The number of HIV infections and Aids related deaths have decreased over the last decade according to a new report by UNAIDS.

The report showed that an estimated 2.6 million people became newly-infected with HIV in 2009, 20 per cent down from the 3.1-million people infected in 1999.

The report highlights the importance of investment in HIV prevention programming, and that it is producing significant results in many of the highest burden countries.

Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS said: “We have halted and begun to reverse the epidemic. Fewer people are becoming infected with HIV and fewer people are dying from AIDS.”

However, the organisation warned that even though the gains are real this is a very fragile situation. Future progress will depend heavily on the joint efforts of everyone involved in the HIV response.

There are currently 10 million people in need of HIV treatment and the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria has failed to raise the $8.1 billion it needed to sustain its programmes for the next three years.

There are an estimated 33.3million people infected with HIV. 25 million people have died from AIDS related  illness since 1981.

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LAST WEEK in New York the Global fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria failed to reach its goal of $20 billion in international contributions.

The fund received pledges of $11.7 billion making the fund $1.3 billion short of the $13 billion – its lowest fundraising target – needed to continue existing programs.

However, the new funding is up $2 billion from the $9.7 billion committed to the Global Fund in Berlin in 2007.

More than 40 countries, the European Commission, faith-based organisations, private foundations, and corporations committed funding at the pledging session in New York’s, United Nations. The UK pledge was £384 million or $607.4 million US Dollars.

But not everyone was so generous, Italy and Spain gave nothing to the fund and South Africa, which has the world’s most serious AIDS epidemic, made a contribution of only $2 million.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “At a time when so many Governments are tightening their belts at home, these commitments send a powerful message: It shows how seriously world leaders want to do the right thing beyond their borders, too. It shows they understand the importance of health for all people.

“We need even more contributions by the private sector… and we must bring new donors to the table. Our work is about more than replenishing a fund; it is about replenishing hope and dignity in people’s lives.” added Ki-moon.

Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, the fund’s executive director said: “No one now on treatment will be cut off, but targets for the next few years must be lowered.”

The world’s population made its voice heard the day before the pledges, when the Global Fund present the results of the Born HIV Free campaign – fronted by Ambassador Carla Bruni-Sarkozy – since its launch in May 2010, the campaign has resulted in 700,000 people signing up in support of the Global Fund and had more than 20 million respondents and 250 million viewers: Sending a strong message to world leaders that they support those living with HIV and want the HIV pandemic brought under control.

With an estimated 33 million people infected with HIV – a figure that goes up year on year – the fund manages to pay for HIV drugs for three million. However, it is estimated that as many as 14 million have reached a stage in the disease were life saving treatment is vital to save their lives.

The fund did get an unexpected boost from the media, when a number European newspapers offered the organisation free full page advertisements including the UK’s Financial Times and The Independent.

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Nadja Benaissa, accused of transmitting HIV to her former lover has been found guilty and given a two-year suspended sentence in Germany.

The 28 year old  pop star has been found guilty on one count of causing grievous bodily harm and two of attempted bodily harm.

During the trial the singer had admitted to having unprotected sex with several partners without revealing her HIV status and had told the court she was “sorry from the bottom of my heart”.

Sentencing, Judge Dennis Wacker acknowledged that Benaissa had expressed remorse during the trial, but that the court found that she was guilty of intentionally and recklessly infected one of her former partners with HIV and endangering two others.

Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (German Aids-awareness group) spokeswoman Marianne Rademacher said in response to the verdict: “If the responsibility for prevention is put entirely upon women and HIV-positive people, we are not recognising the combined responsibility of two people.”

The five-day trial, took place in a youth court in the western town of Darmstad, because Benaissa was 16 when the first offence took place. The court discovered that Benaissa was a troubled teenager who spent her early teens addicted to drugs and often homeless.

At 16 Nadja became pregnant and then discovered she was HIV-positive. Her career took off shortly after when she was catapulted to stardom in the all-girl group ‘No Angels’ after winning Germany’s version of Popstars in 2001.

The trial has received worldwide media attention and has again raised the issue of the criminal HIV transmission. Many HIV activists in the UK have been shocked by the stigmatising language used by people on national media websites in response to features and discussion boards on the issue.

One fan told the BBC’s Tristana Moore who was reporting from the trial, she was disappointed that Nadja Benaissa hadn’t told her former lovers that she was HIV-positive. “But the guys could have also used a condom – it’s not just Nadja’s fault,” she said.

As part of the two-year suspended sentence. Benaissa will also be expected to do 300 hours community service and undergo counselling.

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Click here to read Edwin J Bernard’s Criminal HIV Transmission blog

GERMAN  pop star Nadja Benaissa went on trial in Darmstadt this week facing charges of grievous bodily harm and attempted bodily harm after she admitted to having unprotected sex with sevaral parners without revealing her HIV status. She told the open court: “I am so sorry.”

Benaissa who shot to fame after winning Germany’s version of Popstars in the all-girl group ‘No Angels’ was dramatically arrested last April in Frankfurt before she was due to perform in a solo concert.

In a statement read out by her lawyer, Benaissa said: “When I was arrested I realised that the way that I had dealt with the illness had been wrong… I made a big mistake.”

“No way did I want my partner to be infected,” she added.

