Trapped by a stigma disease

CHENNAI: A quarter century of campaigns in various media has done little to change societal attitude towards AIDS and HIV positive persons in India. People living with HIV lead a life as social rejects, facing stigma and discrimination, struggling for …

Global aids ignore AIDS

340 HIV positive prisoners in Tihar

The 30 years war

Hard pounding is gradually bringing AIDS under control.

IT WAS not quite a birthday present, but it was pretty close. On May 12th the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN), an international research collaboration, announced that its most important project was being terminated-not because it had failed, but because it had succeeded. The study, led by Myron Cohen of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, had looked at 1,763 couples, most straight, some gay, from Africa, Asia and North and South America, in which one partner but not the other was infected. All were counselled in safe sex, given free condoms and offered regular medical check-ups. In half, the infected partner was also offered anti-retroviral drugs, even though he or she did not show actual symptoms of AIDS and would thus not normally have been treated. Over the course of six years there were 28 cross-infections. Of those, only one was in the group receiving the drugs.

Thirty years of a disease: the end of AIDS?

ON JUNE 5th 1981 Americas Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported the outbreak of an unusual form of pneumonia in Los Angeles. When, a few weeks later, its scientists noticed a similar cluster of a rare cancer called Kaposis sarcoma in San Francisco, they suspected that something strange and serious was afoot. That something was AIDS.

Since then, 25m people have died from AIDS and another 34m are infected. The 30th anniversary of the diseases discovery has been taken by many as an occasion for hand-wringing. Yet the war on AIDS is going far better than anyone dared hope. A decade ago, half of the people in several southern African countries were expected to die of AIDS. Now, the death rate is dropping. In 2005 the disease killed 2.1m people. In 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, the number was 1.8m. Some 5m lives have already been saved by drug treatment. In 33 of the worst-affected countries the rate of new infections is down by 25% or more from its peak.

Even more hopeful is a recent study which suggests that the drugs used to treat AIDS may also stop its transmission. If that proves true, the drugs could achieve much of what a vaccine would. The question for the world will no longer be whether it can wipe out the plague, but whether it is prepared to pay the price.

“Protected sex – am I infected?”

I had a protected vaginal sex with a sex worker around 22yrs old…..but stiil I would like to confirm whether I’m infected…..I was exposed 5 days before…..when shoud I have the HIV test done? Can I test right now or …

“PEP for HIV”

I feel I am at risk of contacting HIV after an unsafe sexual encounter with a lady who forced me to do so. Please advice how to get PEP for HIV, as it should not be delayed more than 72 …

Rate of new HIV infections fell by over 50% in India: UNAIDS

NEW DELHI: The rate of new HIV infections fell by more than 50 per cent in  India between 2001 and 2009, double of the average decline in the world, according to a new report released on Friday by  UNAIDS which said the global response to AIDS is showing results.

"In India, the rate of new HIV infections fell by more than 50 per cent and in South Africa by more than 35 per cent; both countries have the largest number of people living with HIV on their continents," according to 'AIDS at 30: Nations at the Crossroads' study.

Stigmatized, three HIV+ sisters commit suicide

BHAVNAGAR (Gujarat): Three young HIV positive sisters from the coastal village of Khadsaliya, about 25km from Bhavnagar, ended their lives by drinking pesticide on Friday night.  

Preliminary investigation suggests that the family members felt stigmatized due to their disease. The police said that the mother and brother of the deceased had died of AIDS four years ago. And sources said that whenever the sisters ventured out occasionally, they were treated as untouchables.  

"We will investigate whether the stigma forced them to take this extreme step," investigating officer J R Zala of Vartej police station said.