AIDemocracy.org

Baby Steps Toward an AIDS Free World

March 6, 2013 by credmond Leave a Comment

A study presented at the 2013 Conference of Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this week described how a child in rural Mississippi diagnosed as HIV-positive at birth has been cured. The child's mother became infected with the HIV virus while she was pregnant and was unaware of her HIV-status at the time of her delivery. After her delivery, a routine HIV test on the mother indicated she was HIV-positive and tests were immediately ordered on the newborn, showing that the child too was infected. Typically, HIV-positive newborns are immediately … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less Tagged With: AIDS, Cure, HIV

Progress for HIV/AIDS

November 1, 2012 by Ali 1 Comment

“She’s one of our up-and-coming stars” Dr. Karim announced regarding Penny L Moore. No, he was not talking about an X-Factor hopeful or a budding Olympian, he was talking about a local researcher for the National Health Laboratory Service. Penny L Moore along with others in South Africa, have made great process in finding an AIDS vaccine. In the past it has been impossible to create a vaccine because the AIDS virus mutates at such a rapid rate. However, researchers in South Africa announced earlier this month that there is a vulnerable spot in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less Tagged With: AIDS, blog, disease, HIV, progress

Discrimination and stigma in healthcare for gay and bisexual men in parts of Africa

February 17, 2012 by Tiffany 2 Comments

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8008170.stm

By Billy Tsang Much of Africa’s leadership has and continues to see HIV as a heterosexual epidemic. This is not surprising, as most of Africa still deems homosexuality as illegal and punishable by law. Lane (2008) expresses that even in post-apartheid South Africa, the “only African nation with legal guarantees of equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens and highly visible gay and lesbian communities”, there has been little attention given to the HIV epidemic among men who have sex with men (MSM). Academic literature has widely … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Sex and Justice Tagged With: Africa, AIDS, discrimination, Gay RIghts, healthcare, HIV, HIV/AIDS, Homophobia, Men, MSM, Research, Sexuality, Social, Stigma

Exploring HIV/AIDS in Africa: Malawi, Namibia, and Botswana

October 27, 2011 by William Tsang Leave a Comment

I’ve recently gotten interested in HIV/AIDS in Africa, and decided to investigate some current studies on HIV prevalence, culture, and risk prevention. The following are summaries of two articles that look at Malawi, Namibia, and Botswana, as well as my take on what they mean to research on these issues more broadly. To start, it’s important to highlight the difficulty many researchers have had in conducting studies on HIV/AIDS. This is largely due to the fact that homosexuality is illegal in many parts of Africa. As you read about these, tell … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Sex and Justice Tagged With: Africa, HIV, HIV/AIDS, Issue Analyst, sexual and reproductive health, sexual health

HIV and Us: Victim of the stoppable, unstoppable disease

September 27, 2011 by Gillian Rollason Leave a Comment

Imagine if HIV were an airborne virus? Next time someone next to you on campus sneezed, you could be infected with deadly and incurable disease. And what about mosquito bites? A holiday in Thailand might not seem so appealing then…Would we have developed a cure if the problem was so easily transmitted? Or would be living in a nightmarish dystopia of quarantine and detention centres? Luckily, HIV is not airborne, and despite constant mutations in the virus it is unlikely to ever be as contagious as flu or the common cold. Perhaps just as luckily, the … [Read more...]