A new local regulation enforcing mandatory premarital HIV testing has just been endorsed by the Bogor city mayor, Bima Arya Sugiarto. It requires couples who wish to marry to conduct HIV tests to be able to gain their marriage certificates. This regulation comes in the wake of increasing cases of HIV and AIDS in Bogor; regulations for bridal candidates potentially harm women more than men. Read full article…
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First Lady Margaret Kenyatta was Friday evening accorded special recognition in Accra when she was given the honour to officially close the 7th Africa Conference on sexual Health and Rights. Read full article here.
Almost half of the women living with HIV in Canada aren't in relationships — a fact caused in part by stigma and misinformed perceptions of what it means to live with the disease. Read full article here.
Increasing infections among injecting drug users combined with low condom use and high fertility rates have health experts worried about "downstream" HIV infections—when the virus spreads to people who are not typically at risk of HIV, like children who acquire the virus through mother-to-child transmission. Read full article…
Living with HIV can be traumatic on multiple levels. For each person it can be extremely different and the treatments must be adapted to each situation and case.
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The Federal HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO) emphasized that the media should work in collaboration with responsible stakeholders on mainstreaming the issues of HIV and AIDS and gender. The epidemic is still the most prevalent threat in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Less than a quarter of people taking part in clinical trials for antiretroviral medications are women, potentially limiting the generalisability of findings, according to a systematic review published in the February 1 edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
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Most U.S. high school students and young adults who have sex don't get HIV tests, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Screening rates for young women have decreased since 2006.
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Jen Thorpe discusses an article indicating that 16 bursaries were awarded to female matriculants who underwent a virginity test, and passed. In order to keep these “maiden” bursaries, the women must “remain pure” and undergo regular testing throughout their undergraduate degree. These bursaries are premised on the idea that encouraging women not to have sex will reduce the spread of HIV.
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The latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data findings, released by the Health Ministry on Tuesday night, reveal widespread ignorance about HIV/AIDS among adults in India. According to the latest data, nearly 82 per cent women and nearly 70 per cent men — in the 13 States surveyed under phase 1 of NFHS4 — lacked comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS and safe sex practices.
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South Africa has become one of the first African countries to license a fixed-dose combination of anti-retrovirals to be used as an oral pre-exposure prophylaxis. Read full article here.
New infections in Cebu City have skyrocketed, even as they’re declining worldwide. The city is struggling to control the drug use that’s spreading the virus and are seeing an increase in HIV amongst pregnant women who do not have an HIV risk profile. Read full article here.
Through Zambia’s recently revised National Youth Policy, Government seeks to address both those at risk and those living with HIN by identifying measures that can help youth prevent and live positively with the virus. The Policy also addresses issues related to stigma and discrimination. Among the objectives of the policy is to promote the provision of comprehensive sexuality education and sexual reproductive health services that meet the…
Sungano Bondayi explores the experience of a woman living with HIV in a context where HIV services are non-existent in her local surroundings what implications does this have for her hopes for herself and for having her own family? Read full article here.
The Philippines’ legislator decision to cut the $21 million contraceptive budget surprised and infuriated legislators and advocacy groups who had struggled more than a decade to pass the Reproductive Health Law that guaranteed funds to provide contraceptives to the poor. Read full article here.
The Ministry of Health in Uganda has launched an SMS-based monitoring platform to track the progress of the elimination of Mother to Child Transmission (eMTCT) efforts across the health system and use real numbers, rather than estimates, to represent real people. Read full article here.
The summit brought together Heads of state and governments, ministers in charge of gender and traditional affairs, as well as children, first ladies, United Nations (UN) agencies, development partners, civil society organizations, young people, and religious and traditional leaders to take stock of the progress made in ending child marriage across Africa, to identify challenges and share experiences. The summit highlighted the fact that…
In this Huffington Post entry in the The Blog, Clara Banya recounts her experiences of being a woman living with HIV in Malawi. Clara explains her experience of disclosing her status to her husband and her observations of how the implementation of child HIV protocols in Malawi drastically changed her daughters life. Ms.
This article explores the two-way causal relationship between Violence Against Women and HIV. By recounting the experiences of two married Ugandan women living in discordant relationships, the author describes the rejection and violence women risk and face at the hands of their partners when living in a discordant relationship. The link between HIV and Violence against women is explained and the need for male-focused education and…
In this New York Times Op Ed, Laurie Shrage explores how the racial profiling in America may be fueling an urgent public health crisis. In the United States, the rate of HIV infection amongst African American women, is 20 times higher than that of white women. The disproportionately high rates of HIV amongst African American women in America has been recognized at a high level, including by Hillary Clinton as early as 2007, however the rapid…