Inter Press Service - Wednesday, December 23, 1998
Abraham Lama
LIMA, Dec 23 (IPS) - Peru s Health Ministry has trained and hired 130 prostitutes to promote greater awareness of responsible sex among their colleagues under a programme that seeks to curb the transmission of HIV. The Peer Educators Programme, which has been in operation for 18 months, has managed to keep the the prev
DHAKA, Dec 16 (IPS) - Threatened with an HIV epidemic, Bangladesh is turning to its orthodox imams (Islamic clerics) for help in creating awareness against the virus. Imams are better for the job than politicians because they have to set a good example of moral behavior in daily life, says Nurul Islam, national profes
DHAKA, Dec 9 (IPS) - Bangladesh is far from prepared for a HIV/AIDS epidemic that authorities here say will lash this calamity-prone country in the coming years. In fact, the country s foremost expert on HIV/AIDS, Prof Nazrul Islam wonders why the virus has not yet laid the country low given that it has every ingredien
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (IPS) - By the time Jamie Morales had reached the age of seven at her home in the American state of Kansas., she already had lost three relatives to AIDS. Despite her youth, she fought back by educating her peers on the the dangers of the aquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and the related HIV v
JAKARTA, Dec 1 (IPS) - Most of Indonesia is talking about the violence tearing apart its social fabric, but in one community neither the call for democratic reforms nor the military s role figures much in conversations. For the residents of Malvinas, an enclave of some 12 hectares in the industrial part of Greater Jaka
NEW DELHI, Dec 1 (IPS) - A massive infusion of World Bank funds has failed to provide people with HIV/AIDS with a support system in India , a country with poor basic health facilities and a hostile social environment, volunteers said Tuesday. To mark World AIDS Day, members of the NGO-AIDS Forum, a network of volunteer
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam , Nov 30 (IPS) - Gauging the severity of Vietnam s problem with HIV and AIDS is a precarious operation, even for the most well-versed experts on the pandemic. After all, relatively little extensive research has been done on the disease here, and there is a huge disparity between the HIV figure
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 30 (IPS) - Not too long ago, South Africa acted as if the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was of no significance. Now, it has elevated the disease to being one of the country s most pressing human development challenges. In a decade, according to the latest projections, almost a quarter of
NEW DELHI, Nov 27 (IPS) - While the world looks to the media to help contain an emerging epidemic of HIV/AIDS, views expressed at a recent global workshop in India suggest that much more needs to be done to sensitise the media especially in developing countries. The four-day, U.N children s agency, UNICEF, sponsore
MANESAR, India , Nov 19 (IPS) - HIV is succeeding where educationists have long failed - by getting conservative India to accept sex education in schools and respect young people s opinions. For long policy makers believed that conservative social behaviour would protect India from the rapid spread of HIV,
KINGSTON, Nov 17 (IPS) - Come Dec. 1, which will be observed as World AIDS Day, people in most of the English-speaking Caribbean islands will be able to turn on their radio sets and listen to health workers share their experiences and talk of plans to stem the spread of the disease in the region. Organisers of this eve
MELBOURNE, Australia Nov 17 (IPS) - The scourge known as HIV/AIDS is still destroying millions of lives worldwide, but Australian scientists may be a step closer to coming up with the first vaccine against the fatal disease. This month, medical researchers working simultaneously in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra announ
NEW DELHI, Nov 10 (IPS) - Burma s uncontrolled HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) epidemic spreading through unsafe heroin use has spilled into neighbouring India and China , warns a Thailand-based network monitoring the fatal AIDS in the region. New evidence from China and India suggests that Burmese her
LAGOS, Nov 6 (IPS) - The number of Nigerians infected with the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is on the increase, and according to health authorities, more than 200,000 people will die of the epidemic by year s end. More than four million Nigerians -- out of a total population of about 110 million -- carry
InterPress News Service - Thursday, October 8, 1998
Edward Ameyibor
ACCRA, Oct 8 (IPS) - Eight years after Ivy Afiyo s death, the deadly Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is still blamed on witchcraft in parts of Ghana . Afiyo caught the disease in the Ivorian capital of Abidjan where she had gone to look for greener pastures but ended up in the lucrative sex trade. Her rela
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, October 7, 1998
GENEVA, Oct 7 (IPS) - Young people in many parts of the world have been effective in educating their peers on AIDS, and society needs to recognise their capacity to help stem the spread of the pandemic, UN experts on children s rights said here. We must put an end to the vision of youth as mere objects of intervention,
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Sunday, October 4, 1998
Judith Perera
LONDON, Oct 4 (IPS) - WITH the number of HIV-infected people continuing to increase throughout the world, the search is intensifying to develop a vaccine against AIDS. It is seen as particularly important for the developing world, where recent advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS will have little impact. The high cost
