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Clinton Foundation trains HIV-positive people in Lesotho to assist medical workers

The Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative has trained 10 HIV-positive people in Lesotho to help doctors, nurses and pharmacists cope with treating people with HIV/AIDS in a country with a severe shortage of health workers, South Africa's Independent Online reports.

22 Oct 2006

$74 million allocated to study environmental causes of disease

As part of the new Exposure Biology Program, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a component of the National Institutes of Health, today announced $74 million in grant opportunities for the development of new technologies that will improve the measurement of environmental exposures that contribute to human disease.

19 Oct 2006

UN program teaches AIDS orphans farming and life skills

A U.N. program is helping Kenyan children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS-related illnesses learn basic agricultural techniques and other life skills, PlusNews reports.

19 Oct 2006

Antiretroviral drug discounts should be extended for countries classified as 'middle-income'

Pricing antiretroviral drugs and other "lifesaving" medications based on a country's gross national income per capita "seems particularly arbitrary -- and even cruel" -- given that HIV-positive people often have incomes "well below what might be considered a country's 'average' income," Jorge Saavedra Lopez.

19 Oct 2006

Fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa should focus more on blood safety

A renewed focus on unsafe blood transfusions and used syringes is needed to combat the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, Ambassador Mark Dybul -- who serves as the U.S. global AIDS coordinator and administers the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- said on Wednesday during a visit to Zambia, Reuters reports.

19 Oct 2006

Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic could fuel deaths from XDR-TB

Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic could fuel deaths from XDR-TB -- tuberculosis that is resistant to first- and second-line drugs -- which has resulted in the deaths of least 74 people in South Africa since January 2005, World Health Organization officials said on Tuesday, Reuters reports (McGregor, Reuters, 10/17).

19 Oct 2006

HHS should ensure abstinence education material used by Federal grantees contains accurate information on condoms, STIs

The Government Accountability Office's general council office on Wednesday released a legal opinion saying that under the Public Health Service Act, HHS should ensure abstinence education material prepared and used by groups receiving federal funding includes accurate information on sexually transmitted infections and the effectiveness of condoms, CQ HealthBeat reports.

19 Oct 2006

HIV in China spreading beyond high-risk groups

HIV in China has spread beyond high-risk groups -- such as injection drug users, commercial sex workers and men who have sex with men -- a senior health official said recently, Reuters reports (Lyn, Reuters, 10/17).

19 Oct 2006

HIV prevalence in Botswana is 17.1%, President Mogae says

HIV prevalence in Botswana is 17.1%, lower than figures previously reported by UNAIDS, Botswana President Festus Mogae said Monday, Xinhua/People's Daily reports.

19 Oct 2006

Discrimination against HIV-positive teachers adversely affects education sector in Uganda

Discrimination against HIV-positive teachers is having an adverse effect on the education sector in Uganda, the East African reports.

19 Oct 2006

Yellow fever and Poliomyelitis outbreaks in Africa

Yellow fever in Ivory Coast - On 5 October 2006, the Ministry of Health reported 2 cases of yellow fever in the towns of Korhogo and Ouaragahio in Ivory Coast.

19 Oct 2006

Swiss become the first to bulk buy pre-pandemic bird flu vaccine

Switzerland has apparently ordered enough of an experimental bird flu vaccine to inoculate it's entire population.

19 Oct 2006

Global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply

If an influenza pandemic were to occur in the near future, there would be a shortage of several billion doses of the pandemic influenza vaccine needed to protect the global population.

18 Oct 2006

HIV exploits competition among T cells - points to new strategy for AIDS vaccination

A new HIV study shows how competition among the human immune system's T cells allows the virus to escape destruction and eventually develop into full-blown AIDS.

17 Oct 2006

HIV/AIDS education classes cause controversy in China

A lecture in Harbin, China, led by the Harbin Municipal Disease Prevention and Control Center that informed commercial sex workers about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections has "sparked a strong rebuke" from some authorities and residents, Reuters reports (Reuters, 10/15).

17 Oct 2006

Increased Ryan White CARE Act funding to rural areas should not come at expense of urban areas

Reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides funding for HIV/AIDS programs in the U.S., has stalled in Congress for months because of the "cynical assumption that a Solomon-like choice must be made between two groups of states," a Newark Star-Ledger editorial says.

17 Oct 2006