WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - The American Red Cross received reports that 134 people, including one who died, got hepatitis B after blood transfusions, but the organization did not investigate them because of internal policies that violate government safety rules, federal regulators say. IN ONE CASE, an Ohio Red Cross chapter
POWNAL, Vt. - Revolutionary, innkeeper, caregiver. Sunshine Wohl is taking on all these roles as she fearlessly opens her spruced-up farmhouse to AIDS patients facing the end of life. Wohl bought the 1860 house last year and has been fixing it up to become what she calls a pre-heaven -- a luxurious and peaceful stop on
SATTAHIP, Thailand - Wearing a crisp green uniform and a tightly drawn neckerchief, Dragana Savich never expected to represent her native Yugoslavia at an international event. But the 17-year-old from Belgrade, with badges and pins from five years of knot-tying and campfire-starting with her hometown scout troop, becam
BEIJING -- China plans to start mass producing low-cost AIDS drugs next month, the official Xinhua News Agency says. Xinhua did not say which drugs will be made, but said the price would be about a tenth that of imported drugs, which currently cost 30,000 yuan ($3,600) per person each year. The average annual income pe
LOS ANGELES - The number of syphilis cases reported by gay men in Los Angeles County has increased 62 percent, representing 360 new cases so far this year, officials said. The implications are that gay men are having more unprotected sex, said Karen Mall, director of prevention for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States officially became a party Monday to international laws banning the use of children as soldiers and making the sexual exploitation of children a crime. Child victims of armed conflict and commercial sexual exploitation desperately need the world s attention, said U.S. State Departmen
WASHINGTON - (AP) -- An experimental vaccine against the monkey form of AIDS sharply reduced but did not eliminate the amount of the virus in the animals blood. Evidence of the virus in the blood cells of macaques dropped 50-fold and its evidence in plasma fell 1,000-fold in the test, which lasted 10 months, said resea
WASHINGTON -- An experimental vaccine against the monkey form of AIDS sharply reduced but did not eliminate the amount of the virus in the animals blood. Evidence of the virus in the blood cells of macaques dropped 50-fold and its evidence in plasma fell 1,000-fold in the test that lasted 10 months, said researcher Wei
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- American television host Oprah Winfrey cuddled South African children whose parents died from AIDS and promised to use her name to help humanize the pandemic that has ravaged sub-Saharan Africa. Winfrey, who has been traveling in South Africa for the last three weeks, said in an interview
WASHINGTON -- The American Red Cross may have released tainted blood to hospitals, the government said Friday, reporting more than 200 violations of federal blood safety rules in its battle to get the Red Cross to improve the quality of its blood operation. The Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating fur
GENEVA - A deal to ensure better access to cheap medicines for poor countries collapsed late Friday, with developing country diplomats blaming the United States for holding out at the World Trade Organization. The United States has announced it cannot join the consensus, said Brazilian negotiator Antonio de Aguiar Patr
KIEV, Ukraine - The World Bank will provide a US$60 million loan to Ukraine to help the former Soviet republic combat the rapid spread of tuberculosis and AIDS, officials said Friday. The money will help the cash-strapped Ukrainian government apply a comprehensive prevention, diagnosis and epidemic control program to c
GENEVA - All eyes were on the hard-line position of the United States Friday as negotiators went down to the wire in talks to ensure better access to cheap medicines for poor countries. With this week as the final chance to conclude months of emotional wrangling, Washington is the only country that has openly refused t
BOMBAY, India (AP) - Richard Gere said Friday that India should focus on children suffering from HIV in its fight against the disease. We need a way to touch the heart of the subject. We need to change the face of the disease, the actor said. Gere hosted a carnival filled with actors from India s popular film industry,
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - U2 star Bono and two other rock veterans have written a song in tribute to former South African President Nelson Mandela and hope to use it to raise money to fight the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa. Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, Joe Strummer of The Clash, and Bono named their song 48864
LOS ANGELES - When Felicity discussed safe sex, when an ER worker coped with HIV, when Judging Amy debated sex education and abstinence, the Media Project was there. Without a direct hand in creating or writing any TV series, the nonprofit advisory group has helped shape the medium s handling of sexual topics, particul
WASHINGTON - A government fact sheet that long promoted condoms as highly effective in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases now offers a more neutral summary of the pros and cons of condom use. Congressional Democrats charge that politics are trumping science. They also point to a fact sheet produced
