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UK,
Europe & Australia HIV News:
Finding of High Number of HIV Cases Among Prison
Inmates Unsettles Lithuania
Europe Becoming Complacent over HIV Prevention
Sexually Transmitted Diseases on the Rise in United Kingdom
HIV Test for African Nurses Opposed
Rates of Genital Herpes Infections Rise in Scotland
Safe Sex Campaign Targets Reckless Youth (UK)
Call for National Health Strategy to Curb Rise in Sex Infections (Australia)
Russia's Sexual Counter-Revolution
Russian AIDS Plague To Hit Europe
Asia
& Africa HIV News:
Scientists Explore Role of STDs, Malaria, and TB in Africa
South African Village, Fearing AIDS, Trusts God More than Drugs
South African Government to Make Female Condoms Available
Bangladesh Detects 188 AIDS Cases, 11 Dead
United States Commits Extra $16.9 Million to UN Program
to Aid Refugee Women and Children
More than 51,500 HIV-Positive in Vietnam
AIDS in the Developing World: Don't Overlook the Ounce of
Prevention
Laos Pulls Goldfish-in-a-Condom Ad as Too Explicit
70 Percent of Chinese Teenagers Get Sex Education from Porn
Chronic Condom Shortage Could Trigger AIDS in Indian
Brothels
Lesotho Proposes Death Penalty for HIV-Positive Rapists
Finding
of High Number of HIV Cases Among Prison Inmates Unsettles Lithuania
Associated Press (08.19.02)
Liudas Dapkus
Aleksandras Kreslinas, serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery, is among
263 inmates in Lithuania's Alytus prison who tested positive for HIV during
recent random checks by the state-run AIDS Center. The findings nearly doubled
the official number of HIV cases for this country of 3.5 million people. Kreslinas,
who has five years left to serve, thinks he was infected while injecting heroin
with a shared needle.
The worry is that the results at Alytus may indicate HIV is far more prevalent
in the country than imagined, said Irina Savtchenko, an advisor to UNAIDS.
"I suppose it's possible it might not be so in this case, but prisons
usually do reflect the situation in a country as a whole," she said.
Still, tests at Lithuania's 14 other prisons found only 18 cases, the AIDS
Center said. Before the tests, Lithuanian officials had listed just 300 HIV
cases, or less than 0.1 percent of the population, the lowest rate in Europe.
This predominantly Roman Catholic nation won praise after regaining independence
in 1991 for quickly setting up condom distribution programs and supplying
free needles to drug addicts to stop the spread of HIV. Now the outbreak at
Alytus, which the AIDS Center blamed on intravenous drug use and shared needles,
is seen as a major public health failure. Several prison officials have been
fired, including the warden. Many people called for Justice Minister Vytautas
Markevicius to resign, though he managed to keep his post.
Inmates at several prisons staged a weeklong hunger strike after the HIV test
findings were announced, drawing a government promise to improve conditions
and to build a center for drug addicts and HIV-positive inmates. The government
initially pledged just $50,000 to fight HIV in prisons, but critics said that
was not nearly enough. Under pressure, Lithuania has raised total funding
to $966,000.
Europe
Becoming Complacent over HIV Prevention
TB & Outbreaks Week (07.23.02)
Rising levels of gonorrhea and syphilis across western Europe since 1995 imply
that complacency over HIV prevention efforts may have set in among individuals
and some governments, argue researchers in the British Medical Journal ("Are
Trends in HIV, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis Worsening in Western Europe?"
2002;324:1324-7).
In examining national trends in diagnosed HIV infections, gonorrhea, and infectious
syphilis from 1995 to 2000, Angus Nicoll and Francoise Hamers found that new
diagnoses of sexually acquired HIV infections increased by 20 percent in western
Europe. Rates of gonorrhea increased in France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom, while outbreaks of syphilis have recently been reported
in several countries, especially among men who have sex with men, including
men already infected with HIV.
These preliminary data show that sexual health has deteriorated in parts of
western Europe in recent years, according to the authors. Increasing numbers
of people are living with HIV; levels of STDs that facilitate HIV transmission
are rising; and sexual behavior is getting riskier, leading to fears of increasing
HIV transmission.
