CHICAGO
(Reuters) - Nearly half the HIV-positive News (Updated
April 11, 2010)
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CHICAGO
(Reuters) - Nearly half the HIV-positive
Only 22 percent of
sexually active high school students are tested for human immunodeficiency
virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an analysis
using data from a 2007 survey of students in grades 9-12 (ages 14-18).
"At the end of 2006,
an estimated 48 percent of adolescents and young adults infected with HIV were
unaware of their infection, representing missed opportunities for diagnosis,
treatment, and reduction in the number of new HIV transmissions," the CDC
said.
It said people aged 12 to
24 represented 4.4 percent of the estimated 1.1 million people in the
Older high school students
are most likely to have been tested for HIV, and girls are more likely to have
gotten the test than boys, the CDC said in its weekly report on death and
disease.
HIV testing was more
common among students who had ever been taught in school about AIDS or HIV
infection than among those who had not, the study found. The researchers urged
more schools to include information about testing in their curriculum.
The CDC recommends that
doctors offer HIV screening as part of routine checkups for
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Posted on 10 April 2010 by
| Author: Rudi Stettner
It
seems that Planned Parenthood has found a new way to support population control.
A recent Planned Parenthood pamphlet targeting youth has come under fire for
opposing HIV disclosure laws. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. By law in most
countries and jurisdictions, someone who suffers from AIDS must disclose this
fact to their sex partners. Planned Parenthood thinks that this is unfair. CNS
News reports as follows on what seems to be a backhanded attempt by Planned
Parenthood to reduce the world’s population. The quote is from the Planned
Parenthood pamphlet.
“Some countries have
laws that say people living with HIV must tell their sexual partner(s) about
their status before having sex, even if they use condoms or only engage in
sexual activity with a low risk of giving HIV to someone else,” the guide
states. “These laws violate the rights of people living with HIV by forcing
them to disclose or face the possibility of criminal charges.”
It would seem to be common
sense that HIV should be disclosed to one’s sex partner. Other sexually
transmitted diseases are handled this way. There used to be contact tracing, in
which those suffering from venereal disease used to name their partners, who
would in turn be informed that they had been exposed to VD. Those contacts were
traced a step further until infection clusters had all been treated.
Unfortunately, common
sense is not so common anymore, now is it?
RESULTS UK writes for
ePolitix.com ahead of World Tuberculosis Day on Wednesday 24th March.
On World Tuberculosis Day
2010, the UK Coalition to Stop TB, a network of around 40 organisations, hosted
by RESULTS UK, will launch its 2010 campaign, 'TB: A Disease of the Past? Action
Now!'.
The UK Coalition to Stop
TB is calling on the next
In 1993, the World Health
Organization declared TB to be a 'global emergency'. In 2010, more people are
dying from this ancient killer than ever before.
"Donors' policy focus
is increasingly, and laudably, strong health systems," said
The Coalition is
officially launching 'TB: A Disease of the Past? Action Now!' at an evening
reception in
Globally, the coalition is
calling for the
It is asking the
Department for International Development (DfID) to ensure TB is a priority
within its global health strategies, and to review and update its 2005 practice
paper on TB and malaria, as well as mainstream TB in all its health programmes,
including HIV/Aids, nutrition and maternal health.
TB must be prioritised at
the Millennium Development Goal Review Summit in September and a plan developed
to ensure the 2015 target is met. Research and development of new drugs,
diagnostics and vaccines; integration of TB and HIV/Aids programmes; and
specific actions for hard-to-reach and marginalised populations, also feature.
Leaders of the three main
political parties will issue statements of support on World TB Day. The event at
the Conference Room, Mary Sumner House,
RESULTS UK is a partner in
the TB Action (Advocacy to Control Tuberculosis Internationally) Project, set up
in 2004 to address and help reverse the global TB problem. It works with
national governments and civil society in
BBC News,
Since the fall of the
Taliban regime in 2001, opium production in
|
Igor
is just one of 30,000 Russians who will die from heroin this year |
A couple of weeks ago, and
three time zones east of
The reason I was there,
the reason she'd let me be there, is that her son, Igor, had been killed by
heroin.
It is a sad fact in
In the frozen heart of
Alcohol is by far the
biggest killer. More than half a million Russians drink themselves to death
every year.
But since the early 2000s,
another killer has been spreading at frightening speed across
Actually there are two of
them, one closely stalking the other. The first is heroin. The second is HIV.
Straddling
In the
In
Why? What makes
But by far the biggest
reason is geography. Take a look at a map of the world and draw a line north
from
|
|
Sergei |
The vast bulk of
We hear a lot about the
effects of Afghan heroin on the streets of
Continue along that line
north and you will eventually arrive at the Siberian city of
New life
It was there that I met a
remarkable group of young men. Vlad has the shoulders and bull neck of a
nightclub bouncer. But today he is training to become a Protestant priest.
He is also a virtual
father to 25 young men. Vlad is a former heroin addict, as are all his staff and
all the young men in his care.
Among them is an intense
young man called Sergei - his face cast in a seemingly permanent frown.
|
Sergei
was one of |
Sergei gave up heroin
about nine months ago. That he was able to - as well as choose a new life -
speaks volumes of the work that Vlad and his staff are doing.