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The World Bank will provide US$12.6 million to Sri Lanka to fight the spread of the HIV virus and reduce the stigma attached with the disease, a bank statement said Wednesday. The island nation of 18.6 million people has a narrow window of opportunity to prevent a nationwide AIDS epidemic, the st
GENEVA -- The success or failure of talks on trade rules to ensure better access to cheap medicines for poor countries is now entirely in the hands of the Bush Administration, diplomats said Tuesday. It s up to the United States now, European Union Ambassador Carlo Trojan told reporters at the end of a renewed negotiat
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The United States lost a vote at an international conference Tuesday as Asia-Pacific countries rejected the Bush administration s stand against abortion and condom use among adolescents. The vote was held at the end of the U.N.-sponsored Asian and Pacific Population Conference, which adopted a plan
A part of the AIDS virus that was considered vulnerable to attack can camouflage itself by changing shapes, says a study that helps show why HIV is so hard to target and kill. HIV cripples the immune system by infecting and killing T-cells. It uses a protein structure on its surface called gp120 to gain entry to the ce
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Bush administration s opposition to funding abortion was expected to dominate a United Nations population conference set to begin Monday. The United States has threatened to withdraw its support for a 1994 family planning agreement because the Bush administration believes some of the language i
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words HIV -positive, former South African President Nelson Mandela declared war on AIDS Thursday and ordered people to practice safe sex or abstain completely. Over recent months the 84-year-old Mandela, who led the fight against apartheid and remains Sout
NEW YORK (AP) - Irish rock star Bono and Sen. Bill Frist joined the Rev. Franklin Graham in airlifting Christmas gifts to HIV -positive children in Africa. The group, which also included Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and chairman of the Global Business Coalition on HIV-AIDS, held a
GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) - A doctor credited with dramatically improving health care for HIV patients in the Mississippi Delta has killed himself, Leflore County authorities said Tuesday. Dr. Hamza Brimah, a Nigerian who moved to the Delta in 1996, was found dead at his home Monday of a gunshot wound to the head, Sheriff
NASHVILLE, Tennessee - Rock singer Bono joined U.S. Sen. Bill Frist on Monday to plead for more U.S. money to fight AIDS in Africa. The questions that were asked in Germany (about the Holocaust) a generation later - How could you let that happen - will be asked of us, the lead singer of the group U2 said in an address
LILONGWE, Malawi -- The Western world s response to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Africa caused by AIDS and hunger is woefully inadequate, a top U.N. official said Sunday. While people in developed countries who contracted HIV can live for years, Africans contracting HIV were condemned to death, said Stephen Lew
BOSTON -- A person enrolled in a needle exchange program in one city may legally possess needles obtained through the program anywhere in the state, the state s highest court ruled. Arguing that the programs important public health goals could otherwise be imperiled, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled Friday an interpret
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Former South African President Nelson Mandela announced that he ll host a concert featuring some of the world s leading entertainers to raise funds for Africa s millions of AIDS victims. U2 star Bono, Macy Gray and Shaggy had already agreed to perform at the Feb. 2 show, to be held on Robben
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- An appeals court reinstated a lawsuit Friday against a doctor who revealed a patient s HIV-positive status to his employer. The Kentucky Court of Appeals said it was a mistake for the trial court to summarily dismiss Steven G. Barnett s invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Dr. Julio Melo, an infectious
OTTAWA (AP)--Canada s Supreme Court has upheld the Canadian patent held by Glaxo Wellcome Inc. on AZT , one of the most important drugs for combatting the effects of AIDS. Two generic Toronto drug manufacturers - Novopharm Ltd. (X.NVO) and Apotex Inc. (X.AOX) - challenged the patent by claiming the right t
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - South Africa s AIDS epidemic is exacting a deadly toll on South Africa s children, with greater numbers infected with HIV than was previously thought, according to a survey released Thursday. The survey found that 5.6 percent of children ages 2 to 14 were HIV-positive and that 13 perce
HANOI, Vietnam - Police in northern Vietnam charged a man on Wednesday with causing the death of a 6-year-old boy by stabbing him with an HIV -infected hypodermic needle. Pham Van Thang, of northern Haiphong, died of AIDS on Nov. 25 after Nguyen Xuan Truong allegedly injected him with the needle in June last year durin