AIDS campaigns from the late 1980s and early 1990s seem to have been forgotten,
and efforts to prevent HIV transmission need to be strengthened, they said.
In addition to prevention measures, consistent surveillance needs to be established
across Europe to monitor trends in key STDs, resistance of gonorrhea, and
likely incidence of HIV transmission.
Sexually
Transmitted Diseases on the Rise in United Kingdom
Reuters Health (08.15.02)
Unsafe sex is fueling an increase in new cases of STDs in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland, according to public health officials. Dr. Gwenda Hughes
from the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) said, "Young women and
gay men remain the groups that cause greatest concern in sexual health terms."
When HIV emerged in the early 1980s, STD diagnoses dropped quickly as people
heeded the safe sex message. But since the mid-1990s, the number of STD diagnoses
has crept up, with figures for 2000-2001 showing the trend continuing. The
number of new diagnoses of chlamydia rose 10 percent, making it the most commonly
diagnosed STD. Gonorrhea and genital herpes also increased, while outbreaks
among gay men more than doubled the number of people infected with syphilis.
Overall, 71,055 new chlamydia cases were seen in genitourinary medicine clinics
in 2001, an increase of 10 percent in females and 9 percent in males since
2000. Syphilis rose by 144 percent, from 252 to 614 in males and 75 to 102
in females; gonorrhea increased to 22,685 cases; genital herpes increased
to 17,853 cases; and genital warts rose to 67,693 cases.
"These continuing rises are a direct consequence of increasing high-risk
sexual behaviors among this group with many gay men reporting more sexual
partners and more unsafe sex than before," Hughes said. "The increasing
trend is particularly worrying among gay men as some [STDs] facilitate the
transmission of HIV, and this is already the highest group for contracting
HIV infection."
More HIV infections were detected in 2001 than in any year previously, according
to PHLS data, although advances in antiretroviral drugs meant the number of
people progressing to AIDS was at its lowest since the late 1980s.
HIV
Test for African Nurses Opposed
BBC News (08.16.02)
Solomon Mugera
Plans by the British government to introduce compulsory HIV tests for all
new health staff in the country have met strong opposition from the Nursing
and Midwifery Council and organizations working with HIV-infected individuals.
"It came as a bolt out of the blue to us when it was announced,"
said Stuart Skyte, head of NMC's communications. If approved, Skyte said,
the tests would be a condition of employment imposed by the council, which
has the powers to ensure that nurses must be in good health before being allowed
to work. "The government does not define what good health means,"
Skyte said. "One can be HIV-positive but in good health," added
Skyte, speaking to the BBC World Service program "Talkabout Africa."
The proposed measure was introduced due to fears by the National Health Service
that hundreds of nurses recruited by the government from Africa are carrying
HIV. There have been recent reports that nearly 700 infected nurses were recruited
last year from Africa - a report that many termed a complete fantasy meant
to scare the public.
Speaking on the same program, National AIDS Trust CEO Derek Bodell said that
there are a few infected nurses recruited by the NHS, but "we haven't
got a blanket invasion of people who have been recruited abroad who are HIV-positive."
An official from the African HIV Policy Network, Joshua Odongo, said the government's
plan would only heighten stigma and the discrimination against African nurses
working in the United Kingdom. The nation is currently facing an acute shortage
of health workers.
It is not clear when the government intends to introduce the policy, how frequently
workers would be required to take the test, or whether a positive test would
disqualify a nurse or doctor from working in NHS. At present, HIV tests are
voluntary, and health workers do not have to undergo screening before working
in the UK.
Doctors say there is no evidence that any patient in Britain has been infected
by an HIV-positive health care worker.
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Rates of Genital Herpes Infections Rise in Scotland
TB & Outbreaks Week (07.23.02)
Genital infections with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) have risen in
western Scotland over the last 15 years, particularly among young women, according
to a study in the British Medical Journal ("Longitudinal Study of Genital
Infection by Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 in Western Scotland over 15 Years,"
2002;324;1366-1367).
