LILONGWE (Reuters) – Malawi plans to start paying civil servants suffering from HIV/AIDS about $35 a month extra to help them buy more food, Health Minister Marjorie Ngaunje said on Monday.

Malawi, with a population of about 13 million, ranks among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of those infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Ngaunje told Reuters the government had sent out a circular urging all civil servants affected by the disease to come forward.

“We thought an extra 5,000 Malawi kwacha on top of their monthly salaries would go a long way in improving their nutritional requirements which are essential to their well-being,” Ngaunje said.

Civil servants in Malawi earn an average $200 per month.

Official estimates show that AIDS kills about 10 people an hour in the impoverished southern African nation, which is increasingly unable to cope with the crisis.

Health officials estimate that a million Malawians are infected with HIV and about 640,000 have died of AIDS-related causes since 1985.

Malawi spends about $13 per capita on health annually, far below the $36 recommended by the World Health Organization.

Mary Shawa, Principal Secretary for Nutrition and HIV/Aids in the president’s office, said the monthly payment would help prolong the lives of many affected civil servants.

“We know that thousands are infected in the civil service and with the new system we expect to have exact numbers when people enroll as beneficiaries,” she said.

Seven-year-old Vineeta Hennessey and her five-year-old sister Sevilla are in the spotlight for a documentary called “Please Talk to Kids About AIDS”.

In it, experts and activists face questions that only a child would ask.

Vineeta asked, “How does AIDS get into your body?’” A doctor responds, “Well, AIDS gets into your body in ways that can be complicated to explain to little girls!”

That gets a laugh from the audience at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health.

But the girls also elicit frank responses from leading experts, such as prize-winning science writer Laurie Garrett. She explains, “What’s sneaky about the AIDS virus is that, guess what it infects, what kinds of cells it goes inside of? The immune cells. So, the army you have inside of you to protect you is exactly where this virus goes….”

That sort of jargon-free language has drawn attention to the film. There is also praise for the way it breaks taboos about discussing sex. A doctor explains what a sex worker is. She says, “A sex worker is someone who gives sex services to another person in exchange for money…”

In spite of the film’s subject matter involving prostitution or condoms, the girls are supported by their parents — both international public health advocates.

The family’s efforts have won praise from a prominent figure, who appears in the film. Dr. Anthony Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and heads up all U.S. government-funded research into HIV/AIDS.

“To have children, in their innocence, ask those questions and really force people to give a straight answer to this, I think really exemplifies why we need to talk straight about HIV,” Dr. Fauci said.

The documentary’s young stars are promoting the film and discussing the answers they got.

Vineeta offering her reaction, says, “Some of them were real difficult — like sexual. I was like, ‘Whoa, what is that?’”

Sister Sevilla adds, “And like this sex worker, they…”  Vineeta interrupts, “Yes, she was, like, it’s not a real job!”

The sisters’ film has already attracted interest from various non-governmental and international organizations keen to use it as an educational tool in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

Source: VOA News

Washington Post reports that New Jersey this week launched one of the most ambitious efforts in the country to control mother-to-child transmission of HIV, making screening tests mandatory for all pregnant women in the state beginning next year.

A bill signed into law Wednesday by the Senate president, Richard J. Codey, in his capacity as acting governor, requires two tests for pregnant women, at the beginning of the pregnancy and again in the third trimester, unless the mother objects. If the mother objects, the objection will be noted and the newborn will then be tested for HIV, with the only exception being on religious grounds. Newborns will also be tested if the woman tests positive.

Just four other states have mandated testing for pregnant women, and three more– including New York — require screening of newborns. But New Jersey’s law appears to go further by requiring both.

The mandatory screening has raised privacy concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the state’s chapter of the National Organization for Women both questioned whether the mandated tests violate a woman’s right to privacy and the right to make her own medical decisions.

Riki E. Jacobs, executive director of the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, a New Jersey nonprofit helping people living with AIDS, said the law is unnecessary and comes when the state should be focused on expanding care for pregnant women. “I am adamantly opposed to this bill. New Jersey already reduced the perinatal rate of transmission with mandatory counseling of pregnant women,” she said. “The issue is getting those women who are not in prenatal care in for services and testing.

“I definitely think it is an invasion of privacy,” Jacobs said. She said women choose to test their babies in 98 percent of cases, so the new law’s mandatory provisions for testing children are not needed: “The fact that we assume women won’t choose to test is ludicrous and wrong.”

But in the end, lawmakers decided that the risk of exposing children to the infection outweighed those concerns.

While men represent the majority of new HIV and AIDS cases in the United States, women now account for an increasing share, from just 8 percent of new diagnoses in 1985 to 27 percent in 2005, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of the estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States in 2005, about 300,000 were women, and the vast majority of them were between 25 and 44 years old.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among other groups, has been recommending that HIV screening become a routine part of prenatal tests. The CDC recommended HIV tests become a routine part of the battery of prenatal tests, and that there be no separate written consent required.

