Compiled by Martin Flynn & Brucec Wainwright
Queen
Latifah shows respect to her sisters
Singer, rapper and Oscar nominated actress Queen Latifah stars in a new film
about the impact of HIV on black American women. The film premiered at this
year’s Sundance Film Festival and was aired on US cable network HBO
in March. Life Support, is made by Nelson George and tells the story of his
sister Ann Wallace, played by Latifah, who lives in Brooklyn and helps a teenage
boy who is also living with HIV. “This movie is for Nelson, his family,
and for women who are HIV positive,” Queen Latifah said: “Disease
doesn’t care who you are.”
HIV ‘over-funding’ row sparks
fierce backlash
An article in a leading medical journal that argued the world was
spending too much on fighting Aids has triggered a major backlash.
The article in February’s British Medical Journal said spending on HIV
was “disproportionate” compared with other deadly diseases.
Roger England, chair of Grenada’s Health Systems Workshop, cited data
showing 21 per cent of health aid was allocated to HIV in 2004, up from eight
per cent in 2000, yet HIV constitutes only five per cent of the disease burden
in low and middle income countries.
More deaths are attributable to diabetes than HIV and interventions to stop
HIV are not cost effective, he said. Much of the spending on HIV could be
better spent on bed nets, immunisation or family planning.
England also accused executives “on the Aids industry payroll”
for overseeing “excessive expenditure”.
England said: “HIV is receiving relatively too much money, with much
of it used inefficiently and sometimes counterproductively.”
Paul de Lay of UNAIDS hit back saying current spending on HIV was “woefully
inadequate”.
Resources so far pledged to international bodies like the Global Fund were
only half of what was needed, he said.
Poor coordination between different bodies, corruption on the ground as well
as poor governance and regulatory policies were also hindering progress.
De Lay said inaction against HIV would only incur a higher cost in terms of
billions of dollars and ten of millions of lost lives in future.
www.bmj.com
Football star backs HIV fight
Germany and Chelsea midfield wonder Michael Ballack has joined the
UNAIDS battle against the global epidemic. He filmed a public service announcement
at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge ground and delivered prevention messages
while demonstrating his football skills. “A lot of people know footballers,
they look up to us, and I think we should all fight Aids together,”
Ballack said. One of the messages flashed up on Chelsea’s giant screen
reads: ‘During a 90 minute football match more than 500 people will
have died of Aids, 180 under 25 years old’. www.unaids.org
Mexican soldiers win HIV victory
Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled the country’s military
cannot force HIV positive soldiers to leave the armed forces.
The Court said a law requiring HIV positive members of the armed forces to
leave violated their constitutional rights.
The victory compels Mexico’s defence department to allow HIV positive
soldiers to return to duty.
“Everyone who viewed this law as unconstitutional has shown that it
violates the rules of equality,” the court’s president Guillermo
Ortiz Mayagoita said.
The case was brought by 11 members of the military after more than 300 HIV
positive military personnel were fired in recent years.
The country’s top generals argued HIV positive soldiers were “useless”
but they were instructed by the Supreme Court they could only expel those
who were medically unfit to perform their duties.
Human rights lawyers said it was shocking such uninformed positions were expressed
by the country’s top uniformed generals and lawyers.
“It is a matter of concern that some magistrates expressed positions
that are practically medieval,” said constitutional lawyer Diego Pedroza,
“Their ideas give the impression that the justice system is in the hands
of ignorants.”
There are an estimated 180,000 HIV positive Mexicans in a population of over
107 million.
New York hands out ‘official’ condoms
New York’s first municipally sanctioned condom arrived last month. City
workers and volunteers distributed the NY condoms across five boroughs but
demand is high.
Last year the health department distributed some 1.5 million condoms a month.
City health commissioner Dr Thomas Friedman said: “Abstinence is fail-safe
and reducing the number of sexual partners reduces risk of infections. But
for sexually active people, using a condom is key to staying healthy.”
www.nycondom.org
Breast beats bottle for poor mothers with
HIV
Breast feeding is safer than bottle feeding for HIV positive mothers
in resource poor countries, according to latest research.
Until recently all HIV positive mothers were encouraged to feed their new
babies exclusively on formula instead of breast milk to prevent transmission
of the virus from mother to infant.
But a number of recent studies have highlighted the dangers of formula feeding
in poor countries where polluted water supplies pose greater dangers to the
baby than HIV itself.
Now the World Health Organisation has said HIV positive mums should breast
feed exclusively for the first six months of an infant’s life, “unless
replacement feeding, like cow’s milk, is acceptable, feasible, affordable,
sustainable and safe for both mother and infant”.
Research presented at the 14th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic
Infections showed real dangers for formula-fed infants in many poor countries
of sub- Saharan Africa.
Studies showed babies taken off their mother’s breast at six months
then developed life threatening diarrhoea.
And an outbreak of deaths among babies from diarrhoea in Botswana following
a severe flood was due to sewage contamination of bottle feeds.
Powdered formula mixed with foul water created a brew laced with cryptosporidium,
E coli, shigella and salmonella places the Botswana babies at 50 times the
risk of death.
Dr Hoosen Coovadia, of the University of KwaZulu Natal, said breast feeding
offered so many nutritional and health benefits to newborn and infant children
that it even outranked vaccines in reducing risk of disease.
“It is far and away the most superior way to prevent deaths of children
in the developing world,” Coovadia said: “For poor women in the
developing world there is no other choice than to breast feed. We shouldn’t
devise policies for the rich few.”
However, in rich western countries where clean and safe water supplies are
available along with antiretroviral treatment to prevent mother to child transmission
of HIV it is still recommended that poz mums avoid breastfeeding.
Words
“Medical authority is no longer revered, and pharmaceutical companies
are increasingly portrayed as criminals.”
Michael Specter in the New Yorker
“The innovations of the pharmaceutical industry have transformed Aids,
at least in the western world, from a virtual death sentence into a chronic
treatable disease.”
Dr Chinkholai Thangsing of the Aids Healthcare Foundation
“People with same sex preferences are still largely ignored in the design
and execution of HIV prevention programmes through much of Africa.”
Plus News Johannesburg
“Abstinence is promoted in the absence of any substantial scientific
evidence. For 2007, President Bush budgeted $241 million for abstinence only
programmes.”
Laura Duberstein in the San Francisco Chronicle
“Over 2,000 gay guys last year were given the same news as you and over
37,000 gay guys have picked up HIV. One in 10 gay men in London are positive,
although worryingly nearly a third don’t know they have the virus.”
Dr Alex Vass, agony doctor in QX magazine
“On average, people who become infected with the virus that causes Aids
(in the USA) lose about 16 years of life.”
Ed Susman, United Press International, Los Angeles.