Researchers reviewed all genital samples of herpes simplex processed between
1986 and 2000 at the West of Scotland Specialist Virology Center. Of the 3,181
swabs testing positive for the virus, 63 percent were from women and 37 percent
were from men. Twenty-nine percent of patients were ages 21 to 25. In 1986-1988,
33 percent of all positive swabs were due to HSV-1, rising progressively to
56 percent in 1998-2000.
Both the number and percentage of HSV-1 infections have risen, said the authors.
Genital infection with HSV-1 is also strongly associated with being young
(<25 years) and being female. Most new cases of genital HSV-1 infection
are likely to be due to orogenital transmission, but there is no evidence
suggesting that oral sex practices have changed substantially, said the authors.
The occurrence of HSV-1 infection in women is unexplained.
These results suggest that counseling and clinical management strategies may
need to be revised. Preventive strategies for genital herpes should focus
on the risk of unprotected orogenital intercourse, which is frequently perceived
as "safe" in the context of STD transmission, the authors noted.
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Safe Sex Campaign Targets Reckless Youth
Independent on Sunday (London) (08.04.02)
Maria Hilt; Maya Mailer; Meyrem Hussein
This week, Britain's FPA (formerly Family Planning Association) launches a
campaign with a simple message: "Should have used a condom." The
FPA is highlighting the fact that young people, caught up in dancing and sex,
often give little thought to condoms. The new campaign during "Sexual
Health Week" is designed for the partying, up-beat crowd.
Two video clips will be shown in 254 clubs and bars in England, Wales and
Scotland, bringing the message to young people just as they are perhaps sizing
up their latest potential partners. One activity involves cards bearing the
picture of a male or female body with instructions to kiss it. Once the card
is kissed, it reads: "Congratulations, you may have got a sexual infection!"
STDs are on the increase in the United Kingdom, especially among those in
their teens and early twenties. According to Dr. Imtyaz Ahmed-Jushuf, clinical
director for sexual health at Nottingham City Hospital, STD diagnoses in people
under age 20 have increased by 33 percent since 1995. Even these figures may
be too low because some infections, like chlamydia and gonorrhea, have few
symptoms and often remain undiscovered.
According to the CDR Weekly, the online journal of the Public Health Laboratory
Service, chlamydia infections have increased by 105 percent in females and
98 percent in males since 1995. In 2000, almost one percent of the 16- to
19-year-old girls in England, Wales and Northern Ireland had been diagnosed
with the disease.
Part of the problem lies with attitudes and a lack of education. Over 50 percent
of the younger readers of Cosmogirl! Magazine say they have not learned about
STDs in school, according to a survey carried out by the magazine. Young people
interviewed about STDs say the problem stems from sexual repression and the
inability of the culture to deal with sex as a normal thing.
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Call for National Health Strategy to Curb
Rise in Sex Infections
Sydney Morning Herald (08.22.02)
Ruth Pollard
A rise in STDs and an increase in unprotected sex among gay men in Australia
have prompted calls for a national sexual health strategy and revival of safe
sex campaigns. While the majority of gay men practice safe sex, the rate of
unprotected sex with casual partners rose from 14 percent in 1995 to 25 percent
in 2001, according to a report from the National Center for HIV Social Research.
Despite this increase, there was no corresponding rise in the rate of HIV
infection, which remains stable at 150 to 200 new infections a year. The center's
Paul Van de Ven said the fact that HIV-positive men were having unprotected
sex only with other HIV-positive men explained why there had not been an increase
in new HIV infections. Victoria was the only state to report an increase in
HIV infections in 2001. The Northern Territory remained, on a per capita basis,
the STD capital of Australia, due in part to low levels of services and treatments
in Aboriginal communities.
The National Center in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research said in its
annual report that chlamydia was the most frequently reported STD in Australia,
with 20,107 cases in 2001. Deputy Director John Kaldor said the trends were
influenced by greater availability of more effective tests.
Chris Puplick, chair of the National Council on AIDS, Hepatitis C and Related
Diseases, said the figures illustrate an urgent need for a national health
strategy that was broader than HIV and hepatitis C. Hepatitis C remained one
of the most common communicable diseases, with about 16,000 new infections
each year, although the reports found that figure dropped for the first time
in five years. He warned that recent "political assaults" on needle
exchange programs could result in an explosion of new HIV and hepatitis C
infections.
