U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan encouraged executives from nine drug companies on Monday to lower prices of AIDS medicines and step up efforts to develop AIDS drugs and diagnostics for children.

Annan for the first time included generic drug makers in his latest in a series of meetings with top drug makers at U.N. headquarters over the past five years.

The meetings aim to encourage the pharmaceutical firms to broaden access to AIDS drugs, care and support services in low- and middle-income countries.

While the executives had helped, the AIDS epidemic was "still outpacing our efforts, and we need to work together in a broad partnership to step up the response," he said.

At his request, the officials agreed to review the prices of existing and new HIV medications and diagnostics to make them more affordable, accessible and appropriate for use in low- and middle-income countries, Annan said.

They also pledged to give greater priority to developing pediatric formulations of HIV medications and diagnostic tools for children.

Attending the meeting were Stephen Saad, group chief executive of South Africa's Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd.; Chairman P. V. Ramprasad Reddy of Indian drug maker Aurobindo Pharma Ltd.; Gary Cohen, executive vice-president of U.S. firm Becton Dickinson & Co.'s BD Medical unit, and Peter Dolan, chief executive officer of U.S.-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co..

Also attending along with Annan and U.N. officials involved in the fight against AIDS were Jean-Pierre Garnier, chief executive officer of British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline Plc; B.P.S. Reddy, founder of Indian pharmaceutical firm Hetero Drugs Ltd.; Christine Poon, vice chairman of U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson; U.S.-based Merck & Co. Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Clark, and Malvinder Mohan Singh, chief executive officer of India's Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd..

Health authorities are calling for a repeal of a 145-year-old law that makes gay sex a crime, fearing it is causing HIV and AIDS to spread quickly in India's homosexual community, officials said Wednesday.

The government's main AIDS prevention agency has filed an affidavit in the Delhi High Court, supporting a request by an AIDS activist group to scrap the law.

The National AIDS Control Organization, part of India's Health Ministry, argued in the affidavit filed last week that the 1861 law creates a public health risk.

"So long as the gay community is forced to go underground, it limits the access to them and makes it difficult for the AIDS prevention campaign to reach them," Sujatha Rao, who heads the AIDS Control Organization, also known as NACO, told The Associated Press.

An Indian law enacted under British colonial rule in 1861 makes consensual sex between same-sex adults a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. While prosecutions are rare under the law, gay activists say police use it to harass them.

But with recent studies showing a sharp increase in HIV infections among India's gay community, the government has taken a first step to change the law.

In the affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court, NACO said its surveys showed that 8 percent of India's homosexual population was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

"Eight percent was too large a figure for us not to have responded, especially when the national prevalence rate for AIDS remains less than 1 percent," Rao said.

Activists, who have long fought for the law to be changed, said the government's response was a step in the right direction.

"We're glad the government has taken a stand. NACO's response is very critical to the whole case," said Anjali Gopalan, who heads the NAZ Foundation.

NAZ filed the original petition in 2001, seeking a repeal of the law.

"However, the court in 2005 rejected the application saying Indian society was not ready to accept legalized homosexual behavior," said Rahul Singh, a NAZ official. The organization appealed to the Supreme Court, which earlier this year ordered the Delhi High Court to re-examine its decision.

The High Court is to take up the issue again on Oct. 4.

In May, UNAIDS issued a report saying India has the world's largest number of people living with HIV. With an estimated 5.7 million infections, the country has surpassed South Africa's 5.5 million.

 

Canada's government Tuesday announced an expanded $875 million compensation package for thousands of people infected with hepatitis C by tainted blood in the 1980s and 1990s.

Canada has paid about $1 billion in compensation to people infected with the disease between 1986 and 1990, outraging the estimated 5,500 people who were infected through tainted blood supplies outside those dates.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the expanded package was for the people not compensated in Canada's initial response to the blood scandal.

Up to 20,000 people were infected during the 1980s and 1990s when blood-screening techniques used in the United States could have been employed but weren't. Another 1,000 Canadians became infected with HIV and were awarded a compensation package of $150 million.

