Activists from the AIDS Health Care Foundation (AHCF) demonstrated outside the office of porn mogul Larry Flynt in Beverley Hills last month to demand that actors in adult movies use condoms. The demo came after at least five porn performers tested HIV positive in April. Michael Weinstein, Presidenf of AHCF, said "We con't need any more patients."
The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has identified antiretroviral treatment paid by employers to HIV positive workers as a 'fringe benefit' and says the amount paid for the drugs is taxable. Companies providing contributions to pay for the drugs are up in arms and have accused the revenue service of taxing their HIV positive workers to death.
Figures from the National Disease Surveillance Centre in Dublin show a 10 per cent rise in new HIV cases in 2003. Last year 399 new HIV diagnoses were reported, compared to 364 in 2002. The Dublin AIDS Alliance pointed to factors such as an increase in immigrants to Ireland from Sub-Saharan Africa, a decreased focus on prevention and complacency among young people.
HIV positive prisoners in the US state of Alabama have won the right to medical care, a court has ruled. Previously, prisoners were segregated in a delipidated warehouse riddled with insects and vermin and denied medical care or training programmes. This led to the death of several young men serving sentences for non violent crimes.
President Robert Mugabe has admitted for the first time that members of his own family have died from Aids. Speaking at Zimbabwe's first HIV conference last month, the embattled dictator accepted that almost a quarter of the country's adult population now has HIV and at least 3,000 people die of Aids-related diseases each week.
