March 2006 - News Archive

Trends in HIV-1 in young adults in south India from 2000 to 2004: a prevalence study

Major increases in HIV-1 prevalence in India have been predicted. Incident infections need to be tracked to understand the epidemic's course, especially in some southern states of India where the epidemic is more advanced. To estimate incidence, we investigated the prevalence of HIV-1 in young people attending antenatal and sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinics in India.

The women with India's toughest job

March 28, 2006: "Sujatha Rao has the toughest job in India after the prime minister," Asia Society Chairman Richard C Holbrooke had said while introducing the additional secretary and Director General, National AIDS Control Association at a discussion on HIV/AIDS in India last week. The National AIDS Control Association or NACO is the government's nodal organiation to combat the spread of AIDS.

Call for Documentaries on the Theme of HIV/AIDS

By: Internews Europe / formedia, India / Deutsche Welle Akademie, Germany in partnership with Public Service Broadcasting Trust under the European Union-India Economic Cross Cultural Programme

Donate blood, know your HIV status

NEW DELHI (28 March 2006): So far you have been donating blood without knowing your HIV status. But that is changing. In a change of policy, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) now wants blood banks to call up donors and tell them about their HIV status, if found positive.

Nine million children made motherless by AIDS

Nine million children in Africa will spend Mother's Day this year with no one to cherish because they have lost their mothers to AIDS, according to a British charity.

Should HIV testing be mandatory before marriage? Yes: Dayanand Narvekar, Health Minister, Goa

Mandatory testing of couples planning to tie the knot is the only way we can stall the menace of HIV from spreading in India. Every day, we get new cases of women who test HIV-positive just months after their wedding, thanks to an HIV-positive husband who passes on the disease to the hapless wife.

Military, civilian doctors to discuss pandemic flu, HIV /AIDS

New Delhi, March 26, 2006 (PTI): There is much more to the army than fighting war, braving disasters and controlling riots. It is also the source of many pioneering researches in HIV/AIDS, pandemic flu, diseases in high altitude areas and other fields.

Defeated by AIDS: Time to Make the Campaign Effective (Goa)

(March 9,2006): The phenomenon of AIDS spreading from coastal parts to the hinterland of Goa is proof both of continuing indiscretion in pleasure-seeking in society and lack of effectiveness of government and non-governmental campaign to curb it.

Chandigarh: Thousands rally for a cause

Chandigarh (March 22): Thousands of people from all walks of life, many infected with HIV, took to the streets here today to spread awareness about the dreaded disease. Joined under the banner of most city-based NGOs working with AIDS patients and the Chandigarh Aids Control Society, the volunteers marched through various sectors, starting at City Centre in Sector 17 and terminating their awareness drive on the Panjab University campus.

Irresponsible Behaviour? Failed Strategy? Lesson/s Learned?

New Delhi (23 March 2006): On 21st March 2006, The Times of India, a daily newspaper has carried the story that 29-year-old Jhanvi Goswami living with HIV/AIDS for 12 years was denied ticket to contest election.

Passport mystery of HIV worker

A LABOURER infected with HIV may need to wait a little longer before he is sent home to India. Without a passport or a CPR card, Indian Embassy officials say they cannot start processing Muthanna Poshanna's emergency travel documents without any proof of nationality.

HIV positive staff get negative treatment at the workplace

March 13, 2006): HIV positives are getting a raw deal from Indian corporates. In the recent past at least a dozen complaints of discrimination at workplace on the basis of the employee's HIV status have been registered at the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS). The complaints mainly pertain to various discriminatory measures adopted against these HIV positives even from multinationals that are governed by global policies.

Goa: HIV test mandatory for registration of marriage

PANAJI: Goa may soon become the first state in the country to make HIV test mandatory for registration of marriage. At a Cabinet meeting on Friday, the state government decided to amend the Goa Public Health Act to make such a test compulsory.

HIV/AIDS spreading to interior talukas

Mapusa Feb 6: While the coastal talukas of Goa continue to have a high prevalence of HIV, it is the rising incidence of HIV in the remote talukas that is worrying authorities in the state.

Manufacture of AIDS drug outsourced to Pune

BS Corporate Bureau | February 17, 2006: The US drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb & Company has signed an outsourcing agreement with the Pune-based Emcure Pharma to manufacture and supply its latest HIV/AIDS drug in India.

