NEW
YORKNews (Updated
March 21, 2010)
[Home]
[Previous
news]
By Edith M. Lederer,
Associated Press Writer Mar 16, 2010
NEW
YORK
Michel Sidibe, the head of
UNAIDS, said "it is unacceptable" that 85 countries still have laws
criminalizing same sex relations among adults, including seven that impose the
death penalty for homosexual practices.
He called a proposed
Ugandan law that would impose the death penalty for some gays "very
unfortunate" and expressed hope it will never be approved.
At a time when UNAIDS is
scaling up its program and seeking universal access to HIV treatment, Sidibe
said he was "very scared" because bad laws are being introduced by
countries making it impossible for these at risk groups to have access to
services.
"You have also a
growing conservatism which is making me very scared," Sidibe added.
"We must insist that
the rights of the minorities are upheld. If we don't do that ... I think the
epidemic will grow again," he warned. "We cannot accept the tyranny of
the majority."
Sidibe told a group of
journalists at a luncheon hosted by the United Nations Foundation that in
countries from
By contrast, he said that
in the
Even in the
"It seems like we
have come full circle" in the
In addition to failing to
adequately deliver the right messages about AIDS prevention, Sidibe blamed
complacency in a new generation that has access to treatment.
He added that this was not
just a problem in the
Sidibe said drug users are
also getting the HIV virus that causes AIDS in high numbers.
"You have 70 percent
of new infections occurring in Eastern Europe and
Of the 16 million people
in the world who are injecting drugs, almost 3 million are HIV positive, and
among them less than 4 percent have access to treatment and less than 8 percent
have access to services, Sidibe said.
"It's the same for
men having sex with men," he said.
In Nigeria, where there
are 1,000 new HIV infections every day, over 30 percent are in vulnerable groups
— drug users, sex workers and homosexuals, he said.
Sidibe called for "a
prevention revolution" including a campaign in major cities around the
world like the anti-smoking campaigns launched in recent years.
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer,
Associated Press Writer, On Thursday March 18, 2010,
LOS ANGELES (AP) --
The six-member California
Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted unanimously to assign an
advisory committee to study the proposal from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
The advocacy group filed a petition in December seeking to require the use of
condoms in the porn industry.
"We feel like this is
the game-changer. The sentiment expressed by the board members indicates that
the majority if not all of them are willing to vote for regulations," said
Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based advocacy group.
The group wants the same
sort of protections in place for nurses and doctors who work with bodily fluids
to be extended to porn to prevent the transmission of diseases.
By law,
Pornographers, including
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Vivid Entertainment head Steven Hirsch, have
said mandatory testing for adult film actors has been an effective way to
prevent the spread of disease. Flynt added that adult film viewers don't want to
see people using condoms.
Hirsch said the adult film
industry would likely leave
In a statement, an adult
entertainment trade group praised the state's decision to form a committee to
study the matter.
"I hope that they
choose someone responsible from the adult community to participate and I'm
hopeful that, eventually, some workable regulations will be put in place,"
said Paul Cambria, a lawyer for the Free Speech Coalition.
The AIDS Healthcare
Foundation's other efforts to mandate condom use have been unsuccessful.
A lawsuit the foundation
filed over the issue use was dismissed in December.
Last month,
The foundation also has
written three pieces of legislation to require condoms in porn but can't find a
legislator willing to sponsor their bill.
Tuesday, March 16 04:41 pm
Cases of tuberculosis (TB)
in
The Health Protection
Agency (HPA) said there were more than 9,150 cases of TB in 2009, most of them
among immigrants.
The main burden of
infection was in
"The increase we have
seen this year is the biggest rise in the number of cases since 2005," said
Ibrahim Abubakar, a TB expert at the HPA. An official said infection rates were
at their highest since the 1980s.
TB is caused by bacteria
and usually affects the lungs. Antibiotics can cure it, but about 1.7 million
people around the world die from it every year.
"We must remain
vigilant in our fight against TB. This is an entirely preventable and curable
infection, but it can be fatal if prompt diagnosis and treatment are not
given," Abubakar said.
Health officials were not
able to say exactly why the rise had occurred, and said no one particular factor
was responsible for the increase, which has been gradual.
Up to a third of people
worldwide are infected with the bacterium that causes TB, although only a small
percentage ever develop the disease.
Some studies have shown
that people with substance abuse problems and those who live in hard-to-reach
communities are more prone to the illness than the general population.
The AIDS epidemic drove up
the number of TB cases across the world in the late 1980s and 1990s because the
immune suppression caused by HIV can make a person far more susceptible to TB.