Sergei's father was an
alcoholic who beat his mother, stole and ended up in prison. He died there from
liver failure.
His mother killed herself
when Sergei was a teenager. He found her body hanging from a light fitting in
the hallway of their flat. By the age of 15, Sergei and his brother were alone,
and dealing drugs.
By the age of 20 he was a
major heroin dealer. Then in 2007 his brother was killed, beaten to death in a
fight with other drug dealers. What was left of Sergei's world collapsed.
"I had buried every
single one of my family," he tells me. "I had no more reason to live,
I just lay down on a bed and injected and injected."
That is were Vlad found
him a year ago, unwashed, surrounded by filth and close to death.
Building coffins
In the last year, his
transformation has been extraordinary. Today Sergei is healthy, strong, and even
talks of perhaps contacting his long-lost girlfriend.
But he is one of the few.
In the basement of the
rehabilitation centre Vlad shows me the drying-out cell. A terribly ill looking
young man is slumped on a bed.
|
|
Vlad |
"He came in last
night - new arrivals stay here for the first two weeks."
I immediately knew what he
was talking about - cold turkey. Heroin withdrawal is an extremely traumatic
experience. But it is staying off for the long term that is really difficult.
"Half the young men
won't make it," Vlad says. "They'll go back to the streets."
It is perhaps not
surprising that Vlad and his band of ex-addicts have a rather bleak sense of
humour.
They have turned one room
in to a workshop, where I found three young men building what I could swear were
coffins.
"Why are you building
coffins?" I ask, rather surprised.
"We run an
undertakers business," Vlad replies, very matter-of-fact.
"An undertakers?
Isn't that a bit morbid given what you've all been through?"
"We have to make money somehow, and round here there's never any shortage of business for an undertaker."
15 Mar 2010
As the final round of closed-door negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
between India and the European Union (EU) is about to start this month, people
living with HIV/AIDS are protesting to ensure Indian negotiators do not give in
to pressure to accept terms that will seriously hamper access to medicines for
millions of people living in the developing world.
"We are marching to call on the Indian government not to trade away our
lives," said Loon Gangte, president of the Delhi Network of Positive People
(DNP+). "Lifelong treatment for people living with HIV depends on continued
access to newer AIDS medicines. Because of international trade rules that
In 2005, in order to comply with the international trade rules,
"As the source of 92 percent of the AIDS medicines used in developing
countries today,
Specific measures that
Informal talks between European and Indian negotiators are reportedly opening in
Source
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières
A group of experts believe
scrapping of the heroin substitute would also lead to more drug addict deaths.
05 April 2010
Methadone: Experts warn of
withdrawing drug
Scrapping methadone
treatment for drug addicts could lead to a rise in crime and drug deaths, a
group of experts claimed.
The heroin substitute
should be "readily available" to all addicts seeking help, they said.
The group of around 40
experts from around the world included doctors who treat addicts and university
professors.
But weaning users off
heroin with methadone has been criticised by some. Tory leader Annabel Goldie
claimed many addicts were "parked" on methadone.
But the group claimed
"reliable and persistent research" showed that methadone treatment
substantially reduced deaths, crime, HIV infection and drug use.
The letter, to a Scottish
newspaper, read: "No treatment in medicine works every time but methadone
treatment has helped more people in the world overcome their problems with
heroin than any other.
"This treatment
should be readily available to every person that seeks help, accepts this option
and meets national criteria.
"If policy-makers
were to heed the critics advice to close down methadone treatment or impose an
arbitrary time limit on its administration, the community can anticipate more
overdose deaths, more HIV and more crime.
"Surely that is not
what the public want and deserve."
The Scottish Government's
drug strategy, launched in 2008, focuses on helping addicts become drug-free.
Community Safety Minister
Fergus Ewing said at the time that services for drug users should not just be
about reducing risk and harm but should "support people to move on towards
a drug-free life as active and contributing members of society".
Beijing,
April 11 – A Chinese man has been convicted for conducting a slander campaign
on the internet, accusing his former girlfriend of being raped, working as a
prostitute and spreading AIDS, a report said.
Yang Yongmeng, 32,
distributed explicit photos and video footage of his former girlfriend on the
Internet, and fabricated a story that she had been raped, worked as a prostitute
and was infected with HIV, after she broke up with him, Xinhua reported
Saturday.
The campaign resulted in
the woman becoming the subject of public vitriol and which ruined her
reputation.
Yang was later convicted
of aggravated defamation and sentenced at the People’s Court in Rongcheng
county in
Yang met the woman in
March 2008. They soon became lovers and lived together in
After the woman broke up
with him in June 2009, he reacted by distributing the video footage in her
hometown. He uploaded the video clips on the internet and said she had been
raped by her stepfather and become HIV-positive.
He said she was spreading
HIV to new clients each day and wanted to seek fame by attracting public
attention on the internet.
Yang also published 282
phone numbers, saying that they were ‘clients’ of the ‘AIDS-infected
prostitute’.
More than 157,000 webpages,
6,420 online reports and 735 video clips were also uploaded till Oct 27, 2009,
police said.
Meanwhile, tests conducted
by the national disease control and prevention centre found out the woman was
free of HIV.
I
had buried every single one of my family. I had no more reason to live, I
just lay down on a bed and injected and injected 