Mother-to-child transmission of the disease — during pregnancies and through breast-feeding — peaked in the United States in 1992, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which reported that the number of cases since then has dropped “dramatically” because of early detection and the increased use of antiretroviral therapy, which lowers the risk of transmission to less than 2 percent.

The majority of those new cases that still occur are mostly among black Americans, reflecting the changed demographic of the epidemic since it was first identified.

According to the CDC, 100 to 200 children a year are infected by their mothers. As of 2005, the last year for which figures are available, there were 6,051 people in the United States living with HIV/AIDS who had been infected perinatally — during pregnancy or breast-feeding.

Of those, 66 percent were black and 20 percent identified as Hispanic.

In New Jersey, a June report by the state’s health department reported 78 percent of those with HIV and AIDS were members of minority groups. That report also found that New Jersey has a significant female population living with the disease, 37 percent of the total.

In signing the bill at a local hospital, Codey said, “We can significantly reduce the number of infections to newborns and help break down the stigma associated with the disease.”

He added: “For newborns, early detection can be the ultimate lifesaving measure.”

New Jersey records about 115,000 births each year. While there were no recorded mother-to-child transmissions this year, as of the June report, there were two children born infected in 2006 and seven born infected in 2005, according to the health department.

Here is a round up of links with news and events about the upcoming World Aids Day for 2007.

Rock group Queen to release new single to mark World AIDS Day

AIDS Action Council Statement on World AIDS Day 2007

SIRIUS: Honors International Day of AIDS Awareness

World AIDS Day in India

Grab your free condoms on World Aids Day

Proclamation by the President: World AIDS Day, 2007

CNN Student News Learning Activity: World AIDS Day

World Aids Day Campaign to Shine a Light of Hope on the HIV/AIDS

Global vigil for AIDS orphans begins in Toronto

Zambia: ON December 1, Country Will Join the World AIDS Day

Experts Available to Discuss World AIDS Day, HIV/AIDS Issues

Nationally renowned pastor, Bishop T.D. Jakes, in a strongly worded commentary written exclusively for the Black Press of America, appealed to black churches around the nation to join a unified strategy to deal with the pandemic of HIV/AIDS in the black community.

“We are on the roof again,” stated the pastor of more than 30,000 at the Potter’s House in Dallas, recalling the long wait of African Americans to be rescued during Hurricane Katrina. In that crisis, blacks largely had to save each other and themselves as many died.

Jakes called for black churches to join with other caring organizations to force the federal government to release tax money to help end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in which blacks are dying at least seven times faster than whites.

“I realize that as Sen. [Hillary] Clinton stated, if this were killing whites in the way it is killing blacks, it wouldn’t be their pastors who would have to take on such a daunting task and it would not be tithe money but tax money that would be used for resource.”

The Congressional Black Caucus has committed to drafting a bill that would help fund programs to end the AIDS epidemic in black America.

“These funds would include all of our tax dollars that have been directed elsewhere while we die,” Jakes wrote.

The commentary, released by the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, is part of a series of 25 all-star op-editorials written exclusively for the Black Press as part of the Center for Disease Control’s “Heightened Response” to HIV/AIDS in the black community.

“This time we must not wait,” Jakes wrote. He commended many churches for having spent thousands of dollars to address the rising rate of HIV/AIDS. But he calls upon those who may have resisted involvement due to long-held stigmas and prejudices about the disease that once appeared to predominantly plague homosexuals. Stats outlined in the commentary shows that HIV/AIDS is now ravaging black heterosexuals—particularly black women—at astronomical rates.

“We must work to get all groups to a healthy condition,” wrote Jakes. “We cannot care just for those we agree with. We must help all hurting people to safety and then debate later the many complications of our times.

The first two were written by Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, a partner in the op-ed series, and actor/activist Danny Glover.

Source: Frost Illustrated

Hope’s Voice is a national HIV and AIDS organization committed to promoting the education and prevention of HIV and AIDS to young adults. Hope’s Voice uses open dialogue and peer-to-peer education, through both speaker appearances of young adults living with HIV and AIDS and progressive programs to send this crucial message: HIV and AIDS does not discriminate. Hope’s Voice aims to raise awareness and help young adults create the social change that is needed to end this epidemic.

The organization represents a group of talented and diverse young adults, all living with HIV and AIDS. Their speakers prove, the disease shows no preference towards gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, demographic or economic status.

AIDS Walk Washington is October 6, 2007

1 out of 20 District residents is infected with HIV. That’s 5% of the population
1 out of 50 District residents is already living with AIDS
If DC were a country it would rank in between The Republic of Congo and Rwanda in terms of HIV infection rates!

Put Your Foot Down – Register Today!

Show your support for Whitman-Walker Clinic at the 21st annual AIDS Walk Washington on Saturday, Oct. 6, at Freedom Plaza. The goal is 25,000 walkers, one for each person living with HIV in the District of Columbia. You can register as an individual walker or build a team of 10 or more people.