Posting, Access denied to crucial New HIV/AIDS medicines

Lagos/Berlin/New York - March 15, 2006 - People living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries can't get new and/or improved drugs that can make a critical difference, says the medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders [MSF]. MSF said that it refuses to accept the standard practice of drug companies to market less adapted drugs to African, Asian and Latin American countries while reserving improved or newly developed drugs for countries that can pay more. For this reason MSF is placing an order directly with the worldwide headquarters of Abbott Laboratories in Chicago for a new heat stable version of the drug called lopinavir/ritonavir, which the company right now only sells in the US at a price of US$9,687 (average wholesale price per patient per year).

ARV drugs should be available to common man: workshop

PANJIM, MARCH 18 – Anti-Retroviral Therapy is listed to be one way to combat HIV/AIDS but high costs of the Anti Retro Viral (ARV) drugs is known to have limited patients from accessing these drugs.

Sex slavery to deliver male babies--another vehicle for HIV spread to women

"Jharkhand girls sold in Haryana, Punjab for bearing babies" Tribal girls from Jharkhand are being sold by an organised racket of traffickers in the northern states like Haryana and Punjab where they are forced into sex and abortions till they deliver male babies. The horrifying stories of the Jharkhand girls, who were even killed for resisting the sexual slavery, were confirmed to IANS by the state social welfare department.

I was denied Congress ticket: HIV-positive woman

Guwahati, March 15: An HIV-positive woman in Assam on Wednesday said the stigma attached to the disease has cost her a ruling Congress party ticket to fight next month's assembly elections

Minister hears sex workers' views on ITPA Amendments

On Friday, 3rd March 2006, a day that marks solidarity for Sex Workers’ Rights, Minister for Women and Child Development (WCD) – Renuka Chowdhary dialogued with over 40 sex workers from different parts of the country on the proposed law that threatens their very livelihood. After protesting their non-inclusion in the amendment process last year, sex workers finally got an audience with the WCD Minister.

Traditional healers with claims of HIV/AIDS cure may get validation help

New Delhi (February 13, 2006): The alternative medicine practitioners of the country who are confident of offering cure for HIV/AIDS may get a major boost if an international model (Tanga Pilot Project) of scientific validation of traditional therapies gets replicated within the country. Since Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is an integral part of the Global Research Alliance (GRA), that is undertaking this validation process, alternative (indigenous) methods of AIDS treatment or management may get an official recognition if found scientifically effective.

PM suggests formulation of state specific strategies for combating AIDS

New Delhi (February 25): The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has suggested setting up of a working group to devise effective state specific strategies to combat AIDS in the country. He said that the smaller group would help in establishing a partnership between ministries to contain this malady.

Indo-US Corporate Fund for HIV / AIDS planned

India and the United States have expressed desire to launch joint programmes to combat HIV/AIDS at the global level and encourage greater corporate participation to meet this challenge, including the establishment of the Indo-US Corporate Fund for HIV/AIDS. The Indo-US statement, agreed upon by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush here, also talked about the bilateral agreement to expand efforts and continue cooperation in the area of medical research and strengthen technical capacity in food and drug regulation in India.

Merck reduces price of efavirenz drug

Whitehouse Station, N.J (March 13, 2006): Merck reduces price of efavirenz drug for patients in least developed countries

Union Budget allocations for HIV/AIDS

Indian Government recognizes AIDS crisis, provides hard soft sops in the Union Budget 2006

Bahrain: HIV worker to go home

INDIAN Embassy officials have begun drawing up emergency travel documents for an Indian labourer with HIV after a search for his Bahraini sponsor proved unsuccessful. Muthanna Poshanna, who is unaware he has the virus that causes Aids, hopes to be reunited with his family whom he has not seen in over 15 years.

After militancy, AIDS scare rocks the Valley

SRINAGAR (March 14, 2006): The deadly Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has spread to Jammu and Kashmir as well. The state has 745 HIV positive cases, including 95 full-blown AIDS patients.

Sex, Money and Power In India

For women in developing countries, economic opportunity and sexual independence are supposed to go hand in hand. So why has India--the world's second fastest growing economy, after China--been unable to control the spread of its HIV/AIDS cases, which have ballooned to 5 million, more than in any other nation? The answer, says Suneeta Krishnan, 35, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, is that in India, "economic freedom stops at the bedroom door."

