Compiled by Martin Flynn & Bruce Wainwright
Australia sheds light on HIV visa ruling
The Australian Department of Immigration has clarified its policy
on admitting HIV positive tourists and potential immigrants.
The clarification follows outrage from HIV positive travellers after reading
reports that people living with HIV could be refused visas to Australia.
The department said people applying for a holiday, business or student visa
are required to declare whether they have a health condition and will be subject
to “rigorous screening and assessment.”
“HIV is not regarded as a public health risk, and has no greater significance
or status than any other health condition,” the statement said. “But
student visa applicants applying in sub-Saharan Africa, for stays longer than
12 months, are also required to take HIV tests.” People who fall ill
while in Australia are not generally refused treatment but are expected to
pay the treatment costs. Australian HIV support agencies have informed PN
that, in practice, this means African visitors will receive much more scrutiny
than Europeans visiting the country.
Visitors from the UK to Australia are strongly advised to carry extra supplies
of HIV drugs in their original packaging, carry a letter from their doctor
about their condition, and take out
private medical insurance in advance of arriving.
Arab
star takes HIV test, live on TV
Glamorous Lebanese singing sensation Haifa Wehbe (left) took an HIV test,
live on TV last month as part of an HIV awareness campaign in Morocco. She
is pictured with Dr Nazad Bezad (right), president of OPALS (the Pan-African
Aids Organisation for HIV/Aids) in Rabat, Morocco, last month.
Mobbed wherever she went, Haifa did a series of media interviews in a country
swiftly modernising but where women, gays and people with HIV face considerable
stigma and discrimination. Haifa’s tour was organised by Simo Ben Bachir,
the head of Moroccan HIV charity Ruban Rouge.
• www.rubanrouge.org,
www.haifawehbe.com
Children left to carry Aids burden
Some 19 million women worldwide are presently living with HIV and 90 per cent
of these are mothers.
But the vast majority, according to Jasmine Whitehead, chief executive of
charity Save the Children, receive little or no care or treatment. In its
report Missing on Mothers’ Day, the charity urged for more funds to
be directed towards the children who are often left to carry the burden.
“Children are caring for their mothers, missing school and having to
work because their mothers are too sick to look after them,” the report
stated. Whitehead added: “The impact of HIV and Aids on children is
still being ignored.” The report points out that in sub-Saharan Africa,
young women aged 15-24 are six times more likely to be infected with the virus
than men.
Young women are often not given necessary information about HIV and sexual
activity because the subject is taboo. Most aid packages have concentrated
on supporting children only after their parents have died.
Save the Children calls for at least £3.6 billion to be directed towards
children and families with sick or dying parents. “The more support
that can be provided, the longer HIV positive mothers can care for their children,”
the charity concluded.
Clinton
meets HIV generics pioneer
Former US president Bill Clinton (right) met Dr Yusef Hamied (left), chair
and managing director of Cipla at the company’s factory in Goa last
month.
The Clinton Foundation is working to increase the number of poor people able
to get cheap, generic antiretrovirals in Africa and Asia.
“Because of partners like Cipla, we are able to provide life-saving
antiretrovirals at prices reduced by 50 to 90 per cent to people living with
HIV/Aids,” the ex-president said.
Dr Hamied has led the way in making cheap HIV drugs for less than $300 per
patient, per year, and has won hundreds of legal battles against international
pharmaceutical companies who have accused him of being ‘a pirate and
a thief’.
“I’m not against intellectual property,” Dr Hamied told
The Times newspaper: “I’m against monopoly.”
India’s generic drug makers are fighting new World Trade Organisation
rules which seek to ban them from making the cheap antiretrovirals.
A news feature on HIV in the Arab world will appear in the next edition of
Positive Nation.
• www.cipla.com,
www.clintonfoundation.org
Court orders HIV positive mum to
track lovers
An HIV positive mother of two who had unprotected consensual sex was ordered
to name all her lovers following her prosecution under Swiss Law.
Zurich county court issued the bizarre order after giving the woman a year-long
prison sentence, suspended for three years, even though she didn’t pass
HIV to her three lovers.
Over the three years, she will be required to provide officials with a list
of all sexual partners.
The 42-year-old injecting drug user became known to the courts when she was
named as one of several victims in a rape trial. Prior to the rape, she had
had consensual sex with her attacker and two other lovers who knew her status
and did not contract HIV from her.
The court ruled that the consideration was the likely spread of the disease
and that it was irrelevant that the sex was consensual. Article 231 of the
Swiss Penal Code states people with HIV will be prosecuted for having unprotected
sex, even if the partner agrees to it.
Pregnant women not getting HIV drugs
Fewer than one in ten HIV positive women in developing countries get
antiretrovirals during pregnancy and childbirth, according to the World Health
Organisation (WHO).
This means 2,000 babies are born with HIV each day because their virus-infected
mothers do not receive the treatment needed to prevent transmission. Each
year more than 570,000 children under the age of 15 die of Aids, most having
acquired the virus from their mother.
At the end of last year, only 1.3 million poor people infected with HIV were
taking the drugs, less than half the number targeted by the WHO two years
ago and just one-fifth of the 6.5 million people needing treatment.
WHO HIV/Aids director Kevin De Cock said children accounted for 15 per cent
of Aids deaths, but make up only around five per cent of those receiving treatment.
Frail health systems in impoverished regions were partly to blame for the
missed ‘3 by 5’ targets, he said.
“Sub-Saharan Africa is short of at least one million healthcare workers
and this is probably one of the most formidable obstacles for the future.”
Earlier this month UK Home Office minister Tony McNulty told the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on Aids: “I am not persuaded that a concession [on
exceptional leave to remain in the UK] for [HIV positive] pregnant women is
necessary.This was because HIV positive pregnant women should be eligible
for mother-to-child transmission schemes abroad, because all African countries
were eligible for free donations of nevirapine, he added.
words
“To date, more than 200 HIV positive gay men in London and around
25 HIV positive gay men in Brighton have been diagnosed with sexually transmitted
hepatitis C (HCV)”
Dr Mark Danta of London’s Royal Free Hospital
“Aids denialism directly kills a lot of people. It’s disgraceful
and needs to be stopped”
Nathan Geffen of the Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa
“The Terrence Higgins Trust currently receives £2.025 million
per annum in funding from the Department of Health”
Caroline Flint, public health minister, in a parliamentary answer
“95 per cent of HIV positive people wouldn’t care if an advert
implied it’s dumb to fuck without a condom, or that saggy arses and
diarrhoea stink and will ruin your lovely gay image; whatever it takes to
deter someone from going through what they went through”
Ricky Dyer, reporter on BBC3 documentary ‘I Love Being HIV+’,
from QX mpagazine
“The sad fact is that the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria,
which was to be a fund of $20 billion, is financed only to the tune of $2.6
billion. We will have to do better in future years if we are to make the 2010
target”
Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a parliamentary answer
