The end of the Iraq War has brought a gruesome discovery - a ransacked Aids clinic where people with HIV and even their families were incarcerated under appalling conditions under Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Ibn Zuhur hospital had a sign stating ‘Do Not Enter. You Will Contract Infectious Diseases’. Dr Karim Nada, director of the hospital, told Agence France Presse: “The patients and their families were treated like prisoners in guarded secret locations because the government decided that there was no Aids in the country.” Only 180 Iraqis were registered with HIV since 1986 but UNAIDS estimates the actual numbers exceed several thousand.
The US House of Representatives voted last month by 375 votes to 41 to approve a package of measures pledging $15 billion over the next five years to fight HIV and Aids around the world. The measure also pledges up to $1 billion in 2004 for The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, as long as other rich countries match this level of funding. But religious fundamentalists opposed the inclusion of campaigns to promote condom use, and liberals were opposed to an amendment to devote $5 billion specifically on programmes advocating sexual abstinence. The Aids bill now goes to the US Senate where it is likely to face stiffer opposition.
Last year Swiss HIV rates jumped by an alarming 25 per cent and so the government is now back on the health promotion offensive. Posters in Zürich airport warn: ‘Welcome to Switzerland - this is how we say condom in German’. Other billboards tell parents: ‘When your kids finally figure out the stork didn’t bring them in, you should tell them about Aids’. A third poster hung outside Catholic churches is even more controversial: ‘Dear Father, if Rome won’t let you talk about contraception, then talk about condoms instead’. In the early 1990s Switzerland had the highest rates of HIV infection in Europe, due to an outbreak among intravenous drug users, but successful prevention and needle exchange programmes slowed this.
“There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra than on
Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2020, there should be a largely
elderly population with perky boobs and firm erections but with absolutely no
recollection of what to do with them.”
Broadcaster and writer Sandi Toksvig.
“I appeal to you all to do everything possible to help people in this
country whose immigration status has yet to be determined. I heard of one African
woman in hospital with both HIV and cancer. They’re treating her tumour
but not her HIV.”
Thandi Haruperi, of west London's RAIN Trust, speaking
at the GSK 'Embrace' awards ceremony.
“The Book of Life is illustrated in black and white. Make yours the colour
supplement.”
From the Memorial Service for Reginald Sutherland Bundy
AKA Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Regina Fong (1945 - 2003).
"For South Africa, the significance of Aids denialism is momentous...Although
HIV is now a medically manageable condition, the government still refuses to commit
itself to a national treatment plan...The cost in human lives and suffering can
only be described as horrendous."
South African Supreme Court Judge Mr Justice Edwin Cameron
speaking at Harvard Law School.
"F**k off"
South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang
to a fellow passenger who refused to sit next to her on a flight from Cape Town.
He had accused her of being "responsible for the deaths of thousands of South
Africans."