According to the surveillance report, 18,854 people in Australia have been
diagnosed with HIV since 1985, and 12,730 Australians are living with HIV.
Russia's Sexual Counter-Revolution
Baltimore Sun (08.07.02)
Douglas Birch
Moscow has more than its share of raunchy nightclubs, strip joints and prostitutes.
Sidewalk peddlers sell X-rated videos, and state-controlled TV stations broadcast
films with nude scenes uncut. Yet, while Russians pride themselves on their
sophistication about sex, public discussion about it is considered "uncultured"
- a Soviet-era concept deeply rooted in Russian society, equivalent to committing
a mortal sin for many non-religious Russians. Sex education is rare, banished
from most public schools after a short-lived 1996 experiment drew criticism
from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Autumn M. Lerner, a graduate student in international studies at the University
of Washington, recalled discussing sex with students in a Moscow nightclub
a few years ago. She was shocked that what little they knew was wrong. "Russian
kids were denying there was AIDS in Russia," she said. "They denied
that safe sex was important." Lerner's master thesis on sex education
concluded many Russians are growing up sexually active and sexually ignorant.
"There's no tradition with which to talk about these issues," Lerner
said. "Parents refuse to talk to children about it. Teachers don't talk
about it."
To Lerner and other sex education advocates, the consequences are predictable.
According to UNESCO, the rate of syphilis among teenagers exploded in the
1990s. While abortion rates have fallen drastically since Soviet times, two
out of three pregnancies still end in the procedure. The UN recently reported
that AIDS is spreading faster in Russia than anywhere else worldwide.
"The kids in Russia are not afraid of sexuality," said Igor Kon,
a sex education advocate and author. "But government officials? Their
parents? They believe it is very bad, it's dangerous." As Anastasia Vasiliyeva
sat with her 17-year-old boyfriend, Sergei Koslovsky, on a bench on Tsvetnoi
Boulevard, Koslovsky recalled how a friend who tried to buy a sex manual was
humiliated by bookstore clerks. Society can't afford to be so squeamish when
its health is at stake, Koslovsky said.
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Russian AIDS Plague To Hit Europe
One in 20 Russian adults will be infected with the HIV virus within five years,
threatening a massive epidemic in Europe, according to an independent survey
by British scientists.
Researchers at Imperial College, London, have been studying the likely spread
of HIV in Russia and have concluded that 5 per cent of the adult population
will be HIV-positive by 2007.
This means four millions adults will develop AIDS said one doctor, who added
that there was no upper limit. It could easily be a lot worse – at least
double. And these people will die within 10 years.
The result of the Imperial College study - the first independent report into
the virus commissioned and assisted by the United Nations Aids program UNAids
- will be presented at the World Health Organisation conference in Barcelona
in July.
Experts say HIV has spread most quickly in the last three years among drug
users who share needles. But they fear the virus is spreading to the general
population through heterosexual sex, and that it may ‘ mushroom’
in the next decade, leading to infection rates similar to those in Africa.
"Our study was focused on the behaviour of drug users in Russia"
said Nick Grassley, who did the research at the college’s department
of infectious disease and epidemiology. "But drug users have sex with
non-drug users and they rarely use condoms. Infection rates of sexually transmitted
disease are a hundred times higher in Russia than in Western countries, and
these contribute to the spread of HIV. All the factors are there for a larger
epidemic."
Grassley added that a third of drug users funded their habit through prostitution,
spreading HIV. Security experts are now analysing the impact of the larger
numbers of eastern European women who work in the sex industry of Berlin,
Amsterdam and London.
The estimate comes weeks after the World Bank delivered s stark warning to
President Vladmir Putin’s administration that the country’s economy
would shrink by 4 per cent if HIV continued to spread at the current rate.
"HIV is a time bomb" said one of World Bank Official.
Putin has been criticised for inaction over HIV. Analysts say Russia does
not want to admit HIV is a problem because it might deter investment and further
restrict the movement of Russians within Europe.
Health workers are also fiercely critical of the current HIV strategy. In
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is encouraging adults to abstain from sex rather
than use condoms – a practice frowned on by Russia’s Orthodox
Church.
