‘One Vision’ Photo Comrpetition Winners
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The day before the Court of Appeal ‘reserved judgement’ in the
case of Mohammed Dica, community activists called on the Director of Public
Prosecutions (DPP) to stop similar legal actions. Dica was sentenced last year
to eight years in prison for infecting two women with HIV
HIV activists and law experts, meeting at London’s Birkbeck College,
have sent a petition to the DPP urging no more prosecutions for passing on
HIV until the complex legal situation is clarified.
“
We call for a halt to such prosecutions pending a strategic and integrated
review by Government in consultation with appropriate HIV/Aids service organisations...
and other interested parties,” demands the Birkbeck petition.
It also says that the prosecution of people for the sexual transmission of
HIV raises important public interest issues relating to the effective promotion
of public health.
Lawyers representing Dica have questioned the legality of his conviction and
long imprisonment and have asked that his sentence be ‘set aside’ and
a retrial granted.
Catharine Dodds, of Sigma Research, told the meeting at Birkbeck that since
the Dica case, Kouassi Adaye of Merseyside had pleaded guilty to transmitting
HIV.
This case was particularly worrying, she said, as there was no evidence Adaye
had ever taken an HIV test.
Feston Konzani, in Middles-brough, is also awaiting prosecution on three counts
of grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent - a more serious charge than that
faced by Dica - but his case is now thought likely to be postponed till the
Dica appeal is settled.
Matthew Weait, an Open University law lecturer and former Terrence Higgins
Trust lawyer, said that the current prosecutions went directly against what
used to be government policy.
In 1998 the Home Office issued a consultation document suggesting: “the
criminal law should apply only to those whom it can be proved beyond reasonable
doubt had deliberately transmitted a disease intending to cause a serious illness.”
If this had ever become law, the only circumstances under which transmission of HIV would be a criminal offence were situations like assault with a blood-filled syringe, he said.
But the law was now being used to criminalise ‘reckless’ transmission
of the virus.
Recklessness was a very loose legal concept, Mr Weait said, and could in
theory even apply to cases where the HIV positive partner had disclosed and
the negative
partner had consented.
Weait added that criminal law was poor at dealing with situations where there
was joint responsibility, as in sex. “The law fails when it gets into
the bedroom,” he said.
Lisa Power, of the THT, said that the current prosecutions provided an incentive
for ex-partners to seek revenge via prosecution.
The THT Direct helpline has now received a number of queries from clients, both straight and gay, she said, asking about the possibility of prosecuting ex-partners for giving them HIV. Gus Cairns
Following the decision by the Global Fund to suspend payments to the Ukraine,
the UK-based International HIV/Aids Alliance has been selected to manage prevention
and treatment programmes formerly run by Ukraine’s government.
Pictured signing the agreement for $15million are Dr Alvaro Bermejo (left), chief executive of the Alliance, and Dr Richard Feacham (right), executive director of the Global Fund.
Jon Liden, of the Global Fund, said that until Ukraine’s Health Ministry “shows it can work effectively and with confidence and trust,” the Alliance will manage the anti-Aids campaign in the country.
Reports allege that Ukrainian Health Ministry officials demanded substantial kickbacks to implement HIV and TB projects.
Meanwhile, Canadian diplomat Stephen Lewis, the UN’s special representative for Aids in Africa, said that rich countries “must make up for a decade of financial abstinence” to fight HIV/Aids.
He said the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, needs $3.6 billion for 2005 but, “No country, including my own, is paying its share.”
For details, please visit: www.theglobalfund.org
A growing number of deaths among HIV positive patients at Europe’s biggest Aids clinic are due to liver problems, a top consultant revealed last month.
Dr Mark Nelson, of London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, told a packed UKC forum on HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) at the University of London Union on 17 February that many deaths at the hospital were now due to hepatitis problems and being HIV positive makes liver abnormalities much more likely.
UK estimates put the number of people with hepatitis C at over half a million in this country and the European Union has revealed that it is facing a “hidden epidemic” of HCV with “possibly up to several million” already infected.
Although HCV can spread through sex or transfusion with infected blood, needle-sharing
and sharing ‘snorting’ notes now accounts for over 60 per cent
of new European infections.
Dr Nelson said the biggest problem for people with HCV is excessive alcohol
consumption and patients who are regular drug users are less likely to respond
to HAART drugs.
The ‘gold standard’ for treating HCV is a combination of two expensive drugs: pegylated interferon and ribavirin, but this treatment only works in two-thirds of patients, Dr Nelson said.
Despite this, it is important to treat co-infected people early, he said, if the drugs are to work effectively.
Dr Sanjay Bhagani, of London’s Royal Free Hospital, explained that there are over 170 million people worldwide with HCV, compared with 42 million with HIV. But unlike HIV, it is curable.
“ There is a new epidemic of acute HCV in HIV positive gay men in London and the South East,” he said.
The way forward is regular testing among high risk groups for hepatitis C on at least an annual basis, Dr Bhagani suggested.
HIV positive activist stands for EU Parliament elections
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Winners of the ‘One Vision’ European Photographic Competition,
sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb, were announced at a reception and exhibition
at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris on 6 April.
Dr
Joseph Healy is standing as one of the Green Party candidates for London in
the European Parliament elections on 10 June. Healy, originally from Dublin,
moved to London in 1984, was active as an HIV service user in Southwark and
was a trustee of Positive Place from 1998 to 2001. He has been involved in
campaigning for the rights of HIV positive and disabled people in London for
many years.