Geneva - New findings by Boston University* show that UNITAID's innovative approach to drug provision has revolutionised a number of important niches in the market for AIDS medicines, and the imminent creation of a patent pool for antiretrovirals (ARVs) could multiply those positive results and potentially save tens of millions of dollars yearly. "The impact of this kind of market intervention ...

More people than ever before are living with HIV in the UK but more than a quarter do not know they have it, figures show. The number of estimated cases rose by 8% between 2007 and 2008, says the Health Protection Agency. But it is thought 22,000 of the 83,000 people with HIV do not know they are infected. In 2008, 7,300 people were diagnosed with HIV and gay and bisexual men are still o...

Johannesburg – The hit television program “Big Brother Africa Revolution” and African private sector companies are supporting the Global Fund’s fight against malaria by contributing funds from a high-profile awareness-raising campaign, undertaken as part of the United Against Malaria campaign. The contributions are particularly significant, marking the first African private sector donations to th...

Global survey finds low level of knowledge on HIV and AIDS amongst educated youths According to the results of a global youth survey by Standard Chartered and AIESEC International, the world’s largest student organisation, although 84 per cent of young people believe the HIV and AIDS epidemic remains one of the great challenges of our time, almost 50 per cent have a dangerously low knowledge ab...

An international activist group Wednesday condemned Caribbean governments for retaining anti-gay laws on their books and urged action to change the situation so as to help remove the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. Representatives of the Commonwealth HIV and AIDS Action Group (CHAAG) made the call at a press conference two days ahead of the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)...

Christian leaders in the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance active in the response to HIV and AIDS welcomed the latest statistics on the epidemic indicating a decline in new infections over the past eight years, while emphasizing the need to expand comprehensive treatment and prevention services to continue the positive trend. UNAIDS and the World Health Organization released its annual AIDS Epidemic...

JOHANNESBURG - That women and girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS is well established, but a new report reveals how little we know about what countries are doing, or not doing, to address their vulnerability. The Scorecard on Women, released on 23 November by non-profit organization AIDS Accountability International (AAI), assessed responses to the specific needs of women in the c...

The Commonwealth convenes for a summit this week amid growing furor over a proposed law that would impose life imprisonment on homosexuals in Uganda, whose President is chairing the gathering. By chairing the summit without opposing the anti-homosexuality law, the Ugandan President “makes a mockery of Commonwealth principles,” Stephen Lewis, the former United Nations envoy on AIDS in Africa, sa...

This is a moment of truth for the Commonwealth. The anti-homosexuality Private Member’s Bill introduced into the parliament of Uganda, and now proceeding through the normal legislative process, puts the Commonwealth’s legitimacy and integrity to the test. In a fashion unmistakable in both clarity and intent, the putative legislation declares war on homosexuality. There are deeply offensive sodo...

GENEVA | SHANGHAI - According to new data in the 2009 AIDS epidemic update, new HIV infections have been reduced by 17% over the past eight years. Since 2001, when the United Nations Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS was signed, the number of new infections in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 15% lower, which is about 400 000 fewer infections in 2008. In East Asia HIV incidence has declined...

The health ministry in Kenya has launched a three-week campaign to encourage up to one million people to take an Aids test. Ministry officials will go door-to-door in a bid to more than double the number of people checked since voluntary testing clinics were set up in 2004. Minister of Public Health Beth Mugo says too many Kenyans are dying not because they have Aids but because they simply ...

The best law is the one which helps everyone to help one another and children early on in life to discover, establish and maintain a healthy sexual identity, sexual self-esteem and self-sexual perceptions. In the present circumstances, young people and adults of Uganda need to be taught to love, treat and pray for homosexuals, hetero-sexuals, bi-sexuals, tri-sexuals and non-sexuals as they woul...

JOHANNESBURG - South Africans are dying younger and in greater numbers, and HIV/AIDS is to blame, according to a report released this week by the South African Institute of Race Relations. Average life expectancy declined from 62 years in 1990 to 50 years in 2007; it is projected to fall even further by 2011, to 48 years for men and 51 for women, according to the Institute's annual South Afric...

NAIROBI - HIV-positive women in western Uganda want fewer children than women not living with the virus, but often do not have access to family planning services, a new study reveals. The study of 421 women in the district of Kabarole found that the probability of HIV-positive women wanting to stop childbearing was 6.25 times greater than it was for HIV-negative individuals. “HIV-positive ...

HIV-positive patients who are co-infected with tuberculosis have poor outcomes in Eastern Europe, a major international study published in the November 27th edition of AIDS shows. The study involved countries throughout Europe as well as Argentina and showed that patients in Eastern Europe were most likely to be infected with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), to have disseminated TB, to r...

Thanks to the international recession, donors are either decreasing or opting not to increase their funding of AIDS treatment. This will have devastating effects on poorer countries that are largely dependent on foreign aid. South Africa is not spared from the financial crisis. Recently, the Treasury had to find R900 million in the government’s coffers to give life to the country’s ailing AIDS...

NEW YORK – A special edition issue of UNICEF's flagship The State of the World's Children report, tracking the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the challenges that remain, was released today on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Convention’s adoption by the UN General Assembly. “The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most ratified human rights treaty in hum...

SIAYA - When Dorothy*, a single mother of five, told her neighbours in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, she had tuberculosis (TB), she expected sympathy and maybe even offers of help. Instead, she found herself so severely ostracized, she felt she had to move out. "The kind of discrimination I faced from my neighbours made me regret [sharing] my condition with them; I could not even share the [comm...

The success of the global response to AIDS will rely on tackling not only the encroaching virus itself but also the affects of climate change such as food and water shortages, growth in poverty and an increase in natural disasters, argues the State of World Population 2009, released today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The report also contends that, equally, strengthening the re...

Global opposition is growing to the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” recently proposed in Uganda, which would introduce the death penalty for certain homosexual activity between consenting adults. An increasing number of Christian organisations are condemning the Bill but the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is facing criticism for not speaking out on the issue. On Sunday (15 November), th...