Monitoring UNGASS-AIDS Goals in Sexual and Reproductive Health

On June 8th and 9th, the UNGASS Forum South Africa was held in Cape Town. The goal of the forum was to begin a consolidation of an international advocacy push on women’s sexual reproductive health (SRH). The forum’s aims to strengthen awareness and encourage action on the community, national, regional, and global levels. The mobilizing social movements, HIV/AIDS donors, governments and UN agencies, the intended efforts for 2009 will focus on Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Nicaragua, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine and Uruguay.

African Activists Call on Leaders at the 2009 World Economic Forum on Africa to Prioritise Health Financing

On the 10th of June, 2009 TAC held a press conference that marked the beginning of our Resources for Health Campaign. Speakers at the press conference included Rebecca Hodes from the Treatment Action Campaign, Paula Akugizibwe from ARASA and Albert van Zyl from the International Budget Partnership. The press conference was held simultaneously to the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Cape Town. The press conference highlights demands from a coalition of African HIV and TB activists that the regions leaders guarantee the right to health, ensure that it is financed as a priority, and mobilize the additional resources needed to secure universal access to TB/HIV prevention, treatment and care.

Shock at archbishop condom claim

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

The Catholic Church formally opposes any use of condoms, advising fidelity within marriage or sexual abstinence.

Aids activists have been angered by the remarks, one calling them "nonsense".

"We've been using condoms for years now, and we still find them safe," prominent Mozambican Aids activist Marcella Mahanjane told the BBC.

The UN says anti-retrovirals (ARVs) have proved very effective for treating people with Aids. The drugs are not a cure, but attack the virus on several fronts at once.

The BBC's Jose Tembe in the capital, Maputo, says it is estimated that 16.2% of Mozambique's 19m inhabitants are HIV positive.

About 500 people are infected every day.

'Serious matter'

Archbishop Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.

Condoms are one of the best manners of getting protection against catching Aids Aids activist Gabe Judas

"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries.

Sex, Aids and Skeleton…

Guillermo Vega’s Portfolio is a very cool portofolio.A very funny work on a dramatic subject : AIDS

The name of this project is Skeleton

Who is Guillermo:

Guillermo was appointed General Creative Director of Y&R Argentina in early 2004. He studied Graphic Design in UBA and started his ad career in Verdino Bates as Art Director, jr. Later he worked in Agulla & Baccetti and in 1997 joined Y&R. After a short time in Vega Olmos Ponce, he re-joined Y&R in 1999 as Art Director where whithin a year, he was appointed Creative Director.

Tags: aids, condom, guillermo, sex, sexy man, sexy photo, sexy skeleton, vega, y&r

AIDS awareness: The Joy of Non Sex

Description
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Ogilvy EAME London

Leading global advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather has created four hard-hitting ads to boost AIDS awareness. The 45 and 60 second spots are aimed at young people and are designed to provoke debate as well as getting the target audience to think about the potentially fatal consequences of unprotected sex.

Two of the executions, "Shot" and "The Joy of Non-Sex", were produced by Ogilvy London (in conjunction with Stink and Rokkit respectively); the third, "You and Me Baby", was produced by Ogilvy Amsterdam and the fourth Ex Partners was produced by Ogilvy Frankfurt. The ads demonstrated the strengths of Ogilvy's network, with different offices across Europe - London, Lisbon, Moscow, Frankfurt and Amsterdam collaborating on scripts, development and execution.

All four will be shown on MTV on World AIDS Day.


Creative Commentary
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A quote from Paul Smith:
The Joy of Non Sex is based on a series of films from the 70's that advertised the 'part work' magazine 'The Joy of Sex'. Its a fun way to demonstrate that you don't have to abstain from sex because of the Aids pandemic but by using a condom you can protect yourself and your partner from the transmission of the disease.

The Status of HIV in South Africa

Here are some facts about HIV and AIDS in South Africa:

• the most current estimate is that 5.5 million people are living with HIV, which represents about 12 percent of the population
• one in four people age 15 to 49 years is infected with HIV
• over 1,700 AIDS related deaths each day
• currently it is estimated that there are 600,000 orphaned children as a result of AIDS
• a survey done in 2004 reported that South African citizens spend more time at funerals than weddings, haircuts, or grocery shopping

The History of HIV in South Africa

The HIV/AIDS epidemic emerged in South African around 1982. However, the country was in the midst of the racial horrors of apartheid, so the HIV problem was for the most part ignored. Silently, while political unrest dominated the media, HIV began to take hold, primarily in the gay community.

