NEW DELHI, Dec 19 (IPS) - Following complaints by leading rights and women s activists in India , the powerful Prime Minister s Office has ordered a review of strategies adopted by the National Aids Control Programme (NACP), liberally funded by the World Bank. India, which completed the first phase of the NACP with
(IPS Dec 19) - Korean scientists have raised hopes that a vaccine may soon be at hand to combat the deadly acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) that has devastated much of Africa and Asia. Last week, researchers at a South Korean university claimed to have made a break through on one front - developing the world`
NEW DELHI, Dec 15 (IPS) - Mukti had no clue why officials in Bahrain , where she worked as a housemaid, suddenly deported her. It was a doctor in her village in Bangladesh who spotted a noting on her medical records which labelled her HIV positive. At 21, Mukti is one of Bangladesh s better known HIV victims having
LUSAKA, Dec 13 (IPS) - They swarm the central business district of Lusaka like invading locust, hungry, aggressive and destructive. They move around in menacing little bands, darting away for cover when the police appear, only to re-emerge with renewed determination when the coast is clear. They are Zambia s AIDS orpha
LUSAKA, Dec 8 (IPS) - UN Children s Fund (UNICEF) has called upon the government of President Frederick Chiluba to double its efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Zambia . The magnitude (of HIV/AIDS) is much bigger than we initially thought, says Peter McDermott, Unicef Resident Representative in Zambia. We have i
CHIANG MAI, Thailand , Dec 8 (IPS) - A boon to the developing world was how experts called the results of clinical trials in 1998, which showed a considerable drop in HIV transmission rates by HIV-positive pregnant women using a short course of the drug AZT , to their ba
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 6 (IPS) - A new international partnership - involving governments, internationalgroups, businesses and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) - has been set up to fight the deadly disease AIDS. The first meeting of the International Partnership Against HIV/AIDS in Africa Monday heard from UN Secreta
ABUJA, Dec 6 (IPS) - HIV is spreading at the rate of one person per minute in Nigeria , threatening Africa s most populous nation, according to Nigeria s Minister of Health, Timothy Menakaya. Over 25,000 have died of (AIDS so far), says Menekaya. No part of (Nigeria) is unaffected . Menakaya, who presented Nigeria
NAIROBI, Dec 3 (IPS) - Only a year ago, after the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) claimed more than 500,000 lives in Kenya , President Daniel arap Moi could not bring himself to call a condom by its name while addressing public or official functions. Moi, a devout Christian, condemned condom users as people w
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 1 (IPS) - Public awareness of HIV/AIDS is on the increase in Ethiopia . But so too are new infections. Some three million Ethiopians are believed to be living with HIV, official sources say. Ethiopia has a population of about 60 million people. The AIDS scourge has also left more than 700,000 children
MEXICO CITY, Dec 1 (IPS) - The long-held belief that the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) began in Africa has been challenged by a British writer, sparking off a fresh debate on the origins of the disease. In his recent book, The River: A Journey Back To The Source Of HIV And AIDS, Edward Hooper put forward t
NAIROBI, Nov 29 (IPS) - Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi s decision to raise the minimum consent age for marriage from 14 to 18 years, as a measure to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, has been welcomed throughout this East African nation of 30 million people. But rights groups say the decree, issued last week by Moi, shoul
MEXICO CITY, Nov 25 (IPS) - Public health workers in Central America, trying to combat the spread the AIDS virus, are being hampered in their fight by conservative religious groups in the region. Opposition to promoting the use of condoms has undermined the efforts to curb an alarming increase in the number of victims
HARARE, Nov 23 (IPS) - More women than men in Africa are living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS ( UNAIDS ) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The report, the 1999 AIDS Epidemic Update, says in sub-Sa
HANOI, Nov 19 (IPS) - Health workers agree that occupations do not transmit HIV , but that has not stopped the Vietnamese government from issuing a circular banning people with HIV from a range of professions. The list, announced Oct 25 by the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) -- a body inclu
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 17 (IPS) - Southern African Development Community (SADC) health ministers decision to adopt a cautious approach to the antiretroviral drugs AZT and Nevirapine is a serious setback in the fight against the region s Aids epidemic, South African non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say.
LILONGWE, Nov 8 (IPS) - As the fight against HIV/AIDS intensifies in Malawi , more and more people living with the virus are volunteering to share experiences in a bid to give a human face and voice to the epidemic. This is the best way we can help break the silence surrounding the epidemic. We know HIV/AIDS has spread
HARARE, Nov 23 (IPS) - Nearly two decades after AIDS was first identified, the disease remains dynamic, unstable, elusive and out of control. Numerous programmes to curb its spread have been initiated, but sexual behaviours have hardly changed, prompting health officials to intensify efforts to come up with a vaccine.
