30 May 2017
Amanda Soto's life was turned upside down in 2012 when she learned she was HIV-positive. Feeling lost, Soto was referred to Newly Empowered Women, a facility that helped her move on with her life. "I'm very proud of her. I'm proud of the fact that this program was able to make a difference in her life," Michelle Durham, executive director of BEAT AIDS, a nonprofit organization, said.
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22 May 2017
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says girls account for nearly 80 per cent of new HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr Felicitas Zawaira, the Director, Family and Reproductive Health Cluster, WHO Regional Office for Africa, said this in a statement issued in Abuja on Monday. Zawaira said most recent data from the organisation showed that only 13 per cent of these adolescent girls, and nine per cent of adolescent boys had…
23 May 2017
Leading HIV/AIDS researcher Quarraisha Abdool Karim has been honoured with an honorary doctoral degree by the University of Johannesburg in recognition of her contribution towards improving the quality of life of women in Africa. With extensive research contributions that spans over 25 years’ Professor Abdool Karim’s commitment to create a deeper understanding on the growing HIV epidemic in South Africa and the factors…
15 May 2017
The statistics are well-known. African Americans bear the heaviest burden of HIV infection of all racial or ethnic groups in the United States, says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the burden of this disease is carried squarely on the shoulders of African-American women. Their rates of new HIV infections are more than three times higher than those of white women and four times those of Hispanic women.…
14 May 2017
At least 213 HIV-infected women have given birth to healthy babies in the government-run hospitals of Chhattisgarh in 2016-17, a State health official has said. “The health department is committed to secure the child from infection in the womb of a HIV-positive mother,” Chhattisgarh’s health services director R. Prasanna told PTI. The multi-medicine treatment process has yielded better results, with 213 HIV-infected women…
14 May 2017
President Jacob Zuma's wife, Tobeka Madiba-Zuma, on Saturday launched the Listen to the Girl Child campaign in KwaZulu-Natal. The Tobeka Madiba-Zuma Foundation, in partnership the eThekwini Municipality and the UN Aids programme, said it led a dialogue in sexual health, violence directed at children, girls and women, for 500 girls from schools around Inanda, KwaMashu and Ntuzuma in Durban. The campaign aims to provide ongoing…
8 May 2017
San Diego - Women living with HIV had a lifetime prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder four times the national average, according to a small study examining women from an urban HIV clinic. Overall, 43.1% of participants met diagnostic criteria for lifetime PTSD, while the national prevalence for women is estimated at 10%, reported Keemi Ereme, MPH, of Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and…
5 May 2017
In the small maternity ward of a run-down health clinic in Delft, a half hour drive from Cape Town, the wooden benches in the waiting area are filled with young women and girls from the poor surrounding townships. Nozuko Manong, in her white-and-blue nurse's uniform, calls out a name and escorts a young woman into a small consulting room where the paint is peeling from the walls. Gently, Manong tells the patient the result of…
3 May 2017
The nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) announced today the start of the first clinical trial of its three-month vaginal ring designed to prevent two of the greatest risks to women’s health: HIV, which disproportionately strikes women of reproductive age, and unintended pregnancy, a leading contributor to maternal mortality. The three-month vaginal ring is designed to slowly — and simultaneously — release…
27 April 2017
Early antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly acceptable to the majority of young women with HIV in South Africa, according to research published in AIDS and Behavior. Rates of virological suppression remained at over 85% regardless of CD4 threshold for starting treatment, and answers to a questionnaire showed that over three-quarters of participants were willing to start treatment when their CD4 count was above 500 cells/mm3…
19 April 2017
South Africa - A study conducted by Dr Yogandra Naidoo found that the fear of being discriminated against and stigmatised has made it impossible for HIV and AIDS sufferers in the south Durban township to disclose their status and living their lives.The findings also revealed that poverty’ gender power relations and stigma were major social factors contributing to the growth of HIV and AIDS.
29 April 2017
It has always been a public secret that women bear the biggest brunt of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, but now, gender activists are saying the cost of that burden is more often than not, understated. From having to sacrifice their other economic and social roles to taking up unpaid 'work' at home in caring for patients living with HIV and AIDS, the burden is proving to be too much on women, activists who are lobbying for policy…