from Africa Science News A story from last week on the International AIDS Conference. A South African Professor suggests that policies must be refocused to help children. Written by Henry NeondoChildren have been short-changed in the response to AIDS. They are visible in the photo opportunities and headlines, but mostly invisible in the response to HIV," Prof Linda Richter, of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, told the XVIIth International AIDS Conference here today in a plenary address entitled "No Small Issue: Children and Families".Richter’s is the first plenary address to be devoted to the wellbeing of children affected by HIV and AIDS in the conference’s 23-year history. UNAIDS estimates that 2 million children aged 0-14 were living with HIV in 2007 - an...
from AFP via Google An update from the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Leading experts say the goal of access to anti-HIV drugs is unlikely to be reached around the world. - KaleLooking to the mounting bill for the drugs that keep millions of poor people alive, they also said China and other fast-advancing economies could shoulder more of their own burdens in the future, freeing up resources for countries mired in poverty.Speaking on the sidelines of the International AIDS Conference on Wednesday, Global Fund chief Michel Kazatchkine and UNAIDS head Peter Piot said they believed countries still stood by the fast-approaching 2010 target, although they doubted the goal would be reached by all."When we look at global targets, none of us believes that it will be 100 percent...
from the Independent A series of questions and answers about AIDS. - KaleBy Jeremy Laurance,Why are we asking this now?Aids has killed more than 30 million people in the last quarter century and is continuing to cause around two million deaths a year. Yet as a predominantly sexually transmitted disease, it is possible to avoid it by taking precautions – using condoms and avoiding multiple sexual partners.In this respect it is unlike infectious diseases such as flu, which it is virtually impossible to avoid. At the International Aids Conference, which opened in Mexico City this week, experts called for a new focus on HIV prevention through behaviour change. Geoffrey Garnett, of Imperial College, London, told the conference that combining different approaches could "dramatically alter...
from IPS News The International AIDS Conference opened in Mexico Sunday. Here is a report on the first day. - KaleThe extraordinary mobilisation of economic and human resources against the HIV/AIDS pandemic has borne fruit, but efforts must be stepped up to continue fighting the disease, Mexican expert Jaime Sepúlveda said Monday, one of the plenary speakers at the first session, on the "State of the Epidemic".According to the 2008 "Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic" by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), an estimated 33 million people were living with HIV worldwide in 2007, and two million died.Sepúlveda also noted that last year, three million people living with HIV in low and medium income countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy, just 31 percent of...