Russia spends the bulk of its meagre $5 million annual HIV budget on treatment,
but experts warn that to avert disaster it urgently needs to invest more in
safe sex education. Russia is doing a lot of tests – nearly 20 million,
they say – so they know where the problem is, said an Aids worker. But
the programmes now focus largely on treatment and not prevention.
Treatment cost $10.000 a patient and is funded by international donors, not
by the Russian government.
In 1999, the CIA considered HIV a major security risk for the West and warned
that by the end of this year two million Russian adults could be infected.
The number of cases of HIV officially registered in Russia has nearly doubled
each year since 1997.
Urban Weber, a technical adviser on HIV for UNAids, said: HIV will become
a very severe problem for Russian society as a whole in a very short time
if nothing happens.
Ninety per cent of Russian HIV cases caught the disease since 1999. This means
that the first wave of people will start arriving in hospital in three years.
Now there is no visible problem, and this might be the reason why it is getting
little attention.
Weber added that Russians were not being informed of the risk. Russian condom
use is considerably lower than in other Western countries. But Russians are
as rational as everyone else. They just need to be told how to protect themselves.
The infection also poses a risk to neighbouring states.
"We know that HIV spreads along routes used by truckers and sex worker",
said Weber. "We do not have exact figures on this, but Germany should
be highly aware of the potential for a problem. The economic decline in eastern
Europe sends sex workers to border areas and westwards."
An official at the German embassy in Moscow added HIV in Russia was of grave
concern to his administration.
Security experts are giving particular attention to the Russian enclave of
Kalingrad on the Baltic coast. A confidential intelligence report seen by
The Observer estimates Kaliningrad is home to 20 per cent of Russian’s
HIV cases. It is too close to Berlin for their comfort, added a source.
HIV rates are highest in Moscow . HIV workers in the city have seen the virus
transfer from drugs users to the general population since the summer of last
years.
Dima Blagovo works for the community project Return to Life. Eight months
ago, a woman called Ela, 22, came to their offices. She was worried that she
had caught HIV, he said. At first we did not believe her when she said she
did not inject drugs, but she instead. She said she had had casual, unsafe
sex with a man in the field once. She wanted a test. He was a user, and now
she is HIV-positive.
Ela was the first person Return to Life met who had caught HIV through heterosexual
sex. "I hear about sexually transmitted cases of HIV more", said
Blagovo.
The are now 195,000 registered cases of HIV in Russia and UNAids estimates
that up 1.2 million people may have the virus.
Source : The Observer, Sunday 2nd June 2002
Scientists
Explore Role of STDs, Malaria, and TB in Africa
TB & Outbreaks Week (07.23.02)
The effect of HIV-1 on other infectious diseases in Africa is an increasing
public health concern, according to a review in the June 22 edition of the
Lancet ("HIV-1/AIDS and the Control of Other Infectious Diseases,"
2002;359:2177-87). Elizabeth Corbett from the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, and the Harare Biomedical Research and
Training Institute, Zimbabwe, and colleagues describe the role that three
major infectious diseases - malaria, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs),
and tuberculosis - have had in the HIV-1 epidemic.
The high prevalence of untreated STD infections has been a major factor facilitating
the spread of HIV-1 in Africa, with the synergistic interaction between HIV-1
transmission and genital herpes being of special concern for control of both
diseases. Increased susceptibility to TB after infection with HIV-1 has led
to a rising incidence and threat of increased transmission of TB. Clinical
malaria occurs with increased frequency and severity in HIV-1-infected individuals,
especially during pregnancy. As with TB, STDs, and other communicable HIV-1-associated
diseases, the net effect of HIV-1 might include increased rates of malaria
transmission across communities.
"The HIV-1 epidemic in Africa has reached such an extreme magnitude that
further major consequences are inevitable, and will include increasing difficulty
in controlling other infectious diseases," said Corbett. "One of
the cruel ironies is that the severity of the African HIV-1 epidemic is in
itself a direct reflection of the impoverished and imperfect nature of health
care that preceded the epidemic, notably poor control of STDs. Improvements
were made in infectious disease control in Africa during the last half of
the 20th century, but to a limited extent that left endemic disease and transmission
rates well above those of more developed countries. HIV-1 has now so
compounded this situation that it would take a massive scale of interventions
to return regional health to pre-epidemic standards. Without intervention,
however, public health will become more difficult and expensive to maintain
since the incidence, transmission, and drug resistance of other endemic diseases
are affected by HIV-1."
