Peter Longstaff, a 45-year-old haemophiliac from Newcastle upon Tyne, has lost his law suit against his local primary care trust despite being infected with HIV and Hepatitis B, C and G via infected blood products at the city’s Royal Victoria Hospital. Mr Justice Charles ruled that the trust could continue to supply products extracted from donated blood rather than using synthetic products. As many as 1,200 UK haemophiliacs were infected with HIV in the 1980s via bad blood products and fewer than 400 of them are still alive.
An HIV positive musician from Malawi, who lives in Middlesbrough, is on
trial on five counts of unlawfully and maliciously causing grievous bodily
harm with intent for deliberately infecting women with HIV. The case, before
Teesside Crown Court, is only the third of its kind in England.
It follows the imprisonment last year in London of Mohammed Dica for eight
years for deliberately infecting two women with HIV and the most recent sentencing
in Merseyside of South African Kouassi Michel Adaye for six years for a similar
offence.
A man from Tottenham in north London has been jailed for 10 years for raping an Aids counsellor. An Old Bailey court heard that Linkoy Muhuri, originally from the Congo, raped the woman and she had to wait for months before getting the allclear of HIV infection. Passing sentence Judge Richard Hawkins told Muhuri: “You are an HIV sufferer and you committed rape knowing that and without using a condom.” The judge ordered Muhuri’s deportation when he finishes his term in prison.
The Bethany Trust centre in Bodwin, Cornwall has been forced to close down because of a lack of funds. Bethany, which for 13 years has offered respite care and support to thousands of people with HIV from across the UK, was dissolved at the end of November. The Bethany directors said money was not now being made available for respite care from both statutory and voluntary sources.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has disclosed that four UK health workers have died after being infected with HIV through needlestick accidents. The HPA says that since 1997 there have been 1,600 cases of HIV or hepatitis needlestick injuries in Britain. But the last case of HIV infection via a needle accident in this country was back in 1996.
After decades of decline, tuberculosis is making a comeback in London, according to a new report from the Greater London Assembly (GLA). More than half of all new cases of the disease are now in the capital, the GLA health committee said, and it called for more health checks to stem the rapid rise of the disease. TB kills an estimated two million worldwide each year, the World Health Organisation says. Eight million new cases of TB are reported annually and the disease costs the world economy $16 billion each year.
Challenged by Positive Nation, Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State at the Department for International Development (DfID, has denied that the government would enforce compulsory health checks for HIV on asylum seekers to the UK. “No decision has yet to be taken and it’s unwise to speculate,” he said. But immigration sources have told PN that they are already testing migrants for TB and HIV at Heathrow.
Latest statistics on visits to the UK Coalition and Positive Nation websites
reveal record numbers of people across the world using the sites. Last year
over 600,000 Positive Nation web pages were visited, over 130,000 from the
UKC website and increasing numbers are using the UKC ‘Discussion Board’.
UKC chairman Bernard Forbes said: “The record figures of people using
our websites shows that they are an essential resource of information and support
for all people living with HIV and we are going to expand our service further
in 2004.”
Visit www.ukcoalition.org
