There are approximately 32 million people outside of the United States living with HIV/AIDS. Since 2003, America has extended a helping hand to these individuals by spending more than $15 billion on the largest international health commitment ever to fight a single disease. Unfortunately, as we open our wallets to fund lifesaving treatments to those living with HIV/AIDS overseas, we will not open our doors.

Today, HIV is the only medical condition that renders people inadmissible to the United States. In fact, we are just one of 12 countries that prohibit, almost without exception, HIV-positive non-citizens from entering the country (China has recently overturned its ban). This policy places the United States in the same company as Sudan, Russia, Libya and Saudi Arabia.

Such a discriminatory policy has no basis in public health, let alone common sense.

We are proud to have introduced the HIV Nondiscrimination in Travel and Immigration Act to overturn this unfair policy.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will examine whether a person serving in the Army can be discharged on the sole ground of his being HIV-positive. It, however, declined to stay the June 24 order discharging Ved Prakash, havildar of the Indian Army Ordinance Corps, with effect from June 30.

A vacation Bench, consisting of Justices Altamas Kabir and G.S. Singhvi, on Friday posted the matter for final hearing on August 6. In the meantime, the Centre and the Army were asked to give their response.

The petitioner served the army for 24 years. His HIV-positive status was detected during a blood donation camp in 1999. Subsequently, he was given P2 (permanent) medical classification, a category assigned to HIV-positive persons, who are not on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART). He continued to do normal duties and during this period he was promoted from Naik to the havildar rank.

From December 2007, Ved Prakash was put on ART and the medical officer certified that he was capable of performing his duties. However, he was discharged from service. The Delhi High court granted an interim stay against discharge but later vacated it.

On 30th June 2008, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India will formally receive the report of the independent Commission on AIDS in Asia ("the Commission") from Dr. C. Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Head of the Commission. Drawing on extensive studies, data review, specialist inputs and other contributions, the report entitled - Redefining AIDS in Asia: Crafting an Effective Response" is a first ever assessment of the epidemiology and impact of HIV in Asia. Its lessons are timely; in light of impending policy change before the Government of India.

Asian countries have a window of opportunity to avert large scale HIV epidemics. Unlike Africa, HIV in Asia is concentrated among specific population groups - sex workers and their clients, injecting drug users and men who have sex with other men. Among these, unprotected paid sex is the primary source of HIV infections in Asia including India. According to the report, men buying sex are the single largest group infected with HIV; with the potential of infecting wives, prospective wives and other female partners, in other words, to the rest of the population.

At the same time, it is possible to break this chain of transmission by implementing large scale prevention programs, covering more than 80% sex workers and clients. The Commission concludes that use of condoms in commercial sex will do more than any other intervention to prevent HIV in Asia.

Countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and the state of Tamil Nadu have successfully contained HIV through rigorous condom promotion in sex work. The Commission attributes this to structural interventions, that is, condom use policies in brothels and/or mobilization of sex workers - strategies supported by definitive evidence.

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh has released the report of the Commission on AIDS in Asia entitled "Redefining AIDS in Asia: Crafting an Effective Response" in New Delhi today. Following is the text of the Prime Ministers speech on the occasion:

"I am indeed very pleased to launch this very important Report of the Commission on AIDS in Asia. I compliment my esteemed friend, Dr. C. Rangarajan, and his colleagues on the Commission for producing an extremely important and thought provoking report. It is a well-researched document that puts together information and analysis that can help us evolve more effective strategies for reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the countries of Asia.

It is heartening to note that the report validates the basic strategic framework that has been adopted in India. It reiterates and reconfirms our understanding of the epidemic. It shows that the measures that we have adopted in India to reverse the pandemic have a sound basis but there is no scope for complacency and Dr. Rangarajan has just now reminded us. We need to do more, we must do more and all segment of the national thinking community must be actively involve in this gigantic struggle against this menace of AIDS.

