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About 75% of people in Rwanda who have experienced discrimination are HIV-positive, survey finds

A recently released survey on stigma in Rwanda indicates that at least 74% of people in various segments of society who have experienced discrimination are HIV-positive, the New Times/AllAfrica.com reports. The discrimination often is in the form of isolation from family and physical harassment, according to the survey.

28 May 2009

Meeting addresses mother-to-child HIV transmission in Africa

Health officials recently held a regional consultation in Kenya to examine mother-to-child HIV transmission services and pediatric HIV/AIDS care in nine Eastern and Southern African countries, IRIN/PlusNews reports.

26 May 2009

Global Health Council names Jeffrey Sturchio as next leader

Jeffrey L. Sturchio, a longtime leader at Merck & Co. whose quiet diplomacy helped build programs treating more than 100,000 AIDS patients in Botswana as well as protecting millions of Africans from river blindness, has been named President and CEO of the Global Health Council, the Council's board of directors announced today.

26 May 2009

Majority of HIV-positive pregnant women in developing world lack access to PMTCT services, report says

Two-thirds of HIV-positive pregnant women in the developing world do not have access to treatment to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, which could lead to 370,000 new HIV cases annually among infants, according to a study released Thursday by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, Bloomberg reports (Chase, Bloomberg, 5/21).

22 May 2009

AIDS treatment activists push UNAIDS and WHO to meet commitments to reduce HIV in women and newborns

In a dramatic meeting today at the UNAIDS headquarters in Geneva, members of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) and AIDS-Free World met with the leaders and approximately 100 staff members of UNAIDS and WHO to present ITPC's latest Missing the Target report, Failing Women, Failing Children: HIV, Vertical Transmission and Women's Health, which identifies the failure of the international community in preventing vertical transmission (also known as prevention of mother-to-child transmission or PMTCT).

22 May 2009

Governments should increase efforts to reduce stigma, improve access to HIV services among MSM, UNAIDS Executive Director Sidibe says

Governments worldwide should take action to eliminate stigma and discrimination against men who have sex with men, women who have sex with women and transgender people and improve their access to HIV services, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said recently, the Stabroek News reports.

20 May 2009

Piecing together the HIV prevention puzzle

"It's an exciting time in HIV prevention research. We will see results from a number of critically important HIV prevention research trials this year, as well as see the start of new trials around the world that will yield important answers in the years to come," said Mitchell Warren, AVAC executive director, at the release of AVAC's 13th annual report of the field.

18 May 2009

Stigma, gender violence placing women in Caribbean at increased risk of HIV

Inter Press Service on Thursday examined how an increasing number of women living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean face stigma, discrimination and gender-based violence that is linked to the spread of the disease. UNAIDS reports that women overall now account for half of the population living with HIV in the Caribbean, compared with 30% in 1999. Women ages 15 to 24 account for 62% of the entire HIV-positive population in the Caribbean.

12 May 2009

Australia's harm reduction strategies serve as model for other countries, UNAIDS official says

The Australian government's efforts to curb the spread of HIV by advocating harm-reduction initiatives, such as needle-exchange programs and drug substitution therapy, for injection drug users serve as a model for other countries throughout the region, UNAIDS Asia Pacific Director Prasada Rao said recently, the AAP/Sydney Morning Herald reports.

6 May 2009

Global health organizations are doing too little to support health system strengthening

Existing health systems in the developing world are fragile and many are unable to provide effective health services - and so there is growing consensus that the success of global health initiatives will depend on "health system strengthening" (a recent buzzword in global health).

30 Apr 2009

Stanford study shows PEPFAR program saved a million lives

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the ambitious U.S. government program begun in 2003, has cut the death toll from HIV/AIDS through 2007 by more than 10 percent in targeted countries in Africa, though it has had no appreciable effect on prevalence of the disease in those nations, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine that is the first to evaluate these outcomes.

6 Apr 2009

Somali religious leaders increase efforts to reduce stigma, discrimination for people living with HIV/AIDS

Islamic religious leaders in Somalia are increasing efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination against HIV-positive people in the country, IRIN/Plus News reports. Religious leaders in the predominantly Muslim country are encouraging people to treat HIV-positive people with respect and are becoming involved in HIV prevention efforts, according to IRIN/Plus News.

31 Mar 2009

AHF delegation meets with WHO and UNAIDS, urges action on access to AIDS treatment, testing and condoms

An international delegation from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest AIDS group in the US which currently provides medical care to more than 98,000 individuals in 21 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia, met today with officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to call for action and partnership to vastly increase global access to HIV/AIDS treatment, testing and condoms.

29 Mar 2009

Southern African development community should do more to fight HIV/AIDS, official says

Parliamentarians across the Southern African Development Community should do more to address HIV/AIDS in the region, Kasuko Mutukwa, SADC Parliamentary Forum secretary-general, said recently at a media briefing in Zambia's capital of Lusaka, the Inter Press Service reports.

25 Mar 2009

About 25% of tuberculosis deaths occur among HIV-positive people

About one-quarter of tuberculosis-related deaths involve an HIV-positive person, twice as high as previous estimates, according to the Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2009, which the World Health Organization released Tuesday to coincide with World TB Day, the Wall Street Journal reports.

25 Mar 2009

Lancet opinion piece examines progress made against HIV/AIDS

"Nearly 30 years into the AIDS epidemic, we are able to access our progress in tackling the disease with both increased knowledge and the benefit of hindsight," former UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot of Imperial College London, who also serves as an adviser on global health strategy to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Mark Dybul of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator; and Julian Lob-Levyt of the GAVI Alliance write in a Lancet opinion piece.

24 Mar 2009

HIV-related tuberculosis deaths higher than past estimates

The total number of new tuberculosis (TB) cases remained stable in 2007, and the percentage of the world's population becoming ill with TB has continued the slow decline that was first observed in 2004, according to a new report released by WHO today.

24 Mar 2009

Advocates, Vatican respond to Pope statement that condom distribution will not curb HIV/AIDS in Africa

Pope Benedict XVI's statement on Tuesday that condom distribution will not curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa has "sparked an international outcry" among HIV/AIDS advocates and prompted a response from the Vatican, AFP/Google.com reports (AFP/Google.com, 3/18).

23 Mar 2009

Caribbean coalition on women, girls pledges to address HIV, gender-based violence

The Caribbean Coalition on Women, Girls and AIDS on Thursday pledged to address all aspects of female vulnerability to HIV -- including violence against women -- and cited growing concerns that current HIV/AIDS strategies are not adequately addressing their needs, Inter Press Service reports.

16 Mar 2009

Sangamo BioSciences starts trial of CCR5-ZFP therapeutic to treat HIV/AIDS

Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. has announced that its collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania have opened a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate SB-728-T for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.

5 Feb 2009