"Finally, a federal government stood up and said we are going to do something," said David Plater of Canadian Hemophilia Society. "It was about reaching out to people that had been injured by a system that let them down."

Harper said the amount of money each person will get will depend on the severity of his illness. He hopes the money will begin to be paid in early 2007.

Hepatitis C is a viral disease that affects the liver. Like AIDS, it is often transmitted through contact with the blood of infected persons.

A judge has issued an arrest warrant for a gay man who was convicted for "recklessly" passing on the HIV virus but skipped sentencing, court officials have said.

Mark James, 47, of West Sussex, failed to appear at a hearing at London's Isleworth Crown Court on Wednesday where he was due to be sentenced, and a bench warrant was issued for him.

He had previously admitted to causing grievous bodily harm after continuing to have unprotected sex with his partner, despite being told in April 2004 he tested positive for the HIV virus that can lead to AIDS.

James' partner, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was diagnosed with HIV later that year.

The judge in the case, Jonathan Lowen, may pass sentence on James in his absence if he is not caught quickly.

James initially pleaded guilty before in May trying to change his plea, saying he had received poor legal advice, but the judge turned down his attempt.

Singapore's gay community is about to show some IndigNation.

The city-state's gay and lesbian community begins its second annual pride festival on Tuesday in the face of what organizers describe as continued discrimination.

Scheduled around Singapore's independence day on August 9, the month-long IndigNation 2006 will include poetry recitals, art exhibitions, sessions in which gays share their experiences, as well as parties at "gay-friendly" establishments, organizers said.

"IndigNation is the gay and lesbian pride season in Singapore, reaffirming our participation in the intellectual and cultural life of this country, reminding all that we are as much a part of Singapore as anyone else," organizers said on the festival website.

They complained that "the state still gives short shrift" to the gay community.

"Through law, administrative policies, censorship and homophobic remarks by ministers, Singapore continues to discriminate against some of its most productive citizens."

Homosexual acts are still outlawed in Singapore under laws dating back to British colonial days, despite the city-state's being one of Asia's most advanced economies.

Singapore's penal code states that anyone who "voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals," is liable to a possible life prison term and a fine.

Organizers said IndigNation evolved last year after the government banned an annual beach party organised by gay portal Fridae.com. The party moved to the Thai resort island of Phuket in November.

Singapore's ban on the party came three months after Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan said the festival may be behind a sharp rise in the number of new HIV infections in Singapore.

He said an epidemiologist had suggested that the party "allows gays from high prevalence societies to fraternise with local gay men, seeding the infection in the local community."

The IndigNation festival hopes to challenge the state's definition of Singaporean identity which has no room for gays and lesbians, said prominent gay rights activist Alex Au, an organizer of the event.

As Singapore celebrates its 41st anniversary, "we have our contesting ideas of what a nation should be as well, and it includes people who have been marginalised and criminalised by the state," he said.

On the festival's first day, Au will host a discussion about the May general election and its impact on gays. The ruling People's Action Party won the ballot, maintaining its 47-year hold on power.

Local playwright Russell Heng, an IndigNation organizer and founding member of gay advocacy group People Like Us (PLU), says one of the festival's aims is to raise public awareness about the homosexual community's contribution to society.

"There is a tremendous amount of energy and creativity among gays and lesbians," Heng said.

"The pity is that Singapore doesn't realise the contribution made by gay and lesbian Singaporeans unless one organizes a festival like this to showcase it," he said.

Au said the government has a contradictory attitude toward gays.

While homosexual acts are outlawed, gay pubs and saunas are largely tolerated but advocacy groups including PLU have repeatedly been denied official registration.

"You get these inconsistent actions and decisions... it's just gone very cloudy. They are not making a stand," Au said.

Singapore has a population of about 4.4 million but it is unclear how many of those are gay.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told the Foreign Correspondents Association last year that Singapore must evolve into a more "inclusive" society.