South
African Village, Fearing AIDS, Trusts God More than Drugs
New York Times (08.10.02)
Rachel L. Swarns
The faithful believe he is a prophet, a savior, and a man of miracles who
can stop the plague that is killing the poor, rural village of Hlabisa, South
Africa. He is the Rev. Solomon Mahlangu of God's Plan Church. A former driving
instructor who wears French suits, leather shoes and an air of prosperity
that is as intoxicating as fine cologne, Mahlangu claims that his healing
hands have exorcized wayward spirits and, most importantly, cured dozens of
people suffering from AIDS.
In this community where about 35 percent of adults are believed to be infected
with HIV, he needs no advertisements. When Thembalihle Xulu, 29, stood before
the congregation last year and announced that Mahlangu had cured him of AIDS,
the news spread like wildfire.
Today, scores of people give their trust and their pennies to a man who promises
to do what the government is still struggling to do: help this community cope
with its deadly scourge. Where most clinics run short of even the most basic
medicines, it is easier to believe in a miracle worker than in the possibility
that the government might provide AIDS drugs.
Mahlangu says prayer is the best protection from HIV. Ellen Dube, an overworked
AIDS counselor at Hlabisa Hospital, remains unconvinced, contending Mahlangu
is a charlatan who uses the AIDS epidemic to get rich. She begs her clients
to continue to use condoms. But some of her clients refuse to listen, and
some have already died. "HIV-positive people who have supported him,
they are dying now," Dube said, referring to Mahlangu. "He says
that by praying they are going to survive, but they are just dying."
Mahlangu acknowledged that some of his parishioners have died, but he said
it is because they sought advice from traditional healers and ancestors, which
made God angry. He has already enlarged his church three times in the past
year to accommodate his growing flock. Mahlangu dismisses his critics, saying
he is offering people with HIV something the naysayers cannot: hope.
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South African Government to Make Female Condoms
Available
Africa News (08.12.02)
BuaNews
South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang says the government
is intensifying efforts to ensure female condoms are available free of charge.
The minister was addressing a gathering of Women in Partnership Against AIDS
in Pretoria on Monday. WIPAA is an organization of women mobilizing provincially
and nationally to curb the spread of the disease.
Tshabalala-Msimang said efforts were also being stepped up to ensure that
women know how to use the condoms, which are 20 times more expensive than
male condoms. Though a very costly intervention, the minister said the government
is working with international partners to explore ways of ensuring the viability
of this program. "We know that even if women get these condoms, they
still have to negotiate their use with their partners in relationships that
are in most cases not favorable for women to raise these issues." For
this reason, she said the government is focusing on research into the development
of microbicides.
Microbicides are not currently available, but scientists are reportedly pursuing
over 50 product leads. With sufficient investment, a microbicide could be
available within five years. Tshabalala-Msimang added that if the research
proves successful, women would be able to use this gel without having to negotiate
condom use with their partners.
Touching on women's role in the society, the minister paid tribute to the
WIPAA, saying the partnership had succeeded tremendously in advising and monitoring
the development of policies and laws pertaining to women. "As we mark
the National Women's Day, let us not forget that HIV/AIDS touch women from
all walks of life. However, in our country and all over the world, women are
coming together to find better means to combat HIV/AIDS," she said. Future
generations will remember the important role played by WIPAA in the fight
against HIV/AIDS, Tshabalala-Msimang said, comparing its members to the women
who rose up against apartheid laws in 1956.
Bangladesh
Detects 188 AIDS Cases, 11 Dead
Agence France Presse (08.13.02)
Bangladeshi doctors have detected 188 patients living with HIV, the health
minister said last Tuesday. Bangladesh's first HIV cases were reported in
the early 1980s. Bangladesh has a 1.5 million expatriate population living
mostly in Europe, the Gulf, North America and East Asia.
