Compiled by Martin Flynn & Brucec Wainwright
40 million now living with
HIV worldwide
More
than 39.5 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and the global HIV
pandemic shows little sign of abating, according to the latest UNAIDS/WHO
report.
Of the total, 4.3 million of these were infected last year – an increase
of 400,000 on 2004.
Where prevention programmes have not been sustained, or have failed to adapt
to the changing epidemic, infection rates are increasing most rapidly, the
data suggest
“We need to greatly intensify life-saving prevention efforts while we
expand HIV treatment programmes,” said UNAIDS executive director Dr
Peter Piot.
In many countries, the report says, prevention programmes are not reaching
the people most at risk of infection: young people, women and girls, men who
have sex with men, sex workers and intravenous drug users.
The area worst affected is sub-Saharan Africa with two-thirds of all cases
but where only one million are receiving antiretrovirals.
Most at risk are women who are being infected earlier and are dying younger.
They are also most likely to be left caring for people infected with HIV.
The areas that have shown the most rapid growth in infections, however, are
eastern Europe and central Asia.
The Russian Federation and the Ukraine together account for 90 per cent of
cases in eastern Europe with the use of non-sterile needles being the most
common cause of transmission and a further 37 per cent caused by unprotected
sex.
In China there were 650,000 reported cases, over 40 per cent of them the result
of IV drug use, though HIV is now spreading rapidly into the general population
where women again are particularly at risk.
In India, where the epidemic appears to be slowing or stabilising in some
areas, the overall increase is mainly attributed to unprotected sex between
men and women.
“We have a unique opportunity to prevent epidemics in eastern Europe
and Asia, especially the giants of China, India and Russia, from reaching
catastrophic levels,” said Professor Richard Feachem, executive director
of the Global Fund. “But that opportunity is shrinking with each passing
year.”
The arrival of antiretroviral drugs has, according to Piot, had a negative
impact on safer sexual behaviour in western Europe and the US.
“The evidence is clear that in Western countries, the introduction of
treatment has led to complacency.”
In the US, the number of infections is stable but not declining. However,
the report points out that, “the largest increases have been reported
in the UK where HIV remains one of the principal communicable disease threats.”
Positive
Lives hits 12
Travelling international HIV photographic exhibition ‘Positive Lives’
celebrated its 12th birthday on World Aids Day at London’s City Hall.
Pictured, right to left, are Kevin Ryan, director of Positive Lives, Jeanette
Arnold, chair of the London Health Commission, Nick Partridge, chief executive
of the Terrence Higgins Trust and Lyndall Stein, chief executive of Concern
Worldwide.
“Some of us who are HIV positive like myself are lucky, but most are
not. So many politicians treat HIV as if it’s someone else’s problem.
They suggest that if someone is positive, it must be their own fault,”
said Kevin Ryan
www.positivelives.org
Two circumcision studies cut short
Two clinical trials looking at whether circumcision can reduce HIV transmission
have been terminated after evidence emerged that removing a man’s foreskin
can halve his chances of catching HIV.
The two studies, on 3,000 urban men aged 15-24 in Kisumu in Kenya and on 5,000
rural men in Rakai in Uganda, showed a 53 per cent and 48 per cent reduction
respectively in HIV infections among newly circumcised men.
The findings were so striking the US National Institute for Health (NIH) decided
to stop the trials early.
Skin cells under the foreskin are often warm and wet on the surface making
them ripe candidates for HIV infection. Hardening, or keratinising, of circumcised
penises toughens up the skin and reduces the risk of a man catching the virus
but can lesson the pleasure of sex.
Dr Kevin de Cock, of the World Health Organisation, said the results were
“a significant scientific advance” but not a magic bullet or a
replacement for condoms or other HIV prevention strategies.
But Tom Elkins, of the National Aids Trust, warned: “There is a real
danger in sending out a message that circumcision can protect against HIV.
This is not the case and could lead to an increase in unprotected sex.”
Top actor appointed UNAIDS special rep
British actor Rupert Everett has been appointed the latest high profile UNAIDS
special representative. Everett, pictured above on a recent visit to India
in the new role, spoke in PN106 about being one of the few openly gay actors
in Hollywood.
“I have lost loved ones to the epidemic and I have seen with my own
eyes the devastation Aids and related discrimination brings,” he said.
China’s leaders talk the talk as crisis looms
China appears to be undergoing a significant change in attitude towards people
with HIV and Aids in the vastly populated country.
In a dramatic turnaround, the Chinese leadership, who once denied HIV was
a problem, now appears to be confronting the threat head-on.
The government has promised anonymous testing, free treatment for the poor
and a ban on discrimination against people with the virus.
A Chinese health ministry official recently told the state news agency Xinhua:
“The rising reported figures of both HIV infections and Aids patients
indicate that the epidemic in China is still serious, and the danger of the
disease spreading further remains high.”
With official reported cases now numbering around 650,000, the official added
that unprotected sex accounted for over a quarter of new cases, up from 10
per cent four years ago.
But international HIV experts say it is likely China now has more than two
million people with the virus and could have ten times that number by the
end of the decade. Aids activists say there is gross under-reporting because
of stigma.
Drug abuse accounted for a further 37 per cent of cases so far reported in
2006 and the Chinese health official admitted that over a third of sex workers
did not use condoms.
Joel Rehnstrom, at UNAIDS’ China office, said the increase in reported
cases indicated that China was doing “more testing and more reporting”
and also that the epidemic was still growing in many parts of the country.
Back in 2004, China's president Hu Jintao appeared on television chatting
and shaking hands with Aids patients. But on the ground, the picture is rather
less positive. Anyone outside the ruling Communist Party is likely to be viewed
with distrust and this applies no less to Aids activists such as Wan Yanhai,
founder of the campaigning organisation Aizhi.
Following an attempt to organise a World Aids Day symposium dealing with Aids,
blood safety and legal rights, Wan, a dogged campaigner for effective public
health policies, was interviewed by Beijing police and hasn't been seen since.
Much of China's epidemic was initially caused by the corrupt and incompetent
purchase of blood products from impoverished farmers.
Villagers have been seeking compensation in the courts, but the courts have
refused to grant this, citing pressure from high ranking officials.
Words
“A global HIV services gap exists which sees 95 per cent of injecting
drug users, 89 per cent of men who have sex with men and 84 per cent of sex
workers without access to basic HIV services.”
International HIV/Aids Alliance
“A paediatrician phoned me and said: ‘Sveta, you dyed my hair
last week. What will happen now? Could I get HIV through my hair?’ I
said to her: ‘You are a doctor, how can you say such a thing?’”
Russian hairdresser talking to BBC Russia
“It requires every one of us to help bring Aids out of the shadows and
spread the message that silence is death”
World Aids Day speech from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
“I got it from a blood transfusion when I was 12. Now, no one talks
to me. My friends all left me when they knew that I’m an Aids patient.
I feel I’m all alone in the world.”
Mahmoud, 14-year-old living with HIV in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
“Every business leader, every political leader, every trade union
leader, should test publicly. And our president.”
Zackie Achmat ofSouth Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign
“More than a year after world leaders committed to universal access
there is still no funding plan to finance this goal.”
Aditi Sharma, of ActionAid
