Positive man gets 35 years for spitting at policeman
An HIV positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Texas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.
42-year-old Willie Campbell spat at the officer during a May 2006 arrest for being drunk and disorderly.
The judge told him he would have to serve at least half of his sentence before being eligible for parole because the Dallas jury found he had used his saliva as a ‘deadly weapon’.
“This is not justice but a victory for fear, myth and prejudice,” Deborah Jack of the UK’s National AIDS Trust (NAT), reacted.
“The saliva of someone with HIV is not a deadly weapon,” Lisa Power of THT said:
“Putting someone with HIV in a situation where they cannot access condoms, treatment is poor and they may have little choice about sexual activity is a far more dangerous thing to do.”
Nine HIV positive people in the US have now been sentenced to prison terms for spitting despite conclusive evidence that saliva does not transmit the virus.

2010 International AIDS Conference will be in Vienna
The International AIDS Society (IAS) announced at end of May that the 2010 International AIDS Conference will be held in Vienna, with a special focus on the growing HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe.
Over 1.6 million in eastern Europe and central Asia now live with HIV and there were an estimated 150,000 new infections in the region in 2007.
The International AIDS Conference is the most important meeting in the global HIV calendar and this summer’s conference is being held in early August in Mexico City, with a particular focus on the growing epidemic in Latin America.
www.iasociety.org;
www.aids2008.org

‘Hepatitis now infects ten times more people than HIV’
Chronic hepatitis should be given the same global attention as HIV, TB and malaria, the World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA) said last month, after figures emerged that one in twelve people around the world is infected with either chronic hepatitis B or C.
It is estimated that over 500 million people now have Hepatitis B or C and 1.5 million people die every year from hepatitis disease, the Alliance said last month.
350 million people worldwide are infected with the hepatitis B virus, for which there is an effective vaccine and a further 150 million are infected with hepatitis C for which treatments and a possible cure is possible for as much as 80 per cent of patients.
“There is a serious lack of awareness and political will to tackle these diseases,” Charles Gore, president of the WHA told a World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting in May.
“We need to give these diseases the same visibility as for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.”

China detains more HIV activists
Chinese police have detained eight more people who tried to protest to Premier Wen Jiabao about a hospital whose blood transfusions they blame for spreading HIV among them and their families.
Police detained 11 people who tried to petition the premier when he visited Hebei province in April.
A blood born epidemic of HIV has spread through rural China, especially in Henan province, where HIV has spread rapidly via unhygienic commercial blood collection businesses and hospitals failing to check blood supplies.
HIV activists and their lawyers have faced arrest and harassment for raising the issue in the media over the past few years and there appears to be a harsher clampdown on any protests in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics in August.

Japan awards Kenyan and Briton new Africa health prize
A Kenyan women and a Manchester professor have both been awarded a prestigious new Japanese medical award for their work on HIV and malaria.
Emperor Akihito presented the new Hideo Noguchi award to Miriam Were, who heads Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council, and to Professor Brian Greenwood, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in front of 40 African heads of state in Yokohama at the end of May.
Under Were’s leadership, new HIV infections in Kenya were reduced by more than a half between 2000 and 2006, the prize statement said.
Professor Greenwood, originally from Manchester, led the first clinical tests that proved that malaria deaths among children could be reduced by the use of mosquito nets treated with insecticide.
He now trains other scientists in Africa and heads the Gates Malaria Partnership.
The Noguchi prize is named after esteemed Japanese scientist Hideo Noguchi who is best known for discovering the agent of syphilis and for appearing on the country’s 1,000 yen note.

AIDS 2008
The XVII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2008) is to be held in México City from 3-8 August 2008. The conference theme - Universal Action Now - emphasizes the need for continued urgency in the worldwide response to HIV/AIDS, and for action on the part of all stakeholders at the global, national, regional and local levels. The theme serves as a rallying call, reminding us that it is only through individual and collective action that we will reach the goals of ensuring universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010, and eliminating HIV stigma and discrimination.
Universal Action Now is also
an important reminder that the HIV/AIDS epidemic does not exist in a vacuum.4
Strengthening health care systems in developing countries and addressing underlying social injustices that contribute to HIV risk and vulnerability -- such as poverty, gender inequality and homophobia – are essential strategies in the global response to HIV.

South African HIV positive soldiers sue government
A trade union representing South Africa’s military is taking the country’s defence ministry to court, accusing it of discriminating against people living with HIV.
The South African Security Forces Union (SASFU) says people with HIV are not recruited, and if they become soldiers, are refused promotion.
An estimated 11 per cent of the South African population and 35 per cent of the army are HIV positive.
The country’s defence ministry responded by saying that people with HIV, “could not withstand difficult missions.”
SASFU’s Charles Jacobs said there was a now a policy of mandatory testing for South Africa’s military and recruits and denying those with HIV the chance to serve abroad was unconstitutional.
South African troops serve as UN or African Union peacekeepers in several foreign countries but the AIDS Law Project said arguments that people with HIV could not do strenuous jobs were a “lame excuse.”

‘Russia not ready for tough HIV prevention’
Russia is not ready to implement measures such as methadone replacement therapy for drug users to stem the tide of new HIV infections, according to the country’s chief public health officer Gennady Onishchenko.
As many as 80 per cent of Russia’s estimated 1.6 million HIV positive people acquired the virus through dirty needles and studies around the world have shown that injecting users who switch to methadone are up to five times less likely to contract HIV.
Onishchenko said that uninformed Russians have little patience for drug users, preferring to imprison or ostracise them, rather than address their needs.
Russia has pledged 9.3 billion roubles (US$400million) to fight HIV in 2009, more than 20 times the amount spent in 2005.
Russia’s heroin problems stem from the vast country’s location as a trafficking route between opium producing Afghanistan and Europe, AP reported.