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Controversy over minor girl’s death
WARANGAL: The death of a seven-year-old girl due to AIDS virus on Vinayaka Chavithi day has been clouded in mystery with her parents alleging that their daughter contacted HIV after she underwent blood transfusion at a hospital here.
The distraught parents Kadari Butchaiah and Komala, who initially refused to take her body from the MGM government hospital, said she underwent blood transfusion at a children's hospital in the city. The girl was injected four blood units at a hospital here on Aug 4. However, with her condition deteriorating, the doctors carried out tests on the girl and found out that she was HIV-positive on Aug 16. The blood was brought from two private blood banks in the city.
The Times of India
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First Annual HIV Science Symposium 2008
Dear All,
We are pleased to announce that the First Annual HIV Science Symposium 2008, co-sponsored by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi and Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi will be held in this month.
This symposium will cover various topics encompassing HIV epidemiology, pathogenesis, host-virus interactions, immune responses to infection, disease progression, opportunistic infections, current treatment strategies, natural history of HIV disease in India, vaccines, sexually transmitted diseases, and co-infections with TB and hepatitis viruses.
VENUE: Vigyan Auditorium, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) Campus, Taramani, Chennai-600113
DATE: 22 & 23 (Monday and Tuesday), September 2008.
For more information about the SYMPOSIUM and for REGISTRATION, please log on to www.yrgcare.org -
Imphal: TV Game show on HIV starts
Imphal, August 31: ISTV Network today kicked off the World Bank - ISTV Game Show in a function held at Kangla Hall.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Ph Parijat and Youth Affairs and Sports Minister N Biren graced the function as chief guest and guest of honour respectively.
ISTV Network president Kh Kuleswar presided over the function.
Speaking at the function, N Biren said that the State Government would discuss at the Cabinet level about the ways and means to provide free second line ART to the persons living with HIV/AIDS in the State.
Maintaining that the crucial time for fighting HIV/AIDS has already come, he also appealed to the NGOs, Government agencies, HIV/AIDS infected people and general public to fight the virus collectively instead of playing the blame game.
Imphal Free Press -
Why are the young people absent from AIDS Conferences?
HIV and AIDS in children is of increasing global concern and many specialists are fully dedicated to fighting it. While there have been a total of 17 International AIDS Conferences (IAC) since 1985, the presence of children and adolescents at these conferences has been virtually nonexistent; their voices, more or less silent.
Children have become a key population when it comes to HIV and AIDS. Although children aged under 18 worldwide may not be able to unite and form networks the way injection drugs users (IDUs) or men who have sex with men (MSM) have, they can speak up and express themselves, inspiring people to action.
However, their under-representation at AIDS Conferences deprives them of this chance and results in diminished attention being paid to them. "It's terrible! There should be many more kids my age", exclaimed Ned Heylar, 12.
At the opening ceremony of the 17th International AIDS conference in Mexico City, Karen Dunaway Gonzalez, a 12-year-old from Honduras spoke to the 23,000 conference participants and received a standing ovation - the only one in the entire four-hour long ceremony.
Karen is HIV positive and her words were clearly a wake up call to the whole crowd. They certainly moved me. For the first time I felt that I really started to understand what it was like to live as a child with HIV - and the challenges such children face.
HIV/AIDS eForums -
High Court notice to NACO for suppressing report on faulty HIV kits
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday came down heavily on the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) for suppressing a World Bank report on faulty HIV kits being used in India.
The court issued a notice to NACO asking it to explain by Oct 22 as to why it suppressed the World Bank findings that poor quality HIV kits were being used in India.
Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Murlidhar asked NACO why it had made false claims that the US Centre for Disease Control had verified that the HIV kits used during the second national AIDS control project (NACP-II) in Indian hospitals and blood banks were of standard quality.
The court was hearing a public interest petition filed by Kunal Shah, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the use of defective HIV kits.
newKerala.com -
Death too is a lonely affair for HIV+ in Goa
PANAJI: The discovery of the body of 45-year-old Vasco resident, Ajay, at the bus stop near Goa Medical College and Hospital on August 21, 2008 has emphasized the discrimination HIV positive persons face in Goa.
Agassaim police, who shifted the body to the GMC morgue said that Ajay, who had made the bus stop his home since the second week of August, was probably abandoned by his relatives.
Ajay's is not an isolated case. "Once family members know of a relative's HIV status they abandon them. Very often relatives don't even claim the body after death," said GMC dean Dr V N Jindal.
"We continue to live with stigma and face discrimination from an indifferent society and unsympathetic relatives. Many of us live without dignity and die stigmatised," says Jafar Inamdar, president of Positive Lives Foundation.
Preetu Nair, for The Times of India -
Man suffering from AIDS commits suicide
A 30-year-old man afflicted with AIDS committed suicide by hanging himself in his home in Seema Puri in northeast Delhi, police said Thursday.
According to the police, 'The body of the man was discovered hanging by his parents Thursday morning. A suicide note was recovered from the room in which he had written that nobody should be held responsible for his death and he was ending his life by his own will.'
'The family members revealed that the deceased was under depression after his wife left him a year and a half ago when his infection was detected,' a police official said.
'His wife had also complained to police over some matter due to which he was upset. The victim's body has been sent to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital for post mortem examination,' the police added.
India eNews -
Widespread rape does not appear to directly increase overall HIV prevalence in conflict-affected countries
A new mathematical model indicates that widespread rape does not directly increase HIV prevalence at the population level, according to a study presented at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico this week.
For seven countries, the model predicts that in an "extreme" situation where 15% of a country's female population were raped, where assailants had eight times the national HIV prevalence and where the HIV transmission rate was four times the usual rate for heterosexual intercourse, absolute HIV population prevalence would only increase by 0.023%.
The findings seem to contradict perceptions that rape on a broad scale, particularly when used as a weapon of war, leads to an increase in HIV transmission. I spoke with Paul Spiegel, Chief of Public Health and HIV at UNHCR and one of the authors.
Spiegel expressed concern that the results will be misinterpreted or misused to deny that rape and HIV are connected, or to direct funding away from addressing the important human rights problem of sexual violence.
Sharon Jackson, for HealthDev.net
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Let’s talk it over (About deletion of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code)
All that Sonu (13, name changed) wanted was to spend some time with his mother, a sex worker. One day, while his mother was away, a man entered and closed the door behind, started fondling his private parts and sodomised Sonu - causing him injury, pain and life-time trauma. Sonu ran away from his home and landed up in a crowded, shabby and terribly mis-managed institution. Sonu was one of the 18,200 respondents in a survey by the National Study on Child Abuse team. Among the various forms of child abuse -physical, emotional, economic, drugs and girl child neglect, the most startling findings were about sexual abuse.
Among 12,447 children and 2,511 young adult respondents, over 50 per cent disclosed having experienced different types of sexual abuse ranging from fondling and forcible kissing, violation of privacy, pornography, sexual exposure and exploitation, to sodomy, rape and child prostitution. For male victims of child abuse the only legal remedy available in India is Section 377 of the Indian Penal Court (IPC) that provides against unnatural offences i.e. voluntarily having carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal. The National Study on Child Abuse forms a basis for legislations and policy formulation to protect children and must be considered.
Amod K. Kanth, for Hindustan Times
© 2008 Wake Up Pune.
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