NEW DELHI: On the day he leaves Microsoft to work for his pet social sector projects, software pioneer Bill Gates on Friday announced a USD 23 million grant to India to control the scourge of HIV/AIDS in the country.

The announcement was made when Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss called upon him at his office in Seattle, United States.

Gates appreciated the efforts made by the Minister for improving the Health sector in India and congratulated him for the effective implementation of the National Rural Health Mission in India.

Gates announced that the foundation would make a USD 23 million grant to India which would be spent through National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in India over the next three years.

NEW DELHI: There's some cheer for HIV patients who have become resistant to the first-line anti-retroviral therapy (ART) - the only known treatment that suppresses the HIV virus.

The National AIDS Control Board (NACB), headed by health secretary Naresh Dayal, in its meeting on June 11, decided to roll out life-saving second-line ART drugs free to HIV patients in Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad from September.

The hospitals identified to provide the treatment include Maulana Azad Medical College (Delhi), Gandhi Hospital (Hyderabad), School of Tropical Medicine (Kolkata) and B J Medical College (Ahmedabad).

NACB also cleared four states - Manipur, Karnataka, Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh - where second-line drugs will be rolled out from December. Experts from these eight ART centres are being taken by the WHO to Thailand to study operational issues relating to second-line therapy.

The National AIDS Control Organisation targets to put 3,000 such first-line ART-resistant HIV patients on second-line treatment by the end of 2008. India rolled out second-line therapy for the first time early this year. The announcement was made by health minister A Ramadoss on World AIDS Day on December 1.

Indian prisons are now facing new trouble in the form of HIV because of rampant drug abuse and unsafe sexual practices amongst prisoners.

Authorities are worried that this might spiral into a crisis as in India prisoners are rarely monitored.

They are not under any HIV prevention program and once released from jail, they often go on to pass the disease to their spouses.

Tihar jail, is one of the country's most guarded and high profile prisons but even here drugs manage to find their way in.

Sunil Kumar, law officer and PRO at Tihar Prison said, ''Very rarely, but with the connivance of guards or from relatives of prisoners ... drugs do come in.''

A prisoner said that he had seen many people share one needle to do drugs.

For a city of 14 million people, a gathering of a couple of hundred may seem minuscule. But for Delhi's gay community, the turnout at their first-ever Queer Pride this Sunday was beyond belief.

Over 500 marchers carrying rainbow-colored flags and "Queer Dilliwalla" banners marched to bhangra beats, breaking into Bollywood-style pelvic thrusts and bust-heaving from time to time. Starting from Barakhamba Road in the heart of the city's business district - at which point the media seemed to outnumber the marchers - they walked 2 km to Jantar Mantar, an 18th century astronomical observatory that has become the unlikely hub of sundry protests in India's capital.

Along the way, they were joined by NGO workers and advocates of all causes, droves of tourists and resident expatriates, and a handful of curious onlookers, all shouting "British Law Quit India!" They were evoking the famous slogan from India's freedom struggle, but referring here to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which was introduced by the British to criminalize sexual acts "against the order of nature." Perhaps even more unexpectedly, few marchers wore masks - which the organizers had provided for those who haven't come out - and there were no protests from religious or socially conservative groups. "This is amazing," said Ranjit Monga, a public relations executive, "No one would've believed 10 years ago a gay parade was possible in Delhi."

 NEW DELHI: Pharmaceutical drug abuse is increasing in South Asia, particularly India a trend the UN says will increase the risk of diseases like HIV/AIDS and also pose a serious challenge to countries already fighting the use of narcotics.

"Many youngsters as young as 18-20 years start using pharmaceutical drugs. Injecting drugs inside the body is very common in India," said Ashita Mittal, senior programme officer in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (South Asia).

"Injecting pharmaceutical drugs is escalating in the region. A survey by us has found that injectable drug users (IDUs) are prone to diseases like HIV/AIDS. Pharmaceutical drug abuse is a double deviation and a dual epidemic," Mittal said.