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Monday, September 28, 1998
Toye Olori
LAGOS, Sep 28 (IPS) - About 50 Nigerians, who carry the virus that causes AIDS, have formed a support group to enlighten Nigerians about the danger of the killer disease. The group, known as the Nigerian Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS (NNPLWA), was launched in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna recently. The
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, September 9, 1998
Abraham Lama
LIMA, Sep 9 (IPS) - Martha H., a textile technician, co-founded a self-help association for women living with HIV/AIDS two months after losing her engineer husband to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). We organized ourselves so as to learn to live with AIDS, to survive and deal with the nightmare that befa
MOSCOW, Aug 30 (IPS) - Health experts are warning of the threats posed by a new method of heroin production which involves contaminating the drug with blood, increasing the risks of HIV infection among users. Dr Bernhard Schwartlaender, senior epidemiologist at the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS, and Dr David Heymann
ASUNCION, Aug 23 (IPS) - Ruling by ruling, Venezuela s Supreme Court has been building up a doctrine this year in favour of health care for AIDS patients and against discrimination. In fact, in its effort to shield AIDS patients from discrimination, it has not stopped short of threatening the defence minister with a ja
LUSAKA, Aug 20 (IPS) - Thirty-one year old Chilufya Mwenya is the vice-president of a prestigious auditing firm in Zambia s capital city. He lives in one of the best neighbourhoods and has succeeded in becoming a part of the middle-class at a young age. But Mwenya is far from happy. He was recently diagnosed with the H
MANILA, Aug 19 (IPS) - The commercial sex industry in South-east Asia has grown into a key economic sector that accounts for anywhere between 2 to 14 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), says a new study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). And Asia s economic slowdown, which is throwing many workers out
KIGALI, Aug 17 (IPS) - The high cost of medical treatment and drugs has pushed many Rwandans infected with the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) virus to put their fate in the hands of herbalists. Traditional healers have set up shop in several neighbourhoods throughout the Rwandan capital of Kigali, and are n
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, August 4, 1998
Arif Shamim
LAHORE, Aug 4 (IPS) - Peer counsellors in Heera Mandi , Pakistan s most famous red light district, have proved very effective in raising awareness of HIV/AIDS and safe sex practices among the largely illiterate sex workers. The results of a recent sample survey revealed that an overwhelming majority of the younger wome
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Monday, August 3, 1998
Morris Nyakudya
MT. DARWIN, ZIMBABWE, Aug 3 (IPS) - Threatened by the spread of AIDS, Zimbabwean rural communities are being encouraged to abandon the wife inheritance tradition, by which men take over the widows of their brothers. Shocked by a chain of deaths, the residents of Chief Nembire s area in Mt. Darwin, in the central provin
MOSCOW, Jul 30 (IPS) - The number of soldiers found to be infected with the HIV virus has quadrupled in the last year and a half in Moscow s military district alone, say army officials. The cause is partly down to the general ill-health of the Russian population, reflected in the condition of the nation s young draftee
NAIROBI, Jul 24 (IPS) - African entrepreneurs are taking increasing interest in Aids awareness campaign to prevent the spread of the disease among their workers. Aids is bad for business, said Lucy Hunter of the Business Coalition of Botswana . Most companies invest huge sums of money on training their staff, and will
NEW DELHI, Jul 23 (IPS) - Supported by a fresh 200 million dollar World Bank loan, India will begin clinical trials of the anti-HIV drug AZT on pregnant women this year, despite high costs and doubts as to its efficacy. Officials at the federal government s National
HARARE, Jul 21 (IPS) - Zimbabwean officials, increasingly alarmed by the rising incidence of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) within prisons, are considering allowing prisoners conjugal visits as one measure to curb the spread of the disease. The idea was suggested by Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa l
KHARTOUM, Jul 9 (IPS) - The recent marriage of an HIV-positive couple has aided the campaign by AIDS activists here for people with HIV/AIDS to live normal lives in Sudan s Islamic society. The couple, whose names have been withheld for security reasons, were married this week in a ceremony organised by a group of AIDS
GENEVA, Jul 3 (IPS) - Fewer African women would be infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) if they had more economic power and more control over their reproductive health, delegates attending the 12th World Conference on AIDS say. More than 25 percent of the women living in Sub-Saharan Africa are exposed t
GENEVA, Jul 3 (IPS) - Nearly 13,000 scientists, health workers and doctors left with the close of the 12th World AIDS Conference here Friday, no closer than before to closing the gap between rich and poor nations in access to pharmaceutical treatments for HIV/AIDS. The conference theme, Bridging the Gap , recognised th
GENEVA, Jul 2 (IPS) - The Catholic Church, one of the world s staunchest opponents against the use of the condom for the prevention of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), has come under fire from delegates at the 12th World Conference on AIDS for its opposition to safe sex. The Church, which promotes abstin
