Results tagged “Africa” from AIDS & HIV

Breast-feeding, which helps build a baby's immune system, may be the best option for HIV-infected mothers in developing countries, despite the risk of transmitting the virus that causes AIDS to their babies, according to new studies presented on Monday.

HIV-positive mothers generally are counseled to feed their babies formula to limit the risk of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus, but that has caused problems in nations where clean water and other needs may not be met.

Dr. Hoosen Coovadia a pediatrician at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal, told the 14th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections that instructing HIV-infected mothers in developing nations to breast-feed would result in about 300,000 children becoming infected with HIV, but would save 1.5 million from dying of other diseases.

BANJUL, Gambia -- From the pockets of his billowing white robe, Gambia's president pulls out a plastic container, closes his eyes in prayer and rubs a green herbal paste onto the ribcage of the patient -- a concoction he claims is a cure for AIDS.

He then orders the thin man to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.

''Whatever you do, there are bound to be skeptics, but I can tell you my method is foolproof,'' President Yahya Jammeh told a reporter. ''Mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It's a declaration. I can cure AIDS and I will.''

Mobile phones will be used to help fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, it was announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona.

A public-private partnership between five member groups of the mobile phone industry and the US government has formed the Phones for Health initiative.

Phones for Health is a $10m scheme aimed at using mobile phone coverage to strengthen health systems in 10 African countries.

Firms working on the project include the GSM Association, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Accenture, Motorola, MTN and Voxiva.

During Sex, Vaginal Gel Would Liquefy, Release Anti-HIV Drug.

Dec. 11, 2006 - University of Utah scientists designed a "molecular condom" women could use daily to prevent AIDS by vaginally inserting a liquid that would turn into a gel-like coating and then, when exposed to semen, return to liquid form and release an antiviral drug.

"We have developed a new vaginal gel that we call a molecular condom because it is composed of molecules that are liquid at room temperature and, when applied in the vagina, will spread and turn into a gel and effectively coat the tissue," says Patrick Kiser, an assistant professor of bioengineering. "It's a smart molecular condom because we designed this gel to release anti-HIV drugs when the gel comes into contact with semen during intercourse."

Recent data by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and Aids (UNAids) on the decline of infections may have been inaccurate, a workshop was told.

It was noted that many Kenyans do not fight the scourge either due to religious reasons or cultural practices and beliefs.

The National Muslim Council of Women of Kenya (NMCWK) chairperson, Ms Nazlin Omar, said her organisation was training Muslim leaders on attitude change of the Muslim community.

Zimbabwe has received a 65 million US dollar grant from the United Nations to bolster its fight against HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, a government minister has said.

"We signed the agreement with them (the UN's Global Fund) yesterday," junior health minister Edwin Muguti told AFP Thursday.

"These funds will be used to increase our HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis programme. We also hope to reintroduce the fixed drug combination of anti-tuberculosis drugs using these funds."

The Vice President of Kenya, Dr Moody Awori, has urged the nationwide adoption of a home-based care model co-developed with the UK Christian HIV and AIDS charity Mildmay Mission Hospital.

The appeal follows years of close partnership between Mildmay and the Kenyan Ministry of Health which worked together to form the Nyanza Model of Home-Based Care for HIV and AIDS sufferers in Kenya.

The Nyanza Model’s success has now convinced the government that the whole country – which has a total of 1.3 million HIV and AIDS sufferers - would benefit from adopting this ‘best practice’ model.

Abbott and the Magic Johnson Foundation today announced the national launch of the "I Stand with Magic: Campaign to End Black AIDS" with a goal to help reduce new HIV infections in the African-American community by 50 percent over five years. Half of all new HIV infections in the United States are among African-Americans who represent only 15 percent of the overall population in the United States. The "I Stand With Magic" program addresses awareness, prevention and successful treatment of HIV in the African-American and other minority communities.

Starting today, World AIDS Day, community members will be encouraged to enroll at www.istandwithmagic.com, get tested for HIV and "stand" with Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Abbott in their fight against the HIV epidemic in the African-American community.

Some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including FTSE 100 giant GlaxoSmithKline, have failed to sign a formal agreement that would ensure HIV and Aids patients in poor nations receive vital drugs.

The agreement was drawn up during three years of talks between companies and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has 20 million members and 400 affiliated unions worldwide. As well as GSK, the other companies involved are Pfizer, Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, Abbott Laboratories and Gilead Science.

The plan proposes that companies provide "high-quality HIV/Aids medicines and related products for impoverished people in sub-Saharan Africa and other least developed countries (LDCs) at no-profit prices".

GENEVA (AFP) - Sub-Saharan Africa is still bearing the brunt of the
AIDS epidemic, accounting for almost two-thirds of all HIV infections and 72 percent of global AIDS deaths, the UN agency leading the battle against the disease has said.

With 24.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa has 63 percent of the adults and children living with the virus worldwide, UNAIDS said in its 2006 epidemic update.

A huge and disproportionate 59 percent of sub-Saharans Africans with HIV are women, the report added Tuesday.

Malawi has managed to increase the number of HIV/AIDS-infected people receiving free life-prolonging drug to 70,000 by the end of September this year, Malawi's National Aids Commission (NAC) revealed on Thursday.

"We are set to reach this year's target of putting 80,000 infected people on free anti-retroviral drug (ARVs) by the end of December," NAC Executive Director Bizwick Mwale told journalists in the capital Lilongwe.

Mwale said the free drug was being provided in 130 government and private health facilities throughout the country.

Malawi has managed to increase the number of people receiving free ARVs from about 4,000 two years ago to 70,000 at present. Last year the country managed to have about 36,000 people with free drug.

Falling life expectancy is one of the most visible effects of HIV/AIDS in many nations and has reversed human development across a large part of Southern Africa, according to a new UN report.

In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy today is lower than it was three decades ago. "Several countries in Southern Africa have suffered catastrophic reversals: 20 years in Botswana, 16 in Swaziland and 13 in Lesotho and Zambia," the report said.

The annual Human Development Report 2006 noted that while most people in Southern African countries with relatively stable economies were not expected to reach the age of 50, the situation was even more worrying in Zimbabwe, where the economy was shrinking rapidly.

Zimbabwean women now have an average lifespan of 34 years, the lowest in the world, while men lived for an average 37 years.

IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The Internet is already a source of information about AIDS for children in Africa but could be more powerful if it were free, a U.S. study says.

About one-third of adolescents in the east-African nation of Uganda reported using the Internet as a source of health information in a study published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

That rate is similar to the rate in the United States, according to researchers at the California-based Internet Solutions for Kids Inc.

However, an additional third of Ugandan adolescents studied said they could use the Internet for health information if it were available without charge.