The minister said awareness programs were underway and that Bangladesh's "social and Islamic values" had kept the number of AIDS cases low. The UN estimates that about 13,000 people in the nation were HIV-positive at the end of 1999, but said that cases were likely to be under-reported because of limited voluntary testing and the stigma and fear of being identified as HIV-positive.
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United States Commits Extra $16.9 Million to UN Program
to Aid Refugee Women and Children
Associated Press (08.12.02)
The United States is committing an extra $16.9 million for the UN's effort
to help refugee women and children in Africa and Afghanistan. About $5 million
will go toward programs by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that help
shield women and children from sexual assaults and violence based on gender,
State Department spokesperson Philip Reeker said. Other funds will help the
agency's environmental and AIDS prevention programs, he said. The funds announced
Monday bring the total US contribution to the high commissioner to $255 million.
More than 51,500 HIV-Positive in Vietnam
Agence France Presse (08.13.02)
More than 51,500 people are HIV-positive in Vietnam, with more than 5,000
of them under the age of 18, the state's daily Lao Dong (Labor) reported on
Tuesday.
Of the 51,571 people with HIV, 7,586 have developed AIDS, according to health ministry figures. In all, 4,121 people have died from the disease. Statistics for youths and children with HIV dropped by a percentage point from 2000, to 10 percent of all HIV infections. In 1999, 12 percent of all HIV infections were in the under-18 category, the daily reported. The actual number of people infected in Vietnam is believed to be far higher because of the limited scope of testing and reluctance by the government to admit the full extent of the impact of the pandemic.
UN agencies and NGOs say at least 120,000 Vietnamese are HIV-positive, principally among the large number of sex and hospitality industry workers and needle-sharing heroin addicts. The World Health Organization warned last month that HIV could spread rapidly among Vietnam's younger generation as a result of widespread ignorance of sexual health matters.
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AIDS in the Developing World: Don't Overlook the Ounce
of Prevention
San Francisco Chronicle (08.08.02)
Malcolm Potts; Russell Green
At the recent International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Peter Piot (director
of UNAIDS), Jeffrey Sachs (director of the Columbia University Earth Institute),
Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton all declared that there is a moral imperative
for developed nations to provide the funds to make HIV treatment available.
"...What if the money doesn't come? Notably absent from the many public
announcements coming from Barcelona was any further pledge of funds from donor
countries or organizations. The financing for the fight against AIDS is far
short of the UN's goal of $10 billion a year for global coverage of treatment
and prevention...."
"Even if AIDS drugs were free, the goals of prevention and treatment
of HIV cannot be fully met with existing resources. Inevitably, the expense
of government-sponsored treatment programs will cut into activities to prevent
HIV. Using the cost-effectiveness analysis that is under attack, $1 spent
on prevention can save 100 times as many years of life as $1 spent on treatment.
Yet most African countries are still woefully behind in providing HIV prevention
programs, let alone providing AIDS drugs to large numbers."
"AIDS funding is still a zero-sum game between competing needs - those
with HIV and those at risk of infection. Advocates of treatment correctly
state that treatment makes prevention more effective. It also makes it much
more expensive. Thailand and Uganda have proven that the HIV epidemic can
be turned around without huge budgets and without treatment, so the implication
that prevention can only be effective with treatment is inaccurate."
"AIDS advocates may be afraid that planning for continued funding shortfalls
will make it easier for donors to shirk their duty to provide more resources.
But this kind of all-or-nothing strategy is gambling with millions of lives."
"...This epidemic is too dangerous not to have a plan B. What should
be done? AIDS advocates - and all reasonable people - should continue to advocate
more funding for fighting HIV worldwide. But until that money arrives, we
need a plan B. And that should be to continue to focus primarily on the prevention
efforts that we know to be effective."
Obstetrician Malcolm Potts is a Bixby Professor in the School of Public Health
at the University of California-Berkeley and co-director of the Bay Area International
Group. Russell Green is a PhD candidate in economics.
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Laos Pulls Goldfish-in-a-Condom Ad as too Explicit
Associated Press (08.19.02)
An advertisement that depicts a woman carrying a goldfish in a water-filled
condom was pulled from television in communist Laos after authorities deemed
it too explicit, a US-based voluntary group that sells condoms said Monday.
