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An international conference opened on Sunday in South Africa to discuss a revolutionary technology to curb the spread of HIV and Aids. More than 1,000 scientists will gather in Cape Town over the next four days to study a product known as microbicides. The product, which can take the form of a gel or cream, releases an active ingredient designed to kill HIV during sexual intercourse.
A safe and effective gel allowing women to protect themselves from the AIDS virus may be available by 2010 if current trials involving thousands of women are successful, researchers said Sunday. Gita Ramjee, director of the HIV prevention research unit at South Africa's Medical Research Council, said microbe-killing vaginal gels offered huge potential for stemming the epidemic, especially in societies where men are reluctant to use a condom.
HIV prevention interventions that include information on condoms do not inadvertently encourage an earlier sexual debut, more frequent sexual activity or more sexual partners, according to a meta-analysis of 174 studies published in the March edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
Chinese patients with HIV-Aids will be legally protected from discrimination under a law unveiled yesterday. China, with an estimated 650,000 cases of HIV infection, has taken several steps in the past two years to tackle the virus.
Some 5,000 people involved in the international effort to eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa are meeting this week in Nigeria's capital to examine such issues as how new intellectual property (IP) policies and trade agreements can help ensure that nearly 26 million HIV-infected Africans have access to life-saving drugs. UNIFEM is also using the opportunity provided by the ICASA conference to launch a new campaign called "Who Cares for the Caregiver?"…
World AIDS day traditionally has become an occasion for reciting statistics of a plague so overwhelming it remains beyond comprehension. Just one example: 3 million die a year--an average of 5.7 every minute of every day. But there was one AIDS day that was different and it was just two years ago.
Message by the World Health Organization Director-General, LEE Jong-wook, for World AIDS Day - December 1, 2005.
The first-ever World Health Organization (WHO) study on domestic violence reveals that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence in women's lives - much more so than assault or rape by strangers or acquaintances. The study reports on the enormous toll physical and sexual violence by husbands and partners has on the health and well-being of women around the world and the extent to which partner violence is still largely hidden.
A preliminary review of HIV incidence and prevalence in Zimbabwe has indicated a decline over the past five years, possibly due to a decrease in the number of sexual partners, and increased condom use, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said today.
At the Vasavya Mahila Mandali home for vulnerable women and children in the city of Vijayavada in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, 23-year-old Nagmani clutches her five-year-old daughter in her lap. Neither smiles. The doctors say both of them are traumatised. In January Nagmani's husband died of AIDS.
Zimbabwe remains one of the countries in the world worst affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with a prevalence rate of 21.3 percent and women constituting 60 percent of those affected, a government minister said on Tuesday. Health and Child Welfare Minister, David Parirenyatwa, said this at the official launch of the "Man Enough to Care" document by Africare, a nongovernmental organization.
Three babies squirmed on their mothers' laps. One wriggled free. The two others tucked their heads into the curve of their mothers' necks. They waited inside Our Lady of Apostle Hospital, the babies could serve as poster children for efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child. All three mothers are HIV positive. All three children, doctors say, appear to be HIV negative; they hope test results will soon confirm that. Sitting…
A top United Nations official and a number of advocacy groups for AIDS patients charged yesterday that Bush administration policy had led to a shortage of condoms in Uganda, increasing the risk of infection for many people, particularly married women and adolescents.
China is strengthening the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS among women, according to a white paper titled Gender Equality and Women's Development in China, issued by the Information Office of China's State Council on Wednesday.
The world knows that Africans bear the brunt of the AIDS pandemic and that nearly two-thirds of the people infected with H.I.V. live here. The disease is devastating households and crippling economies across the continent. Though data show that girls and women are far more vulnerable to infection than men, we have yet to summon the courage and the political will to empower and protect them.
Since it was launched to such hype 13 years ago, the female condom has vanished without trace - from UK shelves, at least. But as Kate Burt discovers, in other parts of the world it has quite literally proved a lifesaver
In my nightmares, I see the women we have failed to protect from AIDS. Women in South Africa do almost everything. When they cook, they harvest spinach, carrots and cabbage from vegetable gardens they have planted themselves. When they clean, they use brooms made from dried grass they walked miles to harvest. They wash their entire family's laundry by hand, wringing out clothes heavy with soapy water with hands that could break the neck of a…
A Johns Hopkins physician and scientist who has spent a quarter-century leading major efforts to combat HIV and AIDS worldwide has issued an urgent call for global strategies and resources to confront the rapid "feminization" of the AIDS pandemic.
The new face of the AIDS virus is the heterosexual female in a long-term relationship, according to a report from Science magazine. It's not because more women are engaging in unprotected casual sex, Lori Heise of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS told ABC News' "Good Morning America." "That's the biggest myth out there right now," said Heise. "Most women are getting infected in long-term relationships."
Breakthrough, an international human rights organization, is launching a 360 degree media campaign, What Kind of Man Are You? to bring public attention to the growing number of married women in India infected by HIV/AIDS. While a lot of effort has gone into spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS among high-risk categories like commercial sex workers, very little has been done to sensitize women in the general public who are vulnerable to the infection…