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Monday, June 29, 1998
Dipankar De Sarkar
GENEVA, Jun 29 (IPS) - Most scientists accept that a cheap, effective, safe and accessible vaccine is probably the only way to stop the spread of the AIDS pandemic, now afflicting some 30 million people worldwide, mostly in poor developing countries. Scientists also admit that next to nothing has been done to develop s
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, June 24, 1998
Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 24 (IPS) - The HIV/AIDS epidemic is far more brutal in poor countries than in rich nations, according to a new United Nations report released Tuesday in Geneva, which highlights the North-South gap in AIDS. The study released Tuesday by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS ( UNAIDS )
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, June 24, 1998
Anthony Mukwita
GRAHAMSTOWN, South Africa Jun 24 (IPS) - When it comes to reporting on the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the media has done more harm than good. Using morbid terms and sensational headlines like Sex thrills and AIDS kills , the media has managed to turn off a large majority of readers who need AIDS awaren
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, June 17, 1998
Satya Sivaraman
CHIANG MAI, Thailand , Jun 17 (IPS) - Thailand s economy has been on a tailspin since July last year, but construction worker Anan realised just how serious the crisis is only a few months ago. That was when his monthly stipend of 500 baht (12 dollars) mysteriously stopped arriving at his home here in the northern Thai
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, June 17, 1998
Judith Achieng'
NAIROBI, Jun 17 (IPS) - Kenya s Catholic Church and the head of the National AIDS Committee have locked horns over recent remarks by the health official that Catholics comprise a large majority of Kenyans with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). According to Dr Sobbie Mulindi, head of the National AIDS Committee, C
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Sunday, June 14, 1998
Estrella Gutierrez
CARACAS, Jun 14 (IPS) - The AIDS virus in Latin America is increasingly affecting the poor, people in rural areas, heterosexuals and women, more so than other sectors of society, according to the United Nations. Because more women have been infected with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) this also has brou
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, June 10, 1998
Sudhamahi Regunathan
CHENNAI, India , Jun 10 (IPS) - Wild rumours of women, men and children being stalked by a gang carrying needles infected with the deadly HIV virus which could lead to AIDS, gripped this south Indian city some weeks ago, sparking mob violence. While one man was lynched, another escaped with his life following the timel
PORT OF SPAIN, Jun 4 (IPS) - National resources are coming apart at the seams and many sections of civil society have generally expressed firm commitments to join the fight, but Caribbean experts are reporting what appears to be a losing battle against HIV/AIDS in the region. Consultant to the United Nations Programme
MOSCOW, May 26 (IPS) - While the rapidly rising incidence of HIV infection and AIDS in the former Soviet Union causes much concern, it is only one of a range of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) which are currently engulfing the region. A dramatic increase in the number of syphilis cases in Russia , f
KIEV/MOSCOW, May 22 (IPS) - Ukraine is heading for an AIDS epidemic, with the number of people carrying HIV increasing tenfold in some cities over the past year. According to the National Committee for Drug Abuse and AIDS Prevention there were 26,000 officially registered HIV carriers out of a population of 50 million
KIEV, May 22 (IPS) - Oksana, her husband and their one-year-old child were a happy family before her blood test last autumn. But then she had to abort her second pregnancy and was told that, at the age of 22, she has ten years at most to live -- she had tested HIV-positive. Me and my husband wanted to have lots of chil
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Friday, May 15, 1998
Lewis Machipisa
HARARE, May 15 (IPS) - Zimbabwe s health authorities, worried by a crippling high HIV infection rate, are urging political leaders to spearhead the fight against the spread of the killer virus. Political leaders have been slow in giving maximum support, says Everisto Marowa, coordinator of the National Aids Programme o
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Wednesday, April 4, 1998
Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW, Apr 22 (IPS) - The young are the primary victims of AIDS. Five people aged between ten and 24 contract the HIV virus every minute worldwide. This was the message of world experts gathered in Moscow Wednesday to launch a global awareness campaign. New efforts are needed to strengthen support the fight against AI
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, April 14, 1998
Kafil Yamin
JAKARTA, Apr 14 (IPS) - Soon after a provincial health official in Indonesia disclosed findings that showed growing sexual activity among high school students, he found himself booted out of a job. He is not authorised to make such disclosures, Sudibyo Yuwono, head of the Central Java health office, said of the dismiss
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Thursday, March 26, 1998
Remi Oyo
