled discrimination directly.
At a public event, Clinton put his arm supportively on the shoulders of
an HIV-positive woman founder of a self-help group called Red Flamboyant and
urged young people to talk more openly about HIV to reduce fear and
ignorance of the disease.
Vietnam is the only country in Asia to receive United States government
money as part of President George W. Bush's $15 billion five-year global
fund known as PEPFAR.
The U.S. Embassy said nearly $80 million has been dedicated to Vietnam so
far for prevention, care and treatment.
CIVIL SOCIETY NEEDED
Vietnam's one-party rulers have opened the door to capitalism for
businesses but the country has no independent civil society. Self-help
groups are not legally recognized.
"For the new law to be really implemented it needs much greater
involvement of people living with HIV and AIDS, civil society and a lot of
monitoring," said Khuat Thi Hai Oanh, a department head in the
semi-autonomous research group, the Institute for Social Development
Studies.
The government has gone some way in recognizing the need for change in
attitudes. The Party this year instructed that the disease should no longer
be referred to as a "social evil" although drug use and
prostitution still are.
At center No. 2, the staff of guards, doctors and nurses supervise a
structured life of exercise, work, job training and treatment from dawn
until dusk for about 1,100 residents.
Dormitories of hard, metal-framed beds for men and women are separated by
walls topped with barbed wire.
"Some have returned to the center and of course it was disappointing
but the issue here is that it is not easy to escape drugs and it takes time
and will to do that," said center director Nguyen Thi Phuong.
Resident Do Thi Huyen said she tried drugs because friends were users,
but she was arrested and admitted to the center.
"If I don't have HIV, I want to study, maybe open a shop to sell
cosmetics and get married one day," the 23-year-old in a red sweater
and black pants said quietly, her lips barely moving.
(Additional reporting by Nguyen Nhat Lam and Nguyen Van Vinh)
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