Although syphilis is a curable disease, an infected person who does not seek treatment risks serious long term damage, including serious damage to the nervous system, heart, brain, or other organs, and death may result.
Recently in the Pennsylvania city of Philadelphia there has been a spike in the number of syphilis cases - infectious syphilis rose 45 percent in the city last year. Sharp cuts in state funding to Philadelphia for HIV/AIDS are presenting a challenge to public-health workers tasked with preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. A 34 percent cut in state HIV funding for the city beginning July 1 - some of the money is already gone - could hamper efforts in Philadelphia, home to more than half the HIV patients in Pennsylvania. The $2 million was used for HIV testing and prevention in minority communities, which have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases nationwide. It would have covered tests for an estimated 8,000 people next year, and prevention and risk-reduction services for 4,000.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
UN warns HIV/Aids leading cause of death in women
UN programme on HIV/Aids says HIV has become the leading cause of death and disease among women of reproductive age worldwide.
UNAIDS reported at a ten-day conference in New York that up to 70% of women worldwide have been forced to have unprotected sex. This is one of the key issues in the development programme's new five-year action plan addressing the gender issues which put women at risk. UNAIDS says such violence against women must not be tolerated. The programme - which will include improving data collection and analysis of how the epidemic affects women, and ensuring the issue of violence against women is integrated into HIV prevention programmes - will be rolled out in countries including Liberia.
UNAIDS warns that, nearly 30 years from the beginning of the epidemic, HIV services do not respond to the specific needs of women and girls. In sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of those living with HIV are women and in Southern Africa, for example, young women are about three times as likely to be infected with HIV than young men of the same age.
By robbing them of their dignity, we are losing the opportunity to tap half the potential of mankind to achieve the Millennium Development Goals," said Executive Director Michel Sidibe. "Women and girls are not victims, they are the driving force that brings about social transformation."
UNAIDS reported at a ten-day conference in New York that up to 70% of women worldwide have been forced to have unprotected sex. This is one of the key issues in the development programme's new five-year action plan addressing the gender issues which put women at risk. UNAIDS says such violence against women must not be tolerated. The programme - which will include improving data collection and analysis of how the epidemic affects women, and ensuring the issue of violence against women is integrated into HIV prevention programmes - will be rolled out in countries including Liberia.
UNAIDS warns that, nearly 30 years from the beginning of the epidemic, HIV services do not respond to the specific needs of women and girls. In sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of those living with HIV are women and in Southern Africa, for example, young women are about three times as likely to be infected with HIV than young men of the same age.
By robbing them of their dignity, we are losing the opportunity to tap half the potential of mankind to achieve the Millennium Development Goals," said Executive Director Michel Sidibe. "Women and girls are not victims, they are the driving force that brings about social transformation."
Monday, March 1, 2010
Failure to aid drug users drives HIV spread, says study
LONDON (Reuters) - More than 90 percent of the world's 16 million injecting drug users are offered no help to avoid contracting AIDS, and governments that ignore them risk a spiraling public health crisis, drugs experts said on Monday.
67 people per 10,000 exposures to an infected source make up the estimated HIV/AIDS infections. UNAIDS estimates that around 30 per cent of HIV transmission outside sub-Saharan Africa is driven by unsafe injecting practices. Of the estimated 16 million injecting drug users worldwide, 3 million are thought to be HIV-positive, and drug users are thought to account for 10 percent of all those living with HIV.
Injecting drug use is an increasingly important cause of HIV transmission in many countries around the world. Users can spread the virus in blood by sharing needles with an HIV-infected person, and pass it on by having unprotected sex. The recent study shows a "critical health problem" is growing in places like Russia, China, Malaysia and Thailand, they said, where drug users are a neglected population in the fight against AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it. In Russia, for example, around a million injecting drug users are living with HIV and some 65 percent of new HIV infections there are thought to come from injections.
Gerry Stimson, director of the International Harm Reduction Association, accused such states of "playing politics with people's lives" and said millions were at risk as a result. "HIV prevention treatment and care services for injecting drug users are clinically effective, but to exert a population-level effect they need to be delivered to scale," the study wrote . The current level is "not sufficient to prevent, halt or turn around the HIV epidemic among this at-risk population."
Don Des Jarlais of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York said the poor coverage suggested some authorities should work to bring their policies "in line with scientific evidence." "Long-term sustained efforts to protect the health of individuals who use both licit and illicit drugs might require that policy makers acquire a basic scientific understanding of drug use and addiction," he wrote.
67 people per 10,000 exposures to an infected source make up the estimated HIV/AIDS infections. UNAIDS estimates that around 30 per cent of HIV transmission outside sub-Saharan Africa is driven by unsafe injecting practices. Of the estimated 16 million injecting drug users worldwide, 3 million are thought to be HIV-positive, and drug users are thought to account for 10 percent of all those living with HIV.
Injecting drug use is an increasingly important cause of HIV transmission in many countries around the world. Users can spread the virus in blood by sharing needles with an HIV-infected person, and pass it on by having unprotected sex. The recent study shows a "critical health problem" is growing in places like Russia, China, Malaysia and Thailand, they said, where drug users are a neglected population in the fight against AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it. In Russia, for example, around a million injecting drug users are living with HIV and some 65 percent of new HIV infections there are thought to come from injections.
Gerry Stimson, director of the International Harm Reduction Association, accused such states of "playing politics with people's lives" and said millions were at risk as a result. "HIV prevention treatment and care services for injecting drug users are clinically effective, but to exert a population-level effect they need to be delivered to scale," the study wrote . The current level is "not sufficient to prevent, halt or turn around the HIV epidemic among this at-risk population."
Don Des Jarlais of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York said the poor coverage suggested some authorities should work to bring their policies "in line with scientific evidence." "Long-term sustained efforts to protect the health of individuals who use both licit and illicit drugs might require that policy makers acquire a basic scientific understanding of drug use and addiction," he wrote.
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