LAGOS, Mar 26 (IPS) - Armed with video and audio casettes, badges, tee-shirts, posters and caps, the Catholic Church in Nigeria has thrown itself into the fight against the dreaded Human Immuno- deficiency Virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. The person at the heart of the campaign is medical doctor Leonie McSweeney, a nun
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, March 10, 1998
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) - The U.N. Children s Fund (UNICEF) says it will continue to advocate that mothers breastfeed their children - despite the danger of possible transmission of the AIDS virus to infants. UNICEF believes that breastfeeding - one of the fundamentals of good nutrition - is still the best possibl
YAOUNDE, Mar 5 (IPS) -- Despite awareness and educational campaigns by public health authorities and non-governmental organisations, Cameroonians still do not believe that the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) exists. Everywhere you go in Yaounde, the answer seems to be the same: I don t believe it (AIDS) exis
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Monday, March 2, 1998
Marlene Lewis
KINGSTON, Mar 2 (IPS) - Thousands of persons here who have been diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, could soon find that in addition to fighting to keep the full blown disease at bay for as long as they can, they could become involved in another major fight -- trying to find a job or holding on to the one t
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, February 24, 1998
Judith Achieng'
KAMPALA, Feb 24 (IPS) -- Every day, thousands of Ugandans still listen to the songs of Philly Lutayaa on their radios. AIDS is real. AIDS kills, his feeble, mournful voice warns. The musician contracted the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the early 1980s. ... When he use to sing and talked about AIDS, few
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, February 17, 1998
Sadhana Mohan
NEW DELHI, Feb 17 (IPS) - Just when India seemed to be taking a pragmatic and less impulsive approach to the handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, a state government has shown alarming insensitivity. In Maharashtra where the first AIDS case in India was reported in 1987, the state government has ordered all remand homes t
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, February 10, 1998
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Feb 10 (IPS) - Thousands of children in Mexico, victims of mafias involved in the appalling but profitable business of child prostitution and pornography, face a dismal future: sterility at age 12, an abortion at 13 or AIDS at 14. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) calculate that nearly 100 children and
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Friday, February 5, 1998
Nhial Bol
KHARTOUM, Feb 5 (IPS) - HIV/AIDS used to be a taboo subject in this northeast African nation but now it is receiving a great deal of attention from the state and the media as the realisation that it cannot be wished away sinks in. Also contributing to the attention is the fact that people infected with the human immuno
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Friday, January 30, 1998
Tabibul Islam
DHAKA, Jan 30 (IPS) - Most sex workers in brothels in Narayonganj, near the Bangladesh capital, know about HIV/AIDS and the importance of safe sex. But asked if their clients used condoms, most said, no . At least six non-governmental organisations have been working for months in the port town 25-kms from Dhaka, promot
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Tuesday, January 27, 1998
Estrella Gutierrez
CARACAS, Jan 27 (IPS) - The Supreme Court of Venezuela has handed down a precedent-setting ruling, in a case involving four military personnel and discrimination within the armed forces, that upholds the civil rights of AIDS victims. The Court ruled in favor of the right to work, to privacy and against discrimination,
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Monday, January 12, 1998
Satya Sivaraman
BANGKOK, Jan 12 (IPS) - Sitting in a seminar room in the picturesque Wat Pa Daraphirom temple in northern Thailand , several dozen Buddhist monks are discussing a subject normally considered taboo by most religious groups -- sex education. The objective is to enlist Thailand s monks -- whose influence reaches deep into
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Sunday, January 4, 1998
Suman Pradhan
KATHMANDU, Jan 4 (IPS) - She comes across as a typical Nepali housewife, quiet, demure and self-conscious when talking to strangers. But her demeanour hides a secret she now wants to share. Hesitant at first, then with steely determination, 30-year-old Sita Kumari announces: I am HIV positive. The confession was remark
NAIROBI, Jul 24 (IPS) - African entrepreneurs are taking increasing interest in Aids awareness campaign to prevent the spread of the disease among their workers. Aids is bad for business, said Lucy Hunter of the Business Coalition of Botswana . Most companies invest huge sums of money on training their staff, and will
NEW DELHI, May 27 (IPS) - The promise of a 200 million dollar World Bank package to fight the galloping spread of HIV/AIDS in India has prompted non-government organisations (NGOs) to scramble for a piece of the action. We expect to get 200 million dollars for a five-year period starting next year, said Prasada Rao, p
InterPress News Service (IPS) - Sunday, March 1, 1998
R. Dev Raj
CHOCHI, India , Mar 1 (IPS) - Before it gained an undeserved reputation for harbouring HIV, election time in this hamlet, 65 kms from the Indian capital, was a festive occasion. It was a time when its proud headman Azad Singh got a chance to show off the traditional hospitality of his warlike Jat community to visiting
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