Archive for the ‘News’ Category
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An HIV-Positive person cannot be denied employment in Police Department solely on the ground of HIV
The Chairman, State Level Police Recruitment Board v. X, Indian Inhabitant
Mr. X, a Reserve Police Constable, had applied for the post of Sub-Inspector of Police (Civil). He qualified both the physical and written tests and was provisionally selected as Sub-Inspector. But he was denied employment when he tested HIV-positive. The Police Department relied on Order 70 (3) of the A.P. Revised Police Manual which prohibited the appointment of, otherwise eligible HIV-Positive candidates as Sub-Inspector of Police.
Mr. X first approached the A.P. Administrative Tribunal, which held that he was not entitled to any relief as the Order 70(3) of the A.P. Police manual permitted the State to deny employment to HIV-positive candidates.
Aggrieved by the judgement of the Tribunal, Mr. X filed a Writ Petition in the A.P. High Court challenging the constitutionality of the Order 70(3) for its blanket ban on employing HIV-Positive candidates. Mr. X adduced cogent evidence that an HIV-Positive person is healthy, functionally fit and productive during the asymptomatic period, which can range from 3 to 18 years till the onset of AIDS. Hence denial of employment Mr. X only on the ground of HIV infringes his right to life and livelihood. The High Court, relying on MX v. ZY AIR 1997 Bom 406 held:
Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit -
Research On ‘Elite Controllers’ To Improve AIDS Vaccine Design
Mexico City: A tiny group of people, also found in India, with a rare gift - they are infected with HIV but manage to stay healthy - may soon become the centre of attraction for the world's top AIDS scientists, looking to find a vaccine against the deadly HIV virus.
A new roadmap announced by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative at the International AIDS conference here has asked scientists to solve the Cell Mediated Immunity (CMI) problem while developing a candidate vaccine. The recommendation says, "We know that there are rare individuals, known as elite controllers, who are infected with HIV, but are able to keep the virus in check for decades without any sign of disease. More resources should be devoted to studying the mechanisms behind this phenomena which could provide vital clues for improved vaccine design."
It adds, "What's more, nonhuman primates vaccinated with a live, but weakened form of the simian equivalent of HIV (known as SIV) mount an immune response that protects them from SIV disease. More attention should be paid to study this mechanism too. Canadian and American scientists have been working on finding what makes these elite controllers special and genetically what makes them so strong against HIV.
Experts say these controllers account for about 1 out of 300 people infected with HIV but have been largely invisible to AIDS researchers because they do not get sick and therefore do not qualify for clinical studies.
Koutenya Sinha, for The Times of India -
HIV positive men can now father children
It was the prick of a needle that changed life irrevocably for Chandigarh-based medical practitioner Amogh Singh (name changed on request). The needle passed on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (or HIV) to the 32-year-old doctor. Among his many concerns was his despair at believing he would never be able to have a child.
But that changed a few months ago. Singh can now father a child because of a unique in-vitro fertilisation process that was developed in the west and has now become available in India. He and his wife have begun packing their bags and will soon arrive in Mumbai to try out the new procedure. The treatment will help the couple have a child without passing on the infection either to the mother or the newborn, by separating uninfected sperm cells in Singhs sperm sample.
"The procedure, called the Density Gradient Centrifugation, separates the sperm cell and eliminates the virus effectively from the seminal fluid where the virus is generally found," says Anirudh Malpani, a Mumbai-based IVF practitioner. The process involves high-speed rotation of the patients sperm sample in a test tube. This causes the uninfected cells to rise to the top of the tube, while the infected cells settle at the bottom.
Recent research shows encouraging results in the separation of infected sperms from non-infected ones for IVF. "We have established a very simple and effective method to isolate sperm cells from even poor quality infected semen. Its called tilted-tube rotation method and with it, we have been successful in recovering motile sperm from positive males with heavy viral loads," says Naoaki Kuji of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Keio University School of Medicine. Kuji has developed the Density Gradient Centrifugation process.
Aditya Ghosh, for The Hindustan Times -
False Hopes Leave +ve Persons In Trauma
Dimapur | August 10 : After their slow painful struggle to come to terms with their condition, a group of HIV positive people in Nagaland recently had all their hopes, faith and trust dashed to the ground with the false assurance of having been cured. An enthusiastic preacher from Mizoram - who was in the state capital for a healing crusade - decided to take his gift of healing to the HIV positive patients, and rounded up several of the lot at NMAs Hospice in Kohima, where he preached, prayed and declared them "cured".
The preacher was accompanied by a top bureaucrat of the state, senior officials of the Medical department and the Nagaland State Aids Control Society (NSACS) as well as members of the Naga Mothers Association (NMA).