The HPA said the
(Reporting by Kate Kelland;
Editing by Steve Addison)
By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical
Writer Mar 18, 2010
In a new report on the
global status of drug-resistant TB based on data from 2008, the agency says
almost half of all people with the disease are in
High rates of
drug-resistant TB strains were also seen in eastern Europe and central Asia,
with up to 60 percent of people who already had TB in some parts of
About 4 percent of all TB
cases worldwide are thought to be non-responsive to the usual TB drugs. The
agency estimated there were between 390,000 and 510,000 cases of drug-resistant
TB in 2008, including about 150,000 people who were killed by the disease. But
those numbers are based on modeling and come with a big margin of error.
The report is based on
information from 35 countries worldwide, leaving a huge gap in the global TB
picture.
"The country data
reported to WHO make it impossible at this time to conclude whether the
(drug-resistant TB) epidemic worldwide is growing or shrinking," the agency
wrote in its report.
In the
The CDC does not yet have
data on drug-resistant TB for last year. But other, preliminary data indicate a
historic drop in new tuberculosis cases of all kinds in 2009 — the largest
single-year decrease in more than 50 years of federal record keeping.
TB rates fell more than 11
percent in 2009, to 3.8 cases per 100,000 people. Generally, the annual decline
is about 4 percent. CDC officials are investigating, but say it could be related
to fewer cases coming in to the country through immigration.
Drug-resistant
tuberculosis usually arises when people are poorly treated or take substandard
medicines. It takes longer to treat than regular TB and requires more expensive
drugs, which also cause bad side effects like liver damage.
In recent years, WHO and
other health authorities have warned the collision of TB with the AIDS virus
could fuel simultaneous epidemics — and asked for more money to fight both. In
its latest report, however, the agency acknowledged there is little proof of
that.
Again citing missing data,
the agency says "it has not been possible to conclude whether an overall
association between (drug-resistant) TB and HIV epidemics exists."
In
Some health experts
wondered why WHO's report failed to mention in detail one of the main drivers of
drug resistance: bad medicines.
"Many substandard
drugs are fakes, but we are also concerned about legitimately manufactured
copies — mainly from India and China — which are not made to exacting high
standards," said Philip Stevens, a health policy expert at the London
think-tank International Policy Network.
Stevens said the lack of
global TB data was troubling. "WHO doesn't really have a clue as to the
true extent of the problem," he said. "It's difficult then, to start
promoting targets and goals when you don't know what baseline you are starting
from."
WHO reported rates of
drug-resistant TB were dropping in some parts of
"It's good news that
it can be controlled even in those difficult regions," said Ruth McNerney,
a TB expert at
McNerney said that though
progress was being made, authorities need more money to fight it, and more
information about where the disease is striking. "We've got to find out
where there are very serious problems, otherwise we won't know about it until
it's too late."
___
AP Medical Writer Mike
Stobbe in
18 March 2010
The data, presented at CDC's 2010 National STD Prevention Conference, found that
the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) in the U.S.
is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women.
"While the heavy toll
of HIV and syphilis among gay and bisexual men has been long recognized, this
analysis shows just how stark the health disparities are between this and other
populations," said Kevin Fenton, M.D., Director of CDC's
According to CDC many
aspects contribute to the high rates of HIV and syphilis among gay and bisexual
men in this country. Homophobia and stigma can prevent MSM from seeking
prevention, HIV testing and counselling, and treatment services. Other causes
include limited access to prevention services, unsafe sex practices and
complacency about HIV risk due to existence of treatment, particularly among
young gay and bisexual men. Also, the risk of HIV transmission through
anal sex is much greater than the risk of transmission via other sexual
activities.
''It seems like we have
come full circle in the
Prevention programmes
According to UNAIDS, HIV
prevention measures for men who have sex with men should include consistent and
proper use of condoms, and access to water-based lubricants. High quality
HIV-related services, like voluntary counseling and testing in a
non-discriminatory environment,, should be made available as well as specific
and targeted information on prevention and risk reduction strategies designed to
appeal to and meet the needs of men who have sex with men. Further quality
treatment for sexually transmitted infections with referral for HIV services
must be made available.
The U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services notes that in the
CDC officials noted that
the new analysis underscores the importance of the HIV and STD prevention
efforts to reach gay and bisexual men recently announced as part of the U.S.
President's fiscal year 2011 national budget proposal.
The new analysis is the
first step in more fully assessing the extent of HIV among MSM and other
populations in the