Population Services International produced the humorous ad to promote its
"Number One" brand condom, which it sells at a subsidized price
in Laos, a traditionally conservative Buddhist society. The ad shows a woman
using a water-filled condom to carry a goldfish after a plastic bag she had
been using burst. A slogan on the screen says, "Number One can save your
life."
Sythong Ouansengsy, marketing manager for PSI Laos, said that the ad had been
aired on state television for the past year, sometimes two or three times
a day. But recently the Culture Ministry told PSI that the ad was too "sensitive
because it showed a condom on TV," said Sythong. The ministry said "boys
and girls watch TV too... during the daytime and it's not good," he said.
Culture Minister Kheckeo Soisaya said the ad was pulled because it failed
to show how condoms can prevent the spread of HIV. "They put a goldfish
in a condom and give the impression that condoms protect everything,"
said Khecko. "They [PSI] should produce an ad that shows how condoms
can prevent AIDS." Khecko said the Laotian government still supported
the work of PSI. PSI has replaced the ad with a few older spots that only
show the packaging and brand name, Sythong said.
In 1999, it was estimated that less than 0.05 percent of adults had HIV. The
government has said the promotion of condoms may have helped prevent the spread
of the virus in Laos. The communist regime that has ruled Laos since 1975
keeps a tight control on media.
70 Percent of Chinese Teenagers Get Sex Education
from Porn
Agence France Presse (08.15.02)
Nearly 70 percent of Chinese teenagers get their information about sex from
pornography, prompting experts to worry they may pick up skewed ideas, the
China Daily reported last Thursday. The problem is a lack of sex education
in the classroom and at home, forcing many youngsters to seek knowledge about
sex from adult websites and porn videos.
"Both schools and families should set up appropriate channels and provide
easy access to sex education for pubescent children," said Zhang Chungai,
a Beijing-based psychologist. Teachers and parents currently fail miserably
in performing that duty, according to a recent survey of youths ages 15-17
in Beijing, Shanghai and other large cities. The survey showed that just 1.7
percent got most of their sex education in school. Even fewer - 1.3 percent
- said their parents had provided them with any useful knowledge about sexual
matters, the survey indicated.
The issue of sex education is becoming increasingly urgent, because better
health conditions mean most Chinese now reach sexual maturity at age 12 or
13, one year earlier than a decade ago, the paper said. Lack of sex education
can have severe consequences, Zhang warned. China faces what the UN labeled
in June a potential "AIDS catastrophe," due in part to ignorance
about the spread of HIV via sex.
Chronic
Condom Shortage Could Trigger AIDS in Indian Brothels
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (08.04.02)
Indian brothels are grappling with a severe shortage of condoms that could
spread AIDS and other STDs to clients, according to a non-governmental organization
working with sex workers. In a letter to the federal Health Ministry, Indian
Prostitutes Salvation Association President Kharaiti Lal Bhola said most of
the nearly 2.3 million sex workers have various communicable diseases and
many of them have HIV. Despite a federal government directive issued in 1997
to maintain a supply of condoms, the issue has been neglected and as a result
AIDS cases are on the increase, Bhola said. In Delhi alone about 450 boxes
are needed monthly, but the red-light areas get only 10 to 12 boxes on average,
Bhola said. Each box contains between 4,000 to 6,000 condoms.
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Lesotho Proposes Death Penalty for HIV-Positive
Rapists
Associated Press (07.07.02)
HIV-infected rapists who know they carry the virus could face the death penalty
under a bill introduced Wednesday in Lesotho's parliament. The bill, introduced
by Justice Minister Refiloe Masemene, would provide for the compulsory testing
of all sexual offenders. Those who knew they were infected could be put to
death; those who did not know would receive a sentence of at least 10 years.
Health Minister Motloheloa Phooko said the new legislation was necessary because of the rising number of rapes, particularly among children. The bill would also make child molestation, exploitation and prostitution illegal. Anyone convicted of persistent sexual abuse of children would be sentenced to at least 10 years in jail.
Lesotho is completely surrounded by South Africa; an estimated 31 percent of its adults are HIV-positive.
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