Quickly, the disease spread outside of the gay population and by 1991 the heterosexual transmission rate equaled the rate of new infections among men who have sex with men (MSM). By the mid-1990s, HIV rates had increased by 60 percent, yet the government was still slow in its response to what was becoming a public health disaster.

Finally, in 2000 the South African Department of Health outlined a five-year HIV/AIDS plan, but got little support from South African President Thabo Mbeki. After consulting a group of HIV denialists headed by Dr. Peter Duesberg, Mbeki rejected conventional HIV science and instead blamed the growing AIDS epidemic on poverty.

Without government support, the five-year plan did not get off the ground. In the meantime, HIV among pregnant South African women soared from eight-tenths of one percent in 1990 to 30 percent 10 years later.

It was obvious that without political support, prevention efforts had a difficult time gaining a foothold. Even when the South African government gave in to worldwide pressure and established a plan that would make HIV medications publicly available, the government response was slow and inadequate.

By 2005, the extent of publicly available HIV medications were drastically behind goals set forth in 2003. Today, HIV experts around the world believe that a combination of political unrest, poor government support and political denial has fueled the public health disaster in South Africa.

The New Apartheid

From 1948 to 1992, South Africa’s white minority government sanctioned discrimination based on race and economic status. This policy, known as apartheid, still exists today, but not as the world has come to know it.

For the vast majority of HIV-infected people, poverty is a cruel reality. Their only resort for health care is the government-sponsored public health sector. Unfortunately, public health care resources are scarce. There is little or no access to quality medical care, HIV testing, or, most importantly, HIV medications.

The rich and those who are better educated get the best medical care including HIV medications they need to stay healthy. So while political apartheid has officially ended, an AIDS apartheid remains and the poor are paying the price.

HIV and AIDS in Africa

The news is sobering. In fact it is down right frightening. A report from the United Nations says that AIDS will kill half of all 15 year olds in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa by 2012 if something is not done soon. The report goes on to say that about 24 million people in Sub-Sahara Africa are living with HIV. So why is the epidemic raging out of control in Africa and other undeveloped countries? Several factors are contributing to this tragedy.

2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic

UNAIDS publishes a new "Report on the global AIDS epidemic" every two years. The Report draws upon and publishes the best available data from countries and provides an overview and commentary on the epidemic and the international response.

HIV/AIDS Causes

Most commonly, hiv infection by having sex with an infected partner infectious. The virus enter the body through the lining of whois quality, genital, penis, anus or mouth during sex. Although AIDS cases occurred early in the mostly male homosexuality in the United States than in most of the recent new cases of heterosexual population.

It also spreads through contact with hiv * polluted infected through transfusion of blood or blood and blood components.

The spread among injecting drug users * hiv often share needles or syringes with an infected person from polluted blood.

* Women to be transferred to suit their hiv 2006 babies during pregnancy or childbirth.

* The virus does not spread through the sharing of food, including casual contact, utensils, towels, bedding, swimming pools, telephones, toilets or retired. Additionally, the virus is not infectious chimeulgwaui contacted by the sign.

* Sexually Transmitted Diseases are already people such as syphilis, herpes genitals, chlamydial infection, gonorrhea, or bacterial vaginosis, hiv infection are more likely to gather during sex with an infected partner.

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Antique Condom Scandal Rocks L.A. Elementary School

August 21, 2028 — A Los Angeles elementary school teacher has been suspended after allowing her students to play with antique condoms that were found buried in a time capsule on school grounds.

Several parents of 4th-graders at Encino Elementary School are demanding the teacher, Zoanne Kluliss, 22, be fired. Superintendent Howard Dufas said the matter is under review.

Parents arrived to pick up their children on Monday and found them blowing up condoms and playing with them like party balloons.

“They seemed especially intrigued by the ribbed kind,” said Priscilla Tate, whose daughter, Amelia, is a student in the class.

Zoanne Kluliss, the teacher, said she decided to have the class dig up the time capsule after discovering a note about its whereabouts buried in her classroom desk. According to the note, the 4th grade class of 2008 had buried the capsule to help a future generation lead better lives.

Dufas said he later uncovered an old news article about the project, and learned that the students had picked the disease AIDS as the theme of the capsule. According to the story, published in Sir Satire’s New World Order News Service, the children wanted to tell the next generation to be careful to avoid the disease, and to remember those who died from the illness. In addition to a box of condoms, which was controversial with parents at the time, the capsule contained a red ribbon with the single word “AIDS” on it.

