Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 55 769 791 at 12.40pm on January 29
Raunchy rubber: Public service announcements featuring three ‘jive-talking, gaffe-prone condoms” that were produced by a group of volunteers from various Ottawa, Canada, production companies are airing up to 20 times a day on South African television, the Ottawa Citizen reports.
The Three Amigos are a trio of animated condoms whose 15- to 60-second adventures have gained ‘minor cult status” in South Africa. Ottawa film and TV producer Firdaus Kharas has shipped 14 of the cartoon public service announcemnents to the SABC and is working on six more episodes. In one episode, the condoms are strapped into a spaceship, as a female voice is performing an ‘increasingly breathless” countdown ‘that ends with a fizzle”, the Citizen reports. ‘No condom, no blast-off,” a voiceover says. Jill Kruger, deputy director of the Centre for HIV/Aids Networking in South Africa, said, ‘I anticipate that the Three Amigos will popularise condoms and lead to increased use.”
Source: kaisernetwork.org
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 55 668 899 at 12:35pm on Thursday January 22
Honesty or optimism?: The second most common strategy (after condoms) used by HIV-negative gay men in the United Kingdom to avoid HIV-infection appears to be to trust that prospective partners who are HIV-positive will invariably disclose their status — and then reward their honesty by refusing to have sex with them.
This is one of the less encouraging findings of the 2002 Gay Men’s Sex Survey Out and About, compiled from questionnaires and online survey responses from 16 871 gay men in the UK during 2002, processed during 2003, and published in December.
Of the participants whose most recent HIV-test was negative, two-thirds (65,3%) said they would expect an HIV-positive man to disclose his status before having sex. Even more men who had never tested for HIV had the same expectation (77%). In contrast only just over a third of HIV-positive men expected that a partner would disclose their HIV status.
Source: Aidsmap
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 55 567 767 at noon on Thursday January 15
Testing the faith: The Grand Seminaire de Montreal, a Catholic seminary, will this year begin requiring all men who apply to study to become priests to take an HIV test, the Montreal Gazette reports. The Reverend Marcel Demers said that a positive HIV test will ‘sound an alarm bell” that an applicant could be a man who has sex with men, according to the Gazette.
HIV-positive applicants will be asked how they were infected, and if they say that they were infected by having sex with a man, the seminary ‘will try to see what really is the person’s calling”, Demers said. He added that they would not be ‘automatically refused” admittance to the seminary, according to the Gazette. ‘It’s not that Jesus wanted homophobia,” Demers said, adding, ‘But we also realise that this profile doesn’t lend itself as well to what we require of a priest.” Demers added that the church believes men who have sex with men ‘have a harder time” remaining celibate than men who do not.
http://kaisernetwork.org