HIV Scotland News

Latest Update APRIL 2008 now available

 

NEWS:

Charities and voluntary groups have a vital role to play in determining Scotland's constitutional future , representatives were told by Communities Minister Stewart Maxwell

He said the views of the Third Sector - comprising groups from national and international charities to small neighbourhood organisations - had a vital role to play in responding to 'Choosing Scotland's Future', the Scottish Government's National Conversation about Scotland's constitutional direction and urged them to join the debate.

The debate examines the options for constitutional change and addresses the arguments for and against each, such as independence or enhanced powers of devolution.

To date, Scottish Government's national conversation website has had almost 314,000 hits, with the white paper attracting 26,000 views.

Mr Maxwell said: "The National Conversation goes to the very heart of the kind of Scotland we all want to see. That's why I think it's vital that the Third Sector makes its views known, because charities and voluntary groups are well-placed to pinpoint constraints the current devolution settlement places on our ability to address the real problems people face.”

 

HIV 'hides from drugs for years' writes the BBC .

HIV can survive the apparently effective onslaught of antiviral drugs for years by hiding away in the body's cells, research shows.

The US National Cancer Institute found low levels of dormant HIV in patients seven years after they started - and responded well to - standard therapy.

The finding confirms patients must take drugs indefinitely, and that any break runs the risk of rekindling infection. The study features in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers followed 40 patients infected with HIV for seven years.

 

A Cure for HIV: Restoring Hope to a Long-Lost Cause writes HIV activist Martin Delaney in the body.com

More than three years ago Project Inform kicked off a campaign to refocus the attention of the patient, activist and research communities on the need for a true cure for HIV disease. The success of combination therapy and treatment simplification seemed to have created a wave of complacency and a sense that, except for side effects, HIV treatment was finally "good enough."

Project Inform has challenged this view ever since. Though the effort was sometimes ridiculed as naïve, a number of influential groups and researchers have now joined the campaign. This article argues that finding a cure is more important than ever.

Gay men risk of HIV 'still high' writes the BBC Gay men are being urged to get HIV tests more regularly and practise safe sex in a bid to halt the high numbers of new cases in the UK.

The Health Protection Agency made the warning after new diagnoses among gay men topped 2,600 for the third year. But the figures do seem to have begun to plateau after a surge at the turn of the century.

Overall, the number of new cases hit an estimated 6,840 in 2007 - a fall of 1,400 from the previous year. The HPA said this was mostly due to a decline in cases among those infected heterosexually in Africa.

But experts said the new cases among gay men was still at worrying levels.

 

Scotland sees massive rise in sexually tr ansmitted disease cases writes the Scotsman

A SOARING number of people in Scotland – including children – are being diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections, figures revealed yesterday.

Cases of gonorrhoea are up 13 per cent from 900 in 2006 to 1,015 last year – and have more than quadrupled from 469 cases reported in 1998. Diagnoses of herpes are also up 18 per cent from 1,830 to 2,167 last year – almost three times the 784 cases seen ten years ago.

But cases of the most common infection – chlamydia – appear to be levelling off, with just two more cases reported last year compared with 2006. However, there were worrying signs that more and more children are being diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Campaigners said more needed to be done to improve sexual health education for young people and adults. The Health Protection Scotland report, which looked at cases of herpes, gonorrhoea and chlamydia between 1998 and 2007, found people in their twenties were most likely to be diagnosed with an STI.

But cases in children under the age of 15 were also reported. There were six cases of herpes in under-15s last year, up from four in 1998 but down from the eight cases seen in 2006. There were also 60 cases of chlamydia reported in under-15s – up from 19 ten years ago.

UN spotlights scope of AIDS epidemic in Asia from google online.
A UN study urged Asian governments Wednesday to boost funding for AIDS prevention, warning that failure to do so will lead to nearly 500,000 deaths each year across the continent from the scourge by 2020.

The figure is up from the 440,000 that currently die each year, according to the report commissioned by the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The study also said the overall number of infected people would likely double to 10 million by 2020 if prevention efforts are not implemented.

"Despite a declining trend of new HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) infections in a few countries, AIDS still accounts for more deaths annually among 15 to 44 year-olds than do tuberculosis and other diseases," it noted.