Kluliss, 22, graduated in May from the University of California-Santa Barbara, and had just started her first day of teaching on Monday. Dufas said Kluliss told him she had heard passing references to AIDS and condoms when she was a child, but had never learned what the terms meant.

“Ms. Kluliss has told us she thought the bright-red ribbon and the balloon-like items were just old party supplies,” Dufas said. “She assumed the word “AIDS” meant party aids.”

But parents aren’t accepting her ignorance as an excuse.

“I don’t think she can be trusted,” Tate said. “For all I know, I’ll come to pick my daughter up tomorrow and find her playing with a vibrator.”

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World AIDS day 2007

The theme on a global level for the World AIDS Day 2007 focuses on leadership – this is also the theme for the World AIDS Campaign.

At the European level Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has invited European Health Ministers to join him in a pan-European effort to spread common messages on prevention and increasing the awareness and knowledge about HIV/AIDS among young Europeans. He invited ministers to visit schools schools in their countries in the period around World AIDS Day. The Commissioner himself is visiting a school in Cyprus on November, 30, where he presents the new EC produced TV-spot promoting the use of condoms and safer sex and have a discussion with students on HIV/AIDS.

The first World AIDS Day was declared in 1 December 1988 by the World Health Organisation. Since that it has been one of the world's most successful commemorative days and is now celebrated around the world. During this day the progress made in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic is celebrated and at the same time the challenges ahead can be brought into the focus.

According the recent UNAIDS estimates about 33 million people are living with HIV globally. Estimated 2.5 million new infections occurred in 2007. For the 23 EU countries with data available the number of newly reported HIV infections by the end of 2005 amounts to 23 600 cases. In the EU HIV infections through heterosexual sex and among homo-and bisexual men is increasing. In the neighbouring countries the number of newly reported cases is still increasing, in particular in Ukraine. The Russian Federation has, however, the largest epidemic in Europe with almost 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In neighbouring countries injecting drug use is still the main source of transmission but as most of the infected are young and sexually active the proposal of infections through heterosexual contacts is steadily increasing.

Aids Statement from the National Institutes

Health on World AIDS Day

NIH Announces First World AIDS Day Awards

December 1 marks World AIDS Day, a time to reflect on how HIV/AIDS has changed our world and an opportunity to recommit our efforts to making a difference. “The Promise of Partnerships,” the theme adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services, reminds us how each of us must play a critical role in the fight against HIV/AIDS, whether as a policymaker, scientist, clinician, volunteer, community advocate, student, teacher, caregiver, person living with HIV infection, family member or friend.

The AIDS pandemic has no boundaries, affecting nearly every country around the globe. Worldwide, an estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV, including 2.3 million children. In 2006 alone, a staggering 4.3 million people were newly infected. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 95 percent of infected people reside in developing countries.

“HIV/AIDS continues to ravage American communities and societies around the world. NIH has made the largest public investment in AIDS research in the world, and we are committed to leading the biomedical research effort to fight this modern-day plague,” says National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D.

The NIH investment in this area of research began 25 years ago, when the first cases of what is now known as AIDS were reported in the United States. NIH supports a comprehensive program of basic, clinical and behavioral research on HIV infection, HIV-associated opportunistic infections, common coinfections, malignancies and other complications. This represents a unique and complex trans-NIH, multidisciplinary global research effort with the ultimate goals of better understanding the basic biology of HIV, developing effective therapies to treat and control HIV disease, and designing interventions to prevent new infections. Coordinated by the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR), the NIH AIDS research program encompasses nearly all of the NIH Institutes and Centers.

An important focus of NIH AIDS research is HIV vaccine development, for which NIH funding more than doubled from $232 million in FY 2000 to $602 million in 2006.

“An HIV vaccine is our best hope for slowing and ultimately ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “With our many partners and collaborators, we are designing and testing numerous novel vaccine approaches that are beginning to show promise.”

This year, NIH launched a new campaign called “Be The Generation,” challenging young Americans to become informed about HIV vaccine research and to support those that volunteer for AIDS vaccine clinical trials. By doing so they can be the generation that ends AIDS through the discovery of a safe and effective preventive HIV vaccine (see www.bethegeneration.org).