For more information on AIDS Walk, call 202-332-WALK or visit the AIDS Walk website . Check out the TV PSAs produced by NBC4!

PSA 1
PSA 2

The Grand Marshall this year is Chip Arndt. You may remember Chip Arndt from his stint on the TV show The Amazing Race. Chip and then-partner Reichen Lehmkuehl won not only the big prize, but also plenty of attention for being the first same-sex couple to do so. Even before the show, Chip Arndt was known for his support of LGBT and HIV/AIDS causes. Since the show, however, he has been able to do even more.

Come out on this Saturday and show your support!!!

The New York Daily News is reporting that HIV is making a comeback among young gay men in NY.  New cases have increased by a third in those younger than 30 and doubled among teens in the past six years, health officials said Tuesday.  “In 2001, there were 374 new HIV diagnoses among gay men younger than 30; last year, there were 499, a city report said. In gay males ages 13 to 19, cases increased from 41 six years ago to 87 last year.

“A generation of men is growing up having not seen their friends die of AIDS, and maybe having the impression that HIV is not such a terrible infection,” Frieden said.

Gay black and Hispanic youth are most profoundly affected by the growing number of infections, with 81 of 87 new cases last year occurring in those groups.”

I think that young gay males should look to the examples of their gay forefathers in the 80s who championed HIV/Aids activism.  They gave HIV a face (Unfortunately that has now become a stigma and assumption).  They took up the cause when it was not popular or chic.  They watched their friends die and did something to keep others from getting infected instead of standing idly by.   These young gay men in NY will have to be the ones to take up this cause a new if there is going to be a change, and if the trend is going to lessen.

We posted about lil Caleb being banned from an Alabama RV park serveral months ago, as well as news of the protest to follow..etc.  Many blessings and thanks go out from HIVAidsandMe to The Campaign to End Aids for organizing the Family Reunion Event!!!!!!  I think this was a wonderful demonstration of how education and understanding are key to bring people together to support and celebrate HIV positive people.  Here’s an article about the event.

AIDS activists visit Silverhill RV park
RV park proprietor hosts AIDS activists months after barring HIV-positive toddler from swimming pool
Tuesday, September 04, 2007By RYAN DEZEMBER

SILVERHILL, AL — In an effort to raise AIDS awareness, about 45 activists, most of them infected with the virus that causes the disease, traveled from locales as far-flung as Delaware, Dallas and San Diego to the Wales West Light Railway & RV Resort, where they had a Labor Day picnic.

Tucked off a rural highway east of Fish River, the resort was not chosen because of its visibility, but rather because two months ago, the 20-acre park made national news when a Saraland couple, Dick and Silvia Glover, accused the park of discriminating against their 2-year-old, HIV-positive foster son, Caleb.

The Glovers decided to vacation at Wales West in early July because the park features, among the amenities typical of an RV resort, a life-size replica of the small, coal-fired locomotives once used in Welsh mining. But when the couple tried to take their foster son for a swim, the park’s owner, Ken Zadnichek, told his employees to bar him from the pool and showers until he could confirm that there was no health hazard in letting the boy swim with other guests.

The Glovers promptly left the park for accommodations at another RV resort and called reporters.

Since then, Zadnichek has taken a lot of heat over that July day. Besides being the subject of reports on national television and radio, blogs and other online sounding boards have blasted the park owner.

“Everyone wants to call me the mean old guy that kicked the HIV baby out of the swimming pool, which is nuts,” Zadnichek said Monday before hosting a reporter on a train ride through his burgeoning 20-acre park. “We were concerned as much about what he would catch from the other kids as what they would get from him.”

The activists — most of whom are affiliated with the Campaign to End AIDS, a national network of people living with the disease — said in a news release that they originally intended to surprise Zadnichek, reserving several of the park’s 76 sites under the guise of a family reunion.

To hold an angry protest, however, wouldn’t have accomplished the activists’ aim of raising awareness about the disease and erasing the stigma faced by people living with AIDS and HIV, said Larry Bryant, an HIV-positive resident of Washington, D.C.

“It would have been oversimplifying to have an angry mob show up with pitchforks and torches,” Bryant said, adding that Zadnichek and his wife, Ann, had been helpful in arranging the activists’ stay.

“We’re glad to see them,” said Zadnichek, who is generally more keen to talk about the train he had built four years ago in England than he is about AIDS. “We don’t want to turn anyone away.”

Dick Glover, who suffers from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, wasn’t able to make it Monday. But Sylvia Glover, who has been foster mother to more than 60 children, brought Caleb and other family members.

Caleb, now 3, finally went for that swim. However, possibly because of his appetite-ruining drug treatments, he wasn’t much interested in the barbecue or the celebration of his return to the resort. Instead, the skinny boy dressed in a diaper, T-shirt and plastic sunglasses spent much of the time he was being feted playing on a swing set.