Of the three men involved in the case, one has since tested HIV-positive.

Nadja Benaissa was only 17 years old and pregnant when she was diagnosed in 1999.

Edwin J Bernard, activist and specialist in HIV prosecutions told the BBC’s, Tristana Moore. There have been least 600 prosecutions of HIV-positive people around the world ranging from prosecutions that could not cause any harm suck as spitting, to the more serious charge of murder. But very few cases have been around the intentional transmission of HIV sexually.

“Many experts in the HIV field including UNAIDS and the United Nations have recommended that prosecutions should only occur if it can be proven that there was intention, and that also transmission can be proven with out any reasonable doubt,” said Bernard.

“Prosecutions and laws that criminalise HIV infections may do more harm than good in reducing new HIV infections. Studies in the United States have found that these laws have no impact on HIV transmission. “Bernard told the BBC in the interview from Berlin.

If convicted Benaissa faces a prison sentence ranging from six months to 10 years, she maintains that she did not deliberately infect anyone.

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Click here to read Edwin J Bernard’s Criminal HIV Transmission blog

Inhumane laws that criminalise homosexuality are preventing HIV help and care reaching  90 per cent of gay men living in the Asia-Pacific region, a UN backed report says.

The report published by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM), also found that HIV infection rates amung – men who have sex with men – had reached alarming levels and that 19 of 48 countries in the region criminalise male-to-male sex.

Punishments for MSM in these countries range from the death penalty in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan to whipping in Malaysia and parts of Indonesia; violence and human rights violations are commonplace.

In the countries where homosexuality is not prohibited other repressive laws often violate the rights of MSM and transgender people and stand in the way of HIV prevention, advocacy and outreach, the report added.

“The effectiveness of the HIV response will depend not just on the sustained scale up of HIV prevention, treatment and care, but on whether the legal and social environment support or hinder programmes for those who are most vulnerabl,” said Mandeep Dhaliwal of the UNDP.

The report acknowledged that several countries including India, Nepal, South Korea and the Philippines have brought in new laws and policies to help these communities deal with the public health issues they face.

Abuses such as the confiscation of condoms as evidence of illegality in Thailand and India and the censorship of HIV education material in China and Singapore, were also noted by the report.

“A strategy of comprehensive, rights based HIV prevention requires bold and effective legal and policy measures to reach out to vulnerable communities and individuals at risk,” stated the Honourable Michael Kirby of Australia.

The Honorable Ajit Prakash Shah from India said: “If society can display inclusiveness and understanding, MSM and transgender persons can be assured of a life of dignity and non-discrimination. They cannot be excluded or ostracized merely because some of us perceive them as ‘deviants’ or ‘different.”

UNAIDS estimates that South and East Asia has 4.7 million people living with HIV.

The door of a cell at Lusaka Prison. With only small holes for ventilation and light, tuberculosis spreads rapidly. © 2010 João Silva

28 April 2010

Zambian prisons face a HIV epidemic with 27 per cent of the prison population testing HIV positive, a joint report by human rights groups has revealed.

The report says, that prisoners are in danger of torture and rape. Suffer from malnutrition, inadequate medical care and live overcrowded conditions that puts them at risk from TB and drug resistant HIV strains.

Godfrey Malembeka, a former prisoner and prison rights activist who is executive director of PRISCCA said “people are dying.’ Human beings cannot live the way the prisoners are living – it is intolerable.”

Sex has become a commodity that can be bartered for food and other provisions. However, the criminalisation of homosexuality remains the biggest barrier to condom distribution in the prisons and makes HIV prevention impossible.

Dr Simooya,  of ‘In But Free’ who undertook research in Zambian prisons in 1998 told the BBC in a related story “It’s better to be practical and ask how we can prevent the transmission of HIV. We must consider putting condoms in prison.”

The Zambia Prisons Service employs only 14 healthcare workers that look after 15,300 inmates. The last UNAIDS estimated that 1.1 million people are living with HIV the country.

To see the full report – Unjust and Unhealthy: HIV, TB, and Abuse in Zambian Prisons -  go to the Health  Watch Website www.hrw.org/node/8983

If you would like to find out more ,the BBC’s Jo Fidgen explores the problem of HIV in Zambian prisons in a podcast at www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/afpersp

28 April 2010

China has revoked a 20 year old rule that bans people living wit HIV/Aids from visiting the country.

The move by the communist superpower will be welcomed by organisations campaigning to stamp out stigma and end discriminatory policies that target people living with HIV.

In a statement UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commended President Hu Jintao for China’s decision to remove the travel restrictions.

He also said, “Punitive politics and practices only hamper the global Aids response. I urge all other countries with such restrictions to remove them as a matter of priority and urgency.”

A THT spokeswoman said: “Entry bans do nothing to safeguard public health. Their only real impact is to increase stigma and prevent ordinary people with HIV from getting on with their lives.”

It remains unclear if people living with HIV will still have to declare their status on visa applications to the country.

UNAIDS estimates China has 700,000 people living with HIV. A recent report highlighted the country’s complex epidemic which affects some regions more than others along with high levels of stigma.

China temporarily lifted the ban during 1990 Beijing Asian Games and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The decision to overturn the ban comes just before the opening of World Expo in Shanghai and follows a similar move by the United States in February.