But gay-pride parades will not work in the city-state "because I think it would be offensive to a large number of Singaporeans and it will be very divisive," he said.

"I don't think we are homophobic."

The World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Vietnam have announced projects worth a total of nearly 100 million dollars to fight HIV/AIDS and improve health care in the southern Mekong delta.

The Manila-based ADB granted Vietnam 20 million dollars for a campaign to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS among the nation's youth, including through mass media campaigns and a three-year TV drama series.

The project will seek to "boost access and use of condoms and knowledge of HIV/AIDS among youth and fight dangerous practices such as needle-sharing among drug users," said ADB country director Ayumi Konishi.

The World Bank loaned Vietnam 70 million dollars and granted it five million dollars to support the Mekong Regional Health Project to improve hospital services and spread affordable health insurance in the southern region.

"The project addresses the health and financial risks faced by the poor and near-poor," said World Bank country director Klaus Rohland.

The funds will also pay for better laboratories and an improved surveillance system to help the region "address long-standing and emerging infectious disease threats," said the Washington-based World Bank.

Bird flu has killed 42 people in Vietnam, but the country has reported no new outbreaks since December and no human cases since November, having destroyed more than 50 million birds and vaccinated millions of poultry livestock.

Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus appeared in court in the retrial of a case for which they were originally condemned to death by firing squad.

One of the five nurses, all of whom have been in prison for seven years, was not in court "for health reasons," judge Mahmud Huweissa said.

Shortly after the hearing opened, the judge announced that the trial was being adjourned until August 8 to enable the prosecutor to summon witnesses for the defence after none appeared in court as expected.

The court rejected a defence request for a new international probe into the reasons for the spread of AIDS in Libya but agreed to re-examine a report drawn up by Libyan experts.

An earlier inquiry by an international specialist, carried out at the request of Libyan authorities, concluded in a report in 2003 that the infections in the hospital were attributable to hygiene problems.

That probe was done by Professor Luc Montagnier, a French researcher and a co-discoverer of the AIDS virus.

The tribunal also refused a defence request to release the accused on bail, with the prosecutor saying that the "offered guarantees were not sufficient."

On Tuesday, heavy security was deployed around the court building although there was no sign of parents whose children were stricken with the virus. They have habitually turned up outside the court to protest at the renewed trial, with some demanding that the originally imposed death penalty be carried out. At the end of the hearing, around 30 people carrying pictures of AIDS victims tried to demonstrate by the building.

Defence lawyer Othman al-Bizanti said he hoped that "the tribunal will consent to open an inquiry into the torture (of the defendants)" and said the defence had given the court details of police abuse of their clients.

During police interrogations, two of the nurses apparently confessed but they later testified in court that they had done so under torture. All the defendants have asserted their innocence.

The six, who were first detained in 1999, were condemned to death in May 2004 after an initial trial in Benghazi in a case that strained ties between Tripoli and Sofia.

The supreme court ordered a retrial following an appeal last December.

The nurses and doctor, who worked in a hospital in the eastern city of Benghazi, were accused of having infected 426 children there with HIV, of whom 52 have since died of AIDS.

In Sofia earlier this month, Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev confirmed reports that the defence have given the Tripoli court a list of 211 instances in which the nurses were subjected to psychological pressure.

The torture claims were "particularly important to disprove the accusations" made against the five, Tsanchev said.

According to Bulgarian newspaper reports, police officers forced the nurses to undress before them, put insects on their bodies and set dogs on them.

The five women were also kept without water and denied sleep in a tiny cell where they had to urinate in a juice box or a plastic bag. And police officers threatened to infect them with AIDS, the reports added.

At the start of a retrial hearing earlier in July, Judge Huweissa said the five nurses and the doctor were charged with having "spread an epidemic".

His statement prompted one of the nurses to declare: "I am a mother and I treated them as my children."

For 16 years Rukhsana Ali managed to hide her husband Wajid's heroin addiction from their son and daughter, all the while ignoring her family's repeated pleas to leave him.

