BEIJINGNews (Updated June 5,
2011)
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By Marianne Barriaux (AFP)
–1 June, 2011
BEIJING
Fifteen years later, Meng
has finally landed on his feet. He works at an HIV/AIDS NGO and has a partner,
but still keeps his disease a secret from his friends amid continuing prejudice
in
"When I was
diagnosed, there was no information (about HIV/AIDS), it was terrifying.
Hospitals wouldn't accept me, they told me there was no room for me, doctors
told me they didn't have any medicine," he said.
"I told my family and
they asked me to leave home, as they wanted to protect themselves," Meng,
who refused to reveal his exact age but said he was in his 40s, told AFP.
Frightened that he might
be a threat to others and that he might not live much longer, he also decided to
quit his job.
Only by changing his name,
starting his own business and buying the life-saving antiretroviral drugs he
needed from the
Thirty
years after the first AIDS cases were detected in the
The government has
repeatedly warned of a "grim" situation in
Nevertheless, experts and
people living with HIV agree there has been progress over the years as the
government has started talking more openly about the disease.
According to Meng, one
area of significant improvement is the nationwide availability of free
antiretroviral drugs.
A study published in The
Lancet medical journal in May said
The report also found that
HIV-related deaths had decreased by 60 percent.
But experts warn
discrimination is still rife in the workplace and in hospitals, hindering these
efforts.
"If people know
they're going to lose their jobs and face discrimination in hospitals... they
might not come forward and take an HIV test," said Richard Howard, an
HIV/AIDS specialist at the International Labour Organization (ILO).
"Yet people who begin
their treatment early are less likely to infect others. So now, more than ever,
it's important that people feel comfortable to come forward and take an HIV test
and know their rights will be protected."
A report released in May
by the ILO found that people living with HIV/AIDS were still routinely denied
treatment in hospitals.
Meng, whose NGO is called
the Chinese Alliance for People Living with HIV/AIDS, said he had endured such
discrimination.
Several years ago, after
suffering chest pains, he was diagnosed with angina and told he would need to
have surgery. But when doctors found out he was HIV-positive, they refused to
perform the operation.
"I considered getting
surgery abroad, but it was too costly. Eventually, the problem got better and I
survived without the operation," he said.
Discrimination in the
workplace is also rife -- and was brought to the fore by a landmark lawsuit last
year by a young man from eastern
The plaintiff sued the
local education department but ultimately lost the case.
Meng has also experienced
this first-hand. In 2005, he was organising an AIDS awareness event when
journalists turned up with their cameras. He asked them not to film him, but
they did and broadcast a report on television.
"My business partners
found out I had HIV and were no longer willing to work with me. I had to leave
my company as a result," he said, adding the incident led him to pursue NGO
work full time.
But Meng says there are
signs of better acceptance in society -- a claim reinforced by Wu Jihai, a
migrant worker in northern
"Some of my
colleagues know I'm an HIV patient, but they don't discriminate against me. One
man even treats me better than before and helps me at work because he
knows," he told AFP.
"We shake hands and
talk, as if I was a healthy man who didn't have this disease. But I still cook
and eat on my own, I don't have dinner with them."
Zhang Beichuan, a
professor at
"
High-profile AIDS
activists Wan Yanhai and Gao Yaojie have both left China for the United States
due to ongoing government pressure. Campaigner Hu Jia was sentenced to more than
three years in prison in 2008 on subversion charges.
By Agnes Pedrero (AFP) –
30 June, 2011
"We currently have
around 16 billion dollars available for the global fight against aids,"
said Bernhard Schwartlander, who heads the strategy and results department at
the UN agency UNAIDS.
"But we estimate that
in 2015, even if we are most efficient ... we will need at least 22 billion
dollars, so (there's) over six billion dollars (in) shortfall between now and
ramping up the response in 2015," he told AFP.
Drugs to curb HIV are now
being rolled out to millions of poor people, especially in
But these drugs are not a
cure and they have to be taken for the rest of one's life.
As a result, the more
lives that are saved, the more the bill goes up.