While researchers search for a vaccine, scientists also continue to identify new and better drugs that have fewer complications. They are studying how best to use those drugs and finding ways to make taking them more convenient. Drug development remains an important area of research because drug resistance can potentially limit treatment options for people infected with HIV, and long-term antiretroviral treatment can lead to a number of serious clinical complications.

Scientists are also focusing their efforts on developing innovative prevention strategies such as topical microbicides to help reduce the number of new infections. Topical microbicides—creams, gels or other substances designed to allow women to protect themselves against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections—hold great promise as a strategy for preventing future HIV infections and AIDS-related complications.

On World AIDS Day, HHS is launching www.AIDS.gov, the new Internet gateway to federal HIV/AIDS information. It will guide users to information on prevention, testing, treatment and research programs, and to federal HIV/AIDS policies and resources.

NIH World AIDS Day Awards

This year, the OAR and NIAID sponsored a novel employee recognition award, the NIH World AIDS Day Awards. The awards will be given each year to NIH scientists and managers who have made exceptional contributions to the AIDS research efforts at NIH—either for original scientific research or for programmatic support for research. After a highly competitive process, the following individuals received this prestigious new NIH award:

• Edward Berger, Ph.D., of NIAID—for his outstanding achievements, groundbreaking discoveries and innovative and original scientific contributions that have advanced AIDS research. Dr. Berger published a landmark paper using a novel method to discover the first HIV coreceptor [cell surface protein HIV needs, in addition to its primary receptor, to connect to and infect immune cells] (fusin, renamed CXCR4), which directly led his and other groups to identify CCR5 as the other major coreceptor. These studies provided entirely new perspectives for understanding how HIV evolves within the body during initial virus transmission, asymptomatic infection and disease progression. The findings continue to be translated into the development of new antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV-infected people, as well as new strategies for designing vaccines and microbicides to prevent infection.
• A joint award to Robert Yarchoan, M.D. and Hiroaki Mitsuya, M.D., Ph.D. of the National Cancer Institute—for their individual and combined achievements, groundbreaking discoveries and innovative and original scientific contributions that have significantly advanced HIV treatment research. Their landmark clinical studies, demonstrating that AZT could result in partial restoration of the immune response and temporary clinical benefit, established the first treatment for HIV infection and launched the era of effective therapy for HIV/AIDS. Their work significantly advanced this field, directly impacting on the development of new and better strategies to prevent and treat HIV disease in this country and around the world.
• Lynne Mofenson, M.D., of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development—in recognition of her outstanding contributions supporting HIV/AIDS research and programs. Dr. Mofenson’s dedication and unprecedented efforts significantly contributed to the development of safe and effective treatments for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and the treatment of maternal and pediatric AIDS in this country and around the world.

“These awards demonstrate the NIH commitment to supporting a multifaceted research effort in HIV/AIDS, with the goal of fostering the best minds to work together to develop new medical tools to stop the devastating effects of the disease around the world,” says Jack Whitescarver, Ph.D., NIH Associate Director for AIDS Research and Director of the OAR.

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The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)—The Nation's Medical Research Agency—includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on basic immunology, transplantation and immune-related disorders, including autoimmune diseases, asthma and allergies.

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Second Life World AIDS Day

Second Life Celebrates World AIDS Day with New Island

Press kit

Thanks to a generous contract from the National Library of Medicine and the tremendous support of the Alliance Library System as project administrator, a brand new island dedicated to HIV/AIDS education, outreach, and support will open in Second Life on December 1 - World AIDS Day, 2008.

Please join us at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Karuna/60/106/26
Note that the island will be open to the public on that day.

Christened Karuna, a word taken from an early Indo-Aryan language, the name of the island embodies the desire to remove harm and suffering, and to bring about the well-being and happiness of others.

Karuna team members include AIDS/HIV support group leaders as well as AIDS content information experts and educators, ensuring that the best, most recent, evidence-based information is available. The project objective is to empower individuals in healthcare decision making. Through this project, one-to-one health information reference services are provided by experienced medical and consumer health librarians.

In addition to providing infomation resources, support, and networking opportunities, Karuna is built around a Garden of Experience, where the experiences of those dealing with HIV/AIDS will be shared in a variety of formats including poetry, photos, music, and video. For more information about this project, see http://www.karunasl.info.

We are proud to be working with other organizations in this effort, including AIDS.gov, the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS research, Community Outreach, Dissemination, and Education Office (CFAR), and most recently, by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Together, we work to ensure that the idea of community is foremost. Individuals are at the heart of Karuna, and it is through sharing tales and human connections that we find our best selves.