It was disclosed that on August 2, Saturday, the said preacher along with the bureaucrats, visited Cradle Ridge, an NSACS-funded and NMA-run HIV/AIDS hospice in Kohima. After having prayed over them, the preacher declared that all the positive persons gathered there have been cured except one person who was repeatedly prayed over until he was declared cured after the third prayer.
After the "curing", the preacher challenged the positive people to get retested for HIV/AIDS when the hospital reopened on Monday. But the euphoria for the positive patients lasted only till 12 oclock, Monday (having waited eagerly for the result of their retest), when they were found still HIV positive.
Bonnie Konyak, for The Morung Express
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Don’t repeal Section 377: Homosexuals
MUMBAI: While the homosexuals in India have welcomed Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss' statement seeking the removal of provisions in Section 377of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that classifies sex between two men as a criminal offence, they do not want the repeal of the section to protect the boy child from abuse.
Delhi based NGO Naz Foundation challenged arrests made under Section 377 and the Delhi High Court is hearing a petition by the Foundation.
Says, Nitin Karani, Board of Trustee of Mumbai based Humsafar Trust "Section 377 is applicable even to the heterosexuals, as it prohibits anal sex (even) between husband and wife. We are demanding that consensual sex in private between individuals not be considered illegal. But Section 377 is needed so that children are not abused. Hence, it should be read down but not abolished."
Vasundhara Sanger, for Times of India -
NACO releases revised sex education manual
It has taken two years for the National Aids Control Organization or NACO to bring out a revised sex education manual after major flaws were reported in the earlier one. But despite the long delayed revisions huge shortcomings still remain.
Sakshi Sharma a student of Delhi's Veer Savarkar Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya has just turned fourteen and like many of her classmates has questions about sex.
She thinks the internet may help her with sex education chapters that the government wants to introduce in schools by the end of this year.
"Since the diagrams have been deleted, we may have to depend upon external sources for information. But there, nobody will be able to tell us what is right or wrong," said Sakshi.
Sonia Sarkar, for NDTV.com
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Trial of anti-AIDS vaccine in Chennai lab a success
CHENNAI: India's HIV vaccine programme got a major boost with scientists of the Tuberculosis Research Centre (TRC) here reporting significant progress in the first phase of clinical trials for a vaccine to prevent AIDS.
Preliminary results of phase one trial have successfully proved the vaccine's safety and its ability to stimulate immune response (that might provide protection against infection), the centre's head told TOI.
Confirming the development, TRC director V D Ramanathan said: "The trial was to check the vaccines safety and also whether it fulfilled the secondary objective of stimulating immune response. We will announce the results to the world soon after we have the complete analysis of the data."
TRC is affiliated to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which, along with National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), has spearheaded the vaccine trial in India.
Jaya Menon, for TNN -
India’s fight against AIDS to focus on gays
MEXICO CITY: Men who have sex with men (MSMs) are posing to be India's greatest challenge in its fight against AIDS.
An alarming increase in the number of gay men and a tremendous spike in the prevalence of HIV within this community has now made the country's National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco) decide to increase prevention interventions for this community by almost six times by the end of 2008.
Naco estimates that India is home to 2.5 million MSMs of which 100,000 are at high risk of contracting HIV due to multi-partner and commercial sexual practices. Already, 15% of this community have got infected with the deadly disease. The worlds top political leaders and scientists, attending the International AIDS Conference here, including Ban Ki-Moon, Margaret Chan, Peter Piot and presidents from Africa and Latin America, have all called upon governments to immediately target and control the epidemic among MSMs.
Scientific evidence presented at the conference said MSMs were 19 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population. A report launched by the American Foundation for AIDS Research studied 128 country reports and found that nearly half (44%) failed to provide any data on MSMs.
Kountenya Sinha, for TNN -
Legalise homosexuality: Ramadoss
MEXICO CITY: The gay community in India, fighting for social and legal acceptance, has found a friend in no less a person than Union health minister A Ramadoss, who assured them of all help in legalising homosexuality in the country.
Addressing a 250-strong India session at the International AIDS Conference here on Thursday, he strongly campaigned for the changing the law which makes homosexuality illegal. "Section 377 of IPC, which criminalizes men who have sex with men, must go," he said, at the risk of inviting a political reaction back home.
Under the IPC, sex between two men is considered "against the order of nature". Ramadoss's comments came a day after TOI reported how men who have sex with men (MSMs) were posing to be India's greatest challenge in its fight against AIDS.
National Aids Control Organization (NACO) estimates that India is home to 2.5 million MSMs of which 100,000 are at high risk of contracting HIV due to multi-partner and commercial sexual practices. Already, 15% of this community have got infected with the deadly disease.
Kountenya Sinha, for TNN
© 2008 Wake Up Pune.
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