It paid off when Wajid kicked the habit last year, one of a growing number of drug users in Pakistan saved by determined spouses who resist social pressures and potential ostracism by their relatives.

"I fought all the way and finally proved my own family wrong that Wajid would never quit drugs," Rukhsana told AFP at their house in Karachi, as she hugged her son Andeel, 18, and daughter Areeba, 15.

Pakistan has at least 3.5 to four million drug addicts, out of a population of more than 150 million, said Brigadier Mohammad Farooq, head of the Anti-Narcotics Force.

A major problem is its proximity to Afghanistan, which supplies 90 per cent of the world's opium, used to make heroin. Long a transit point for Afghan narcotics to the West, Pakistan has easily available and cheap heroin.

A one-gramme "wrap" can cost as little as 80 rupees (1.30 dollars).

However with Pakistan's chronically underfunded and crumbling health system there are few means to support drug users or help them recover from their debilitating addiction.

It ends up being the woman's job to wean her husband off drugs -- not an easy task in this conservative Islamic republic where rights groups regularly complain of discrimination against women and domestic violence.

Rukhsana's husband refused to quit drugs or go to work, spending days at a time away from home and becoming a shadow of his former self. To cope, Rukhsana got a job as a teacher, while looking after the family.

"My family advised me to divorce him as he may not survive," she said.

"I refused but told him to stay with his father in (the central city of) Multan as I never wanted that my children should know about his addiction. I used to visit him in Multan regularly," she said.

"The most difficult thing for me during all this period was to keep all this secret from my children," she says.

Wajid, 50, eventually entered a treatment centre. He is in no doubt that his wife saved his life -- and says he wants to help others do the same.

"My wife's determination forced me to quit drugs after 16 years. She faced all the hardship, social pressures, looked after our children, did a job to keep the kitchen moving," he said.

His daughter is also delighted to have her father off drugs. "I was very young and hardly knew anything about addiction. But I am so happy that when I am grown up I will see my father with me in a healthy condition," she said.

While women often control the purse strings in Pakistan, the husband's role as the head of the household is never questioned, making the challenge of the addict's spouse even tougher.

If it emerges that their husband is on drugs, women further face the stigma and ostracism from their family.

There is also a growing problem with HIV/AIDS due to the number of people sharing dirty needles, up to five at a time, experts say. Their wives are then unknowingly exposed to potential infection.

"It's not easy for a woman in this society to be called wife of an addict, said Munnera Huda, whose husband Javed Ali Huda smoked heroin for several years.

"I became a nurse when our financial position started getting bad and my in-laws gave me permission. I worked for 10 years" she said. "Since he is now normal and got a job I decided to look after our two children."

Javed, who smoked 10 heroin cigarettes a day on average, now works with a non-governmental organisation, the Pakistan Society, which runs several rehabilitation centres.

Family support is crucial in the rehabilitation process, Huda said. There are hundreds of cases where families dumped their loved ones in the centres and did not welcome them back.

"After getting married it was my wife who took all the pain and what I am today is because of my wife," Huda said.

But it was more difficult for Mohammad Shahzad's conservative family to cope the situation when he became a heroin addict six years ago.

Shahzad, who owned an electronics shop, sold his business, home and even his wife's jewellery.

His wife, who wears an Islamic veil and did not want to be named, said: "It was due to my prayers and his love for our two children that he finally quit drugs.

"At times when he did not return for six months I was scared whether he was alive or not."

Shahzad finally kicked heroin when a friend found him near a shrine in the eastern city of Lahore and told him that his son was sick.

"It was like a dream come true for the family when he quit. It's all because of my prayers and his love for the children," his wife added.

The key to successfully weaning addicts off heroin is psychological and social rehabilitation, says Shahzad Chaudhry, who runs the busy Sadaqat drugs clinic in Karachi and previously treated Wajid Ali.

This means, again, that the onus is on the wife to understand, he added.

"Social acceptance of such a person is very important. We try to change his belief... he can not only survive without drugs but can also live a normal life," Chaudhry said.