Yet funding has levelled
out over the past three years as Western donors -- who shoulder almost all of
the financial burden -- deal with the aftermath of the financial and economic
crises.
"The problem right
now is, with the fiscal crisis there is not only a squeeze on AIDS drugs but
there is (also) a huge squeeze on AIDS research," said Seth Berkley, who
heads the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).
Campaigners are turning to
innovative sources to try to plug the gap.
In 2006, 15 countries
imposed tiny taxes on air tickets, a move which reaped two billion dollars over
four years, while Schwartlander suggested a new levy on tobacco sales.
At the next G20 summit,
where French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to push for a new tax on
financial transactions to fund development.
The Global Fund to Fight
Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a public-private partnership, has launched a
mechanism called the Dow Jones Global Fund 50 index.
The barometer measures the
financial results of companies that support the Fund's mission. Part of the
revenues generated through licensing this index for investors goes to the Fund.
"It has been launched
on the
The Fund is also proposing
other methods like deals between poor countries, rich countries and the
organisation.
"A rich country could
agree to cancel 50 percent of the debt of an indebted country if the latter
agrees to invest the remaining 50 percent of its debt in the Fund's
programmes," said Kazatchkine, noting that the first of such deals was set
up in 2008 between
"The money from this
debt will be turned into money for health," he said.
Kazatchkine has been
discreetly urging cash-rich emerging giants, including the
According to the Global
Fund's website, 230 million dollars has been disbursed to
Yet
Peter Piot, former head of
UNAIDS, acknowledged that
Even so, it was time for
wealthier emerging countries to fund their own needs to help free up resources
for far poorer countries, he said.
"I don't see why the
Global Fund should give all that money to
"There's a new world
order that's emerging, and except for what I would say many sub-Saharan
countries and a few other countries, the rest can pay for themselves.
"You have to put the
resources where the risk of infection is, and in the countries that are the
poorest."
(AFP) – 1 June, 2011
"Is it progress? Yes.
Is it enough? Absolutely not," said Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF director for
eastern and southern Africa, at the launch of the report in
Five million people aged
15-24 have HIV, down 12 percent from 2001, but with 2,500 new infections daily,
the report said.
Young women are hardest
hit, representing more than 60 percent of all young people living with HIV -- a
figure that jumps to 72 percent in sub-Saharan
African youth generally
bear a staggering share of the burden and risk: close to four of the five
million young people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan
As Sy said early sexual
debut, pregnancy and drug use are driving the spread of HIV among youth, and
called on communities to address issues of teen sex and drug use.
"For too long,
communities have turned a blind eye to some of the most difficult determinants
of risk," he said.
"Here is now the time
that we have the collective responsibility... to address these very difficult
issues head-on."
The study also found most
adolescents living with HIV do not know their status -- particularly troubling
after a new research last month found that HIV-positive people who take
anti-retroviral drugs cut their risk of spreading the virus by 96 percent.
Researchers said the
report is the first study to look at HIV among young people.
It was published by seven
international organisations including UN children's organisation UNICEF, the
World Health Organisation and the World Bank, and comes a week before a UN
high-level meeting on AIDS that will review progress in fighting the disease 30
years into the epidemic.
By Maria Antonova (AFP)
– 2 days ago
MOSCOW
— Russia and the ex-Soviet bloc need to step up their HIV prevention
programmes to stop its rapid spread, but stigma and domestic drug policies are
hindering progress, UN representatives said Friday.
As the world prepares to
mark the 30-year anniversary of the first recorded case of HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, effective prevention is "to a large extent missing in the
region," UNAIDS regional director Denis Broun told reporters.
Ninety percent of new
infections in the region occur in
Data also show the
epidemic spreading through Eastern Europe and
But Broun said the disease
remains poorly understood among the former Soviet republics.
"When we are talking
about prevention among drug users or men who have sex with men, we are talking
about people who are not easy to reach ... who are often stigmatised,"
Broun said.
"To reach them with
effective prevention there is a need to work with them ... so their behaviours
are better understood. This is what to a large extent is missing in the
region."
Only 20 percent of those
who need AIDS treatment in the region receive it, making the rest a greater risk
and shortening their life expectancy, Broun said.
