Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 63 617 177 at noon on Wednesday July 27
Aids hard sell from soft-drink manufacturers: India’s National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) is asking soft-drink manufacturers to include HIV/Aids awareness messages in their advertisements in an attempt to reach 15- to 49-year-olds.
‘It is well known that 90% of the 5,1-million HIV/Aids cases in the country are in the most productive age group of 15 to 49 years,” said Naco director SY Quraishi, adding, ‘We can use companies like PepsiCo to carry Aids messages on soft-drink bottles and cans to target this group.”
Quraishi said the response from soft-drink manufacturers so far has been extremely encouraging.
Naco, meanwhile, has requested that companies with large distribution networks use their contacts to market condoms.
In September the Indian government — as part of its Red Ribbon Express campaign — plans to place HIV/Aids awareness messages on trains that are scheduled to travel across 20 states over six months.
The trains, which will make 360 stops, will house about 16 000 street performers, who will work on a rotation basis, and each will feature an exhibition room, an HIV/Aids counselling and testing centre as well as a training centre.
At each stop, a few of the performers will go into nearby villages and spend two days staging plays and skits about HIV/Aids.
Source: Kaiser Network
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 63 518 205 at 3pm on Wednesday July 20
Infections double: New Zealand recorded 33 new Aids cases in the first six months of this year, more than double the number reported in the first half of 2004, according to a new Institute of Environmental Science and Research report.
HIV/Aids advocates are concerned that people have become complacent about the disease, especially following a near doubling of the number of newly reported HIV cases in 2003. For about 10 years, New Zealand recorded an average of 80 new HIV cases annually, until that number increased to 154 in 2003 and 157 in 2004. —KaiserNetwork.org
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 63 415 563 at noon Wednesday July 13
Aids explosion: Asia faces a 150% increase in HIV/Aids infections over the next five years unless more is done, a report warns. In many countries the proportion of people infected is low but, because of the large populations of many Asian countries, those figures disguise the huge number of infections. In India, the number of people with HIV is the same as in South Africa, about five million. In Japan, where the number of infections is relatively small, the disease is spreading as fast as it is in the world’s worst affected countries. — BBC News
Condom shortage: The success of Uganda’s war on HIV/Aids may be undermined by a condom shortage as the World Bank suspends its $7,5-million funding for condom procurement next year. Health officials say the country will face a condom shortage of up to 80%. Uganda’s demand for condoms stands at 100-million units per year. ‘We have no long-term plan for procurement of condoms,” said Dr Elioda Tumwesigye, chairperson of the Aids committee in Parliament. Sources blamed the condom shortage on a change of policy, from condom use to abstinence, allegedly under the influence of the Bush administration. — The East African
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 63 314 722 at noon on Wednesday, July 6
Off target: With just six months to go before the end of the year, it seems unlikely that the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) campaign to put three million people in the developing world on anti-Aids drugs by the end of 2005 will be met.
An estimated one million people are currently receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, according to the third progress report on the ‘3 by 5” initiative, released by the WHO and UNAids. This figure fell short of the 1,6-million target set by the two organisa-tions for June 2005.
African governments have cranked up the roll-out of ARVs to their HIV-positive citizens and about half a million people in sub-Saharan Africa are currently receiving medication — a three-fold increase in the past 12 months.
However, the demand for treatment was ‘outstripping” the capacity of most African countries to supply it, according to the report. It highlights an ‘urgent need” for increased resources and technical support to maintain momentum.
Despite the progress that has been achieved, children are still neglected by most national treatment programmes, and the WHO and UNAids estimate that an 660 000 children globally need access to ARVs.
Financial constraints remain a major obstacle to obtaining treatment, the report warns. It further stresses that pushing to expand access to ARVs in poorer countries ‘did not begin, and will not end with 3 by 5”.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 63 213 933 at noon on Wednesday June 29
Asia faces Aids explosion: The HIV/Aids epidemic could explode across Asia — where one in four new infections worldwide occurs — unless authorities do more to fight the disease, experts said ahead of the 7th International Congress on Aids in Asia and the Pacific, scheduled to be held in Kobe, Japan, from July 1 to 5.
‘If nothing is done, some 10-million people in China could be infected by 2010,” said Takashi Sawada, a Japanese physician working with NGOs on HIV/Aids prevention in Thailand and Cambodia.
In India, the number of HIV cases could quadruple by 2010 and Aids-related illnesses would become the leading cause of death, experts said. Japan, also, could face a serious HIV/Aids epidemic within 10 years, experts said.
Asia’s situation is exacerbated by the stigma surrounding HIV/Aids and politicians’ reluctance to talk about the disease. ‘Politics gets in the way,” Sawada said.
About 3 000 participants from more than 60 countries — including HIV-positive people, community advocates, health workers and international agency representatives — will attend the conference.
Source: Kaisernetwork.org, June 28