Archive for the ‘News’ Category
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Every month, 500 more kids to go on ART
MEXICO CITY: In a massive scale-up of life-saving anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for paediatric cases, 500 new HIV infected children are being placed on ART every month by India's National AIDS Control Programme, a top official told TOI on the sidelines of the 17th International AIDS Conference here.
Paediatric HIV drugs are also being made available in all the 174 ART centres in India so that children get equal importance against adults as far as treatment for the deadly disease is concerned.
ART will increase the lifespan of these infected children by 10-15 years. With a paediatric drug formulation guideline in place, which was created by the Indian Academy of Paediatrics for Naco in 2006, toxic HIV drugs are no longer being administered to children by dividing fractions of adult formulations according to the childs age, which often led to under- or over-dosage, causing resistance to the drug.
Koutenya Sinha, for TNN -
Fatal AIDS cases in Goa touch 466 mark
PANAJI - The Red Ribbon Express (RRE), a project of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) will witness a seven coach train stopping at the Margao rail junction on August 17 and 18 with an aim to spread awareness about the fatal disease in the rural areas, just as the figure of deaths from AIDS in the state reached 466, as on May 31, 2008.
The statistics provided by the monitoring and evaluation unit of the Goa State AIDS Control Society (GSACS) point out 91 such deaths during the year 2005, which climbed to 108 and 109 during the years 2006 and 2007, respectively, and were 51 this year, up to May 31, 2008.
The statistics also maintained that the state has registered altogether 10,752 HIV positive cases - 7,266 males and 3,486 females - from 1987 to May 31, 2008, with the state positivity rate being 6.32 per cent. The figures further inform that two HIV-TB co-infection cases were detected during the month of June 2008 at the Integrated Counselling and Test Centre (ICTC) in the state.
The Navhind Times
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Researchers moot daily pill to keep HIV at bay
Mexico City: Can a pill a day help prevent infection from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS?
No one knows. But researchers in a number of countries are conducting trials and planning others to test the unproven strategy that a daily pill, or a combination of drugs, can prevent HIV.
By mid-2009, more people will be enrolled in such trials than in all of those for HIV vaccines and microbicides, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition said in a report issued here on Sunday at the start of the 17th International AIDS Conference.
Lawrence K. Altman, for The New York Times -
International AIDS Conference 2008 Mexico – Day 2
Hi all,
Just wanted to send you another little update after my second day here at the International AIDS Conference. A few things that came up or that I was thinking of throughout the day:
(1) There was a young woman who spoke during the morning plenary session named Thembi Ngubane who does a radio diary of being a young person living with HIV. You can visit the website at www.aidsdiary.org. She was really great and her story is really moving. While I was listening to her, I was wondering if it would be possible for us to start a similar project for WUP. Like, could we find several young people who represent the different faces of HIV/AIDS in Pune (a slum dweller, a university student, a corporate professional, etc.) who would be willing to keep an audio diary or a blog that could be accessed through the WUP website? They wouldn't have to use their real names or show any photographs, just tell the story of their day to day lives both living with HIV and as just normal young people. I think this would really help to get the message out there that people with HIV are just like everyone else and would help address the stigma of living with the virus. It could also serve as a platform for moving young people who might otherwise feel discriminated against from the shadows and into advocacy and activism, which I think would be very personally empowering for them. What do you think? Has anything like this been tried before?
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International AIDS Conference 2008 Mexico – Day 1
Hey all,
Just wanted to send you a little update from Mexico. I made it here safely yesterday and ironically enough Azzi was on my flight just 5 rows behind me!! So we got to hang out some and are planning for margaritas later in the week. Nothing much really happened yesterday since it was the first day and the opening session wasn't until the evening. I did find some Indian NGOs in the Global Village, but there wasn't really anyone manning their booths yet so I will go back and stalk them later in the week. I did meet someone from Saheli though! Such a small world.
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HIV vaccine ‘allows drug breaks’
Scientists are testing a vaccine designed to give HIV patients a prolonged break from their regular medication without side effects.
The Aids 2008 conference in Mexico City was told 345 patients in 21 centres in the US and Europe will take part in the largest-ever trial of its kind.
The vaccine has been developed by a biotechnology company based in Norway, Bionor Immuno.
Results from the trial are due by the end of 2009.
BBC News
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Indian Radio Show Tackles Stigma on HIV/AIDS
In a world where misconceptions and stigma still cloud discussions of HIV/AIDS, a recently-launched radio program in southern India offers a refreshing take on HIV/AIDS dialogue. True to its name-Ini Oru Vidhi Seivom (From Now On We Will Make Our Own Destiny)-the program has taken matters into its own hands, providing accurate and helpful information that might otherwise be hard to find. More importantly, Ini Oru Vidhi Seivom incorporates listener input to respond to what the community really needs.
The program debuted simultaneously on eight stations of the state broadcaster, All India Radio, in Tamil Nadu and Paducherry in April of this year, and reaches an estimated five million listeners. The talk show hosts were trained by Internews Networks Local Voices project in India, in partnership with the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS).
The talk show combines a four-minute news feature primarily focusing on prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) and public service announcements on HIV/AIDS, with a fifteen-minute live phone-in session. The phone-in sessions feature a studio guest-usually a doctor, a person living with HIV/AIDS, a counselor, or an NGO representative.
Listeners are invited to write in their own questions and to answer the weekly prize question. An FM radio set is given away for the correct answer to each prize question.
Internews
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Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention: From Evidence to Action
Introduction and Male Circumcision Prevalence
Introduction
An estimated 2.5 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2007, of whom two-thirds live in sub-Saharan Africa. In the context of the urgent need for intensified and expanded HIV prevention efforts, the conclusive results of three randomized controlled trials (RCT) showing that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV acquisition by approximately 60% are both promising and challenging. Translation of these research findings into public health policy is complex and will be context specific. To guide this translation, we estimate the global prevalence and distribution of male circumcision, summarize the evidence of an impact on HIV incidence, and highlight the major public health opportunities and challenges raised by these findings.
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Doc living with the fear of AIDS
After an accidental jab, Nair hospital resident in search of a miracle drug
MUMBAI: It was just a jab of the needle, but its going to haunt this 28-year-old doctor for months, years and, perhaps, the rest of his life.
Four days ago, resident doctor Anil Patil (name changed) was trying to inject an Aids patient when he accidentally jabbed himself. Unfortunately, the incident occurred while Patil was trying to locate a vein and the needle had already pricked the woman a few times. Since then the resident doctor of BMC-run BYL Nair Hospital has been running from one hospital to another in search of a miracle drug that can protect him from the deadly virus.
Though they treat scores of HIV positive patients every day, Patil and his colleagues got extremely jittery after Mondays incident and began making frantic calls to senior doctors. Thats because the patient is suffering from multiple ailments like meningitis and tuberculosis and, most importantly, she has not been responding to any Hiv/Aids drugs of late.
"She is suffering from the resistant type of the virus and we got really worried that Patil would contract the virus," said one of the resident doctors from the medicine department.
Sumitra Deb Roy, for DNA
© 2008 Wake Up Pune.
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