Meanwhile, a lack of
substitution therapy options for heroin users means they "risk being
infected and infecting others," he added.
"In western Europe,
less than five percent of HIV transmission is through drug use, while here it is
over 70 percent," Broun said.
Russia's Health Minister
Tatiana Golikova said earlier this year there was no proof that methadone
treatment was effective, and drug enforcement officials have said it was more
addictive than heroin.
Harm reduction programmes
such as needle exchanges are also hanging by a thread in
They are not officially
banned but "there is a lack of enthusiasm to put it mildly, even veiled
resistance" to these programmes, said the head of
"With the current
trend they will most likely be closed," he said.
Prevention is also
hindered by a stigma attached to homosexuality in
"When there is a
stigma, men who have sex with men don't have access to prevention and
treatment," he said. "They are afraid of going to help centres, and
their risk is much higher."
A UN report released last
year said HIV among homosexuals in the region is a "hidden epidemic"
because of a lack of data and poor attention of national governments to this
risk group.
In
Last weekend, their latest
unsanctioned attempt to hold a meeting near the Kremlin was broken up violently
after activists were attacked by ultra-Orthodox and nationalist group members.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All
rights reserved.
(AFP) – 1 June, 2011
SYDNEY
The black and white
posters, in which one man has his arm draped across his partner's chest and is
holding a condom, are part of the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities
"Rip and Roll" campaign promoting condom use.
The ads were withdrawn by
billboard company Adshel after it received a string of complaints, but the
company later reversed this decision, saying it had unwittingly been targeted by
the Australian Christian Lobby.
"This has led us to
review our decision to remove the campaign and we will therefore reinstate the
campaign with immediate effect," Adshel chief executive Steve McCarthy said
in a statement.
Healthy Communities
executive director Paul Martin said that Australians were generally supportive
of gay rights, and that he had been heartened by the public backlash against the
decision to remove the posters.
"Most people don't
have a problem with gay people," he said.
By late Wednesday some
40,897 people had joined a Facebook page called "Homophobia -- NOT
HERE" created by one of the men featured in the posters, and protesters had
held an afternoon rally outside Adshel's
Australian Christian Lobby
"They show two young
homosexual men in some sort of act of foreplay," she said. "It's
talking about a sexual act and I don't think that's appropriate for the general
public."
But Queensland State
Treasurer Andrew Fraser rejected her comments.
"Check the calendar,
it's 2011," he said. "I think we should call it for what it is and
this is basic homophobia."
Healthy Communities said
that more people were diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in 2010
than at any time since the mid-1980s and it was therefore important to discuss
safe sex.
(AFP) – 3 June, 2011
CAPE TOWN — South
Africa's first clinic to roll-out free AIDS drugs celebrated a decade of
lifesaving success on Friday, but also warned of new challenges facing what is
now the world's biggest treatment programme.
The trailblazing project
in shack-filled Khayelitsha in Cape Town began at a time when South Africa's
government questioned the causes of AIDS and a health minister dubbed "Dr
Beetroot" advocated vegetables over proven measures.
The courts later forced
the government to offer medication, and
The benefits of treatment
were touted in the results from the first free clinic, where mother to child
transmission has dropped to 2.5 percent, lowered death rates, and boosted
testing from 450 to 55,000 per year.
"Khayelitsha is
showing that it is possible to eradicate the transmission of mother to
child," said Eric Goemaere, medical advisor for Doctors Without Borders,
which started the clinic in 2001.
"We don't speak about
a research setting or about the sophisticated hospitals in the
But making sure that
people kept taking the drugs was a challenge with only 65 percent of patients
after five years still following their treatment which risks the need for
expensive new medicines.
After five years of
medical care, about 12 pecent of patients need second-line treatments when an
initial cheaper cocktail of drugs had failed, a report on the project said.
That number is expected to
rise. One in 10 patients who failed second line treatment already need to switch
to a next round of drugs not available at state hospitals. That medication costs
up to 15 times as much as the first cocktail.
Now one million people
receive anti-AIDS drugs in