Sex workers stage national protest for Rights

In what could be described as an unparalleled step to reclaim rights, over 4,000 female, male and transgender sex workers from across the country converged in New Delhi on 8th March 2006 to oppose the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2005 and demand their rights.

AIDS in India: police powers and public health

Volume 367, Issue 9513 , 11 March 2006-17 March 2006 (Pages 805-806. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736 (06)68319-0): Clashing priorities between India's police force, which wants to crack down on illegal sexual behaviour, and health workers, who promote safe sex to high-risk groups, are threatening to undermine the country's fight against AIDS. Patralekha Chatterjee reports from Lucknow and Delhi.

'Youth in 15-30 age group more prone to AIDS'

Nagpur - 28th February 2006: The valedictory function 'Surkahsit Jawan' - an AIDS awareness and prevention programme among youth, launched by Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was recently held at Civil Lines, Nagpur

Use AIDS Tests not Astrology, Indian HIV Activist Tells Would-Be Couples

Agence France Presse 5 March 2006: Activist Jahnabi Goswami will run for office in state elections to be held next month in Assam on a platform that promotes regular HIV tests, particularly among young betrothed couples. The ruling Congress Party is backing Goswami, billing her as the first HIV-positive person to contest an election in the northeastern state where HIV/AIDS is rife, primarily due to drug use.

Ridiculous changes in prostitution law

March 09, 2006: In my mailbox arrived the usual invitations for International Women's Day and the several morchas that it brings with it.

A Nation of Guinea Pigs

There's a new outsourcing boom in South Asia - and a billion people are jockeying for the jobs. How India became the global hot spot for drug trials.

40 per cent of India's AIDS patients are women

[Friday, March 03,IANS]NEW DELHI: Comprising 40 per cent of India's HIV infected population, women in the country are gradually becoming more susceptible to the disease, UN experts said here on Friday.

Congress (I) mulls over Jahnabi's Candidature for Assam Elections

March 5, 2006: Jahnabi Goswami, the star campaigner for the cause of people living with HIV/AIDS in North East, is beckoned to shoulder political responsibilities in Assam.

Call for a strategy to combat AIDS

The Indian Express, Hyderabad (February 24, 2006): - The 9th National Convention of Indian Network of NGOs on HIV/AIDS (INN) held in the city of Hyderabad, stressed on the comprehensive prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV+ve people.

Agonizing wait for ARV drugs

The Indian Express (February 23, 2006): For more than 50,000 AIDS patients in the State [Andhra Pradesh] who are in need of the life saving anti-retroviral drugs (ARV), the painful wait seems endless. The Delhi-based National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) couldn’t fulfill it’s promise of supplying ARV drugs to 50% of those who need it to stay alive.

India's High Stakes AIDS Fight

MUMBAI, India, March 2, 2006: (CBS) CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports on the struggle to curb India's AIDS epidemic in part three of a special series, India: Land of Contrasts.

HIV/AIDS and Siddha System of Health Care

HIV/AIDS and Siddha System of Health Care - an experience of 13 years

HIV/AIDS Policy of Roman Catholic Church in India

Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) a watch dog body of the Catholic Church in India has brought out the Church's policy on HIV/AIDS

Gulf bridegrooms asked to undergo HIV tests

Dubai, Feb 12 (Bureau Report): With AIDS cases touching epidemic proportions, parents of marriageable girls seeking alliances with NRIs settled in the Gulf are increasingly asking the prospective bridegrooms to undergo HIV tests.

Affordable Reagent Kit to monitor CD4/CD8 T cells

ReaMetrix India develops affordable reagent kit to monitor CD4/CD8 T cells in HIV positive patients

Are the Muslim countries safe from upcoming AIDS epidemic?

HIV/AIDS is not just a health issue for the human society. It is social, economical, developmental, ethical and psychological problems. Some of Muslim policy makers, Religious leaders, members of civil societies are confident regarding spread of HIV virus because they think Muslim communities moral character is better than that of other non-Muslim nation. (Md.Alauddin, Ex-Procurement Specialist, HAPP)

Clinton Foundation to Train Nurses in HIV/AIDS Care

Announcement of Plan to Train Nurses in HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Across India

Marraige of PLWHA on Valentine Day in Gujarat

Gujarat State Network Of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GSNP+) is the state level network of PLWHA in Gujarat. The network was formed in 6th February 2003 in Surat and at present it is working in the various districts of Gujarat through District Level Networks.