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - For the first time in Tanzania s history, the World Bank has given the East African nation a grant - US$136 million for AIDS and poverty reduction projects, a bank spokeswoman said Tuesday. About half of the money, $70 million, will be used in the fight against AIDS and the balance will be spe
WASHINGTON -- The government on Monday approved a drug called Alinia, the first treatment intended for children to fight an infection that spreads through contaminated drinking water and dirty swimming pools. The drug treats diarrhea caused by cryptosporidium, a parasite spread by human and animal waste most common in
ABUJA, Nigeria - President Olusegun Obasanjo promised legislation Monday on behalf of what he said were the at least 4.2 million HIV -infected people in Nigeria, saying the disease threatened the stability and social fabric of West Africa s giant. In a strongly worded speech the day after World AIDS Day, Obasanjo decla
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Nauvoy Papa died of AIDS after spending his last agonizing days chained to a bed in an overcrowded Pakistani hospital. The Nigerian prisoner was one of a small but growing number of people in Pakistan diagnosed with HIV. Just 1,700 people have tested positive for HIV in Pakistan, a country of more
LONDON (AP) - The promotion of human rights is an integral part of the battle against the spread of HIV/AIDS, Amnesty International said Sunday. In a statement on World AIDS day, the London-based human rights group called for more efforts worldwide to dispel myths and prejudices surrounding the disease. Those who are o
HANOI, Vietnam - Countries across Asia commemorated World AIDS Day with events to raise awareness of the disease amid warnings that the number of people with HIV/AIDS in China and India - the world s two most populous nations - will reach epidemic levels. Bearing banners and signs, thousands took to the
With songs, stars and prayers, Americans recognized World AIDS Day as a time to focus on a cure, on making treatment more available around the world and on remembering the millions who have already died. In New York City on Sunday, the HIV + Sinikithemba Choir, composed of HIV-positive South Africans, raised their voic
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Southern African countries marked World AIDS Day on Sunday with hopes that the region, which has the highest rate of HIV positive people, can slow the spread of the disease. South Africa has more HIV positive people than any other country in the world. Figures released by the government more
LONDON - The number of people diagnosed with HIV in Britain this year has risen by a quarter over 2001, health figures released Saturday suggest. The Public Health Laboratory Service said 2,945 new diagnoses of the human immunodeficiency virus, which leads to AIDS, were reported in the nine months to Sept. 30 - a 25 pe
BEIJING (AP) - Authorities scoffed when the United Nations warned in June that 10 million Chinese would be infected with AIDS by 2010. They called the findings unreliable and the authors biased. But in the five months since, the figure has gained credibility among officials and in state media, giving the impression tha
BHUBANESHWAR, India - To mark World AIDS Day on Sunday, an eastern Indian state plans to unfurl what local officials say is the longest banner ever. The banner measures 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) long and is printed with slogans seeking to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS prevention, said Anjana Chopra, the top AIDS offici
GAUHATI, India -- In the winter of 1994, Jahnabi Goswami was a shy 17-year-old bride, her husband chosen by her family in the traditional Indian way. Today she is the first person in the northeastern state of Assam to publicly declare herself HIV-positive, having contracted the virus from her late husband. I have
PUERTO PLATA, Dominican Republic -- On this Caribbean country s white beaches, teenage and child prostitutes wearing next to nothing troll the resort areas, frolicking near groups of foreign tourists to lure their attention away from the emerald seas. Poorly educated and immersed in poverty, they offer themselves f
MANILA, Philippines - Red Cross and Red Crescent groups agreed Thursday to push a plan to increase AIDS awareness, disaster response legislation and the rights of migrants and displaced people in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. In an action plan approved at the end of their four-day regional conference in
LUSAKA, Zambia - Almost every hand in the sun-washed classroom at Kaplunga Girls High School shoots up in stark answer to a simple question: How many of you have lost a teacher to AIDS? One lost a religion teacher. Another recalls a geography teacher who was especially nice. Others sigh about the civics teacher who die
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell is inviting the entire diplomatic corps to the State Department next Tuesday to deliver a message he hopes they will relay to their governments: Political leadership is an essential component in the struggle against HIV/AIDs. It is believed to be the first time all ambassad
HAVANA - (AP) -- The number of AIDS-related deaths in Cuba has dropped significantly over the past 1 ½ years following the development of several local treatments, a leading expert said in an interview published this week. It was a political decision by Cuba to start the generic production of these medicines to