NEW DELHI, Nov 3 (IPS) - Indian social activists have used documentary films quite effectively and powerfully to put forth their ideological stand. But they have less often used mainstream cinema to make a political statement. Activist-cum-documentary film-maker K.P. Sasi is set to break many records. He is directing I
MEXICO CITY, Oct 31 (IPS) - The world first learned the story of Miriam five months ago. She was a Cambodian child orphaned five days after she was born when her mother, a 19-year old sex worker, died of AIDS. Stories like Miriam s, however, are not rare in Asia. A report by the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF)
NEW DELHI, Oct 31 (IPS) - It was at a workshop on sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and HIV/AIDS that Munni, married for two years now, got to understand the way her body functions. I was taught by my mother that menstruation was unclean and she refused to speak on the subject ... and no one taught us anything about
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 (IPS) - Trade pressure by industrialised countries keen on pushing patent rights threatens to hold back poorer nations from using legal ways of making HIV/AIDS medicines more affordable, say consumer and health campaigners and experts. This, they say, is why governments and activists in developing
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 (IPS) - The spread of HIV/AIDS in Asia is causing double discrimination against women migrant workers, whose rights are already often shunted aside in the second-class treatment they get in hostcountries, activists at a conference on HIV/AIDS here say. As it is, millions of women migrants have poor
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 (IPS) - In Bangkok, the insurance firm American International Assurance Thailand gives discounts on insurance premiums if company policy holders run effective prevention, non-discriminatory practices on HIV/AIDS in the workplace. In the jungles of Indonesia s Irian Jaya province, the giant mining f
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 (IPS) - Asian countries are hard-pressed to keep up with the still-growing price tag for fighting HIV/AIDS, at a time of economic hardship and a tougher environment for aid funds. In many ways, they are finding out that the economic battle in the larger war against HIV/AIDS is just as difficult as
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 (IPS) - Asia-Pacific countries need to give wider access to now-expensive treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS, and to cure the stigma that comes with the disease, if they are to make more headway in battling the pandemic in the years to come. These were the themes that dominated the opening d
CAPE TOWN, Oct 21 (IPS) - The South African government s plans to make Aids a notifiable disease have overwhelmingly been rejected by non-governmental organisations (ngos) in parliamentary hearings in Cape Town. The NGOs, who attended the hearing last week, have charged that instead of giving the Health Department more
RONGSHUI, China, Oct 15 (IPS) - All that Liang Youngwei s family needed to save his life was money. He was 54 years old, in very good health and he had cut trees in the mountains off his home village Yaguang for all his life. But Liang became paralysed from the waist down, and no herb brews or massages at Yaguang, in R
COLOMBO, Oct 15 (IPS) - Military personnel and migrant workers have been identified as new high risk groups in Sri Lanka s battle against HIV/AIDS as the ethnic conflict drags into the 16th year and large numbers of women migrate abroad. Manel Silva, senior programme officer at the United Nations Development Programme
MANILA, Oct 14 (IPS) - For 11 years, I have kept this secret from my mother, says Lea Sales, who heads a group of people living with HIV/AIDS here. I m not certain if she will understand. That even Sales, president of an organisation of Filipinos living with HIV/AIDS, remains fearful of her family discovering that she
BRIDGETOWN, Oct 13 (IPS) - Any news about the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) here is likely to be bad news. Right? Wrong, says the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) which is on a move to make the anti-viral drug AZT used in the treatment of the disease more available and affordable, particularly to pr
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (IPS) - An increase in fatal drug-resistant infections in the United States can be traced to the over-use of antibiotics, especially in agriculture, say public health scientists. There is a global public health problem of antibiotic resistance, says Fred Angulo, a public health scientist with the US
LILONGWE, Oct 11 (IPS) - A new five-year strategy to fight HIV/AIDS in Malawi will be launched on Oct 29. The strategy, called Malawi HIV/AIDS Strategy 2000-2004, is the country s first comprehensive plan on mitigating the impact of the epidemic. It has been developed following 18 months of a national consultative proc
KATHMANDU, Oct 8 (IPS) - I have AIDS. Please hug me. I can t make you sick. In a few words, the colourful poster sums up the objectives of Prerana, Nepal s only support group of and for people living with the virus. Wary visitors entering Prerana s modest premises are instantly put at ease. A handwritten notice on the
MEXICO CITY, Oct 6 (IPS) - The world has become complacent about the danger of AIDS and more coherent policies and a pooling of global resources is needed to fight the spread of the virus, says the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS ( UNAIDS ). In a review of progress made in battling the acquired immune defici
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 (IPS) - Janaki (not her real name) gives herself away with her smiles, which are dull and lifeless for a 25- year-old woman with two bouncing children. She has the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, and her husband packed his bags and left their home when he found out. Ironically, Janaki is convinced th
JAKARTA, Sep 30 (IPS) - Under the scorching heat of the noonday sun, Nurjaya waits for people to come ride on his ojek or motorcycle. But clients who take his motorcycle taxi get not just a ride around town, but expert lessons about HIV and AIDS as well. The lesson usually starts when passengers ask driver Nurjaya, 34,
PORT MORESBY, Sep 26 (IPS) - She may have joined other organisations before, but the group 17-year-old Mary (not her real name) has just become a member of probably counts among the most important. After all, the high school graduate is about to become a single mother soon, and she needs all the moral support she can g
LUSAKA, Sep 17 (IPS) - Zambia s privately-owned The Post newspaper did not expect much from the just-ended Eleventh International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa (ICASA). In a cartoon, The Post depicted an African woman with a baby strapped to her back, who asked when passing a billboard
LUSAKA, Sep 16 (IPS) - Zambia , one of the Sub-Saharan African countries that has been worst hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, has announced a plan to generate resources to fight the disease. If accepted by the international donor community, the plan will involve directing resources meant for international debt relief towa
LUSAKA, Sep 16 (IPS) - A new UNAIDS research in Africa shows that young girls are more prone to being infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) not by boys their own age, but by older men known as sugar daddies . Most of the young girls are infected during their first few exposures to sex, maybe even their v
LUSAKA, Sep 15 (IPS) - The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is killing more people in Africa than the armed conflicts which rage across the continent, according to the United Nation s Fund for Children (UNICEF). Some 200,000 people, most of them children and women, died in 1998 as a result of armed conflict o
LUSAKA, Sep 14 (IPS) - An ambitious international partnership which seeks to raise the level of response to the AIDS pandemic in Africa was launched here Tuesday by the World Bank and UNAIDS . The World Bank and UNAIDS announced the Intensifying Actions Against HIV/AIDS in Africa: Responding to a Development Crisis , a
LUSAKA, Sep 13 (IPS) - It may have to take the death of an African president from AIDS for the leaders to take the disease seriously, said one delegate at the end of Sunday s opening ceremony of the Eleventh International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa (ICASA). Many more delegates also p
MONTREAL, Sep 7 - (IPS) - The HIV infection rate of babies in under-developed countries could be brought under control if wealthy nations were willing to pay the cost of preventative drugs, according to the International AIDS Society. Almost 34 million people around the globe are infected with HIV - (human immunodefici
MONTREAL, Sep 7 - (IPS) - The HIV infection rate of babies in under-developed countries could be brought under control if wealthy nations were willing to pay the cost of preventative drugs, according to the International AIDS Society. Almost 34 million people around the globe are infected with HIV - (human immunodefici
ACCRA, Aug 25 (IPS) - The grim statistics tells it all. Each day, 25 Ghanians are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDs, according to Ghanian vice-president, John Atta Mills. Mills says AIDs cases in Ghana have risen to 440,000 since the first case was diagnosed in 1986. Of the total, 29,550 have already succum
CALCUTTA, Aug 16 (IPS) - Mala Singh and Sadhana Mukherjee spent the prime of their youth pandering to male passions in the dark alleys of this eastern Indian city s sleaze districts. They took their share of police brutality, vicious pimps and and the social opprobium that goes with their profession - far removed from
LUSAKA, Aug 5 (IPS) - People living with AIDs in Zambia are experiencing a new resistant strain of HIV virus that does not respond to any available drug. Zambia is one of the first African countries to be subjected to the life prolonging Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) trials a decade ago. Study shows that those who u
HARARE, Jul 28 (IPS) - Not a single country in Africa spends more than one percent of its health budget on HIV/AIDS, although the continent has the highest incidence of the killer disease. According to the AF-AIDS, an independent e-mail forum provided by the Fondation du Present, a Swiss-based non-governmental organisa
NAIROBI, Jul 23 (IPS) - The UN says HIV/AIDS is the number one killer in Africa. In its annual report, Progress Of Nations 1999 , the UN Children s Fund (Unicef), says the AIDS pandemic has surpassed armed conflict as the number one killer in the region. HIV/AIDS has reached catastrophic proportions in Africa. The many
MANILA, Jul 22 (IPS) - The spread of HIV/AIDS through Asia is exacting a steep demographic price through the rapid rise in its orphan population, the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF) says in a new report. Though Asia remains far behind Africa in terms of children and youth orphaned by AIDS, the report, Progress
NEW YORK, July 18 (IPS/GIN) - AIDS activists have zeroed in on Vice President Al Gore, disrupting his presidential campaign with a series of protests over his support for U.S. policy on pharmaceutical patents. The activists claim that the United States is depriving South African AIDS sufferers of lifesaving medications
HARARE, Jul 15 (IPS) - Of the nine countries to suffer a 17-year loss in life expectancy as a result of HIV/AIDS, seven are in Southern Africa. The life expectancy of Botswana , Malawi , Mozambique , Namibia , South Africa ,
NAIROBI, July 14 (IPS) - In the slums of Majengo Road - the heart of Nairobi s Red Light District - desperate women sell their bodies for as little as 20 shillings. One US Dollar is equal to 72 shillings. For the princely sum of 500 shillings some accept client s request not to use a condom. Because you are hungry for
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 11 (IPS) - Ibrahim s sick, tired eyes never fail to capture the attention of anyone who cares to look at him, not to mention his unhealthy skin and scrawny frame. But he breaks into a shy smile as he says hello to visitors. Ibrahim is a 13-year-old Malay Muslim. He is also a drug addict who got dragge
FREETOWN, July 5 (IPS) - The death of several teenagers of AIDs at Sierra Leone s main Connaught hospital, has highlighted the magnitude of the killer disease in the war-torn West African country. Media reports attribute the upsurge in the HIV/AIDs epidemic to rebel activities which are often marked by atrocities and g
DURBAN, June 30 (IPS) - Many a rape victim in South Africa -- where the instance occurs every 26 seconds -- is treated as a mere statistic. Instances of rape are growing. Two years ago, the National Institute for Crime and Rehabilitation of Offenders in South Africa estimated that every 83 seconds a woman or child was
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 27 (IPS) - AIDS, which health experts say has already ravaged Sub-Saharan Africa, is rapidly spreading across several new regions of the world, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned this week. Annan told the audience at a memorial lecture for Diana, Princess of Wales, in London Friday that the spre
KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 9 (IPS) - As the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to spread, Malaysia s health activists and workers hope that Uganda s successful battle in containing the epidemic the Islamic way could be replicated here. This, they say, might help make more headway in fighting the spread of the illness in this mainly Mu
PORT OF SPAIN, Jun 3 (IPS) - Six months after they were refused entry to public schools in Trinidad and Tobago s east-west corridor, two children from the Cyril Ross Nursery are getting ready to enter the classrooms in September. Officials from the Nursery will not disclose the names of the children or the schools wher
MEXICO CITY, May 28 (IPS) - The phenomenon of migration is one of the main causes of the spread of AIDS in border areas of Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico , according to specialists meeting this week in Mexico, who agreed on joint epidemiological efforts. Some 50 scientists and health officials from
NAIROBI, May 21 (IPS) - Among the Luo people in Kenya s western province of Nyanza, a man s funeral rites are incomplete until his widow has been inherited . This traditional practice requires her to remarry or at least be cleansed through sexual contact with a member of the decease s clan. If she refuses, she is confi
PHNOM PENH, May 17 (IPS) - She was 10 days old, covered in a purple rash, and in need of a home. Her mother, a 19-year-old sex worker with AIDS, had died five days after her birth. Friends of the mother had brought the infant to the Missionaries of Charity with a letter from the mother begging someone to care for her c
PANAMA CITY, May 13 (IPS) - Hundreds of people living with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - took to the streets in Panama Thursday demanding that the state provide the latest treatment, which would allow them to improve their quality of life while they wait for a miracle cure. Dr. Orlando Quintero, speaking in name o
PORT OF SPAIIN, May 13 (IPS) - When Dennis Franklyn Williams, one of the most prolific calypso composers ever, died from complications associated with AIDS a week ago, his ex-wife claimed that the woman who gave him the disease knew she was infected with HIV. That woman, she knew she had AIDS, she should be quarantined
NEW DELHI, May 2 (IPS) - Critics of India s ambitious World Bank- funded AIDS control programme are feeling vindicated by the recent revelation in Parliament that the number of HIV-infected people in the country has snowballed to eight million. According to estimates in the report of the authoritative Parliamentary Sta
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil , Apr 26 (IPS) - A group of people living with the Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV), which causes the Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), joined together 10 years ago in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to demand respect for their right to life. Difficulties in obtaining m
HARARE, Apr 23 (IPS) - AIDs/HIV and Tuberculosis are on the rise in Africa where, despite concerted efforts to stop the spread of the diseases, 10,000 new HIV infections occur every day, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Last year two million people died of AIDs-related diseases in Africa. According to
BANGKOK, Apr 5 (IPS) - I ask the media to educate society about us - not as the dying images but the living ones, said Ittirak Smithsuwan, president of the AIDS support network Life and Hope Club. Having lived with HIV since the illness began spreading in Thailand more than a decade ago, Ittirak is one of the closest w
MUHORONI, Kenya (PANOS) - The spread of HIV/AIDS in the sugarcane growing areas of Kenya s Nyanza Province is causing concern to health planners and sugar factory owners. For the once bouyant sugar industry is now reeling under the weight of medical and staffing costs. So alarming is the situation that agricultural eco
KINGSTON, Mar 26 (IPS) - As the reported cases of AIDS and HIV infection continue to increase here, the National AIDS Committee (NAC), an advisory group to the Health Ministry is calling for progressive legislation designed to protect the rights of persons with the disease as well as those at risk. Such legislation, th
CAIRO, Mar 7 (IPS) - It happened in Cairo this month - the worst nightmare of a hospital patient. A 70-year-old woman, given a blood transfusion, contracted the HIV virus that leads to AIDS because blood was contaminated. In the outcry that followed, Egypt s prosecutor-general who ordered an immediate investigation.
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 (IPS) - The United Nations is concerned over growing evidence of a new link between the spread of AIDS and rising violence against women. This is one of the most insidious aspects of the AIDS epidemic, said Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS , the Geneva-based UN body which coordinates the g
GENEVA, Feb 26 (IPS) - The 1999 world campaign against the AIDS virus is based on the strategy of opening dialogue with children and young people to reduce propagation of a condition which infects 16,000 new people worldwide each day. Communication with the under 25 s, who today account for more than half the new cases
Inter Press Service - Wednesday, February 10, 1999
Christina Stucky
JOHANNESBURG (PANOS) - Instinctively, the women place a protective hand on their bulging stomachs as they voice their anger and disappointment at the government s decision not to provide the drug AZT free of charge to pregnant HIV positive women who are too poor to afford it. We feel very bad about the decision.
NEW DELHI, Feb 5 (IPS) - As an HIV epidemic tightens its grip over India , policy makers and health providers are stumbling in a minefield of ethical and legal issues. Last month, Delhi State Minister for Social Welfare, Krishna Tirath shocked people working in the field of HIV prevention and control by announcing mand
NEW DELHI, Feb 5 (IPS) - As an HIV epidemic tightens its grip over India , policy makers and health providers are stumbling in a minefield of ethical and legal issues. Last month, Delhi State Minister for Social Welfare, Krishna Tirath shocked people working in the field of HIV prevention and control by announcing mand
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (IPS) - A major scientific breakthrough in AIDS research, linking the virus to an endangered chimpanzee found in west-central Africa, has sparked calls by scientists and environmentalists for an end to poaching of the animal and logging of its disappearing rainforest habitat. An international team of
KINGSTON, Jan 29 (IPS) - Seventeen years after the first case of AIDS was diagnosed here, the rapid spread of the disease is now causing a severe drain on government s scarce resources. According to Health Minister, John Junor, it is costing the government some 2.4 million dollars per year to treat persons with the dis
ABIDJAN, Jan 22 (IPS) - The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has become the main cause of death, after malaria and water-borne diseases, among teachers in Cote d Ivoire , according to a new study. The study, conducted by Alphonse Kanga of the University of Abidjan, says between 1994 and 1997 at least 292 prim
KHARTOUM, Jan 13 (IPS) - Forbidden to be discussed openly by Sudan s Islamic fundamentalists, the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has increased the number of orphans who throng the streets of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. John Babitis, a social worker employed by the Catholic church in Khartoum, says most
LILONGWE, Jan 4 (IPS) - The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is the most critical challenge to Malawi s development with at least 25 percent of the urban workforce likely to die from the disease in the next 10 years, according to a new study. Conducted by the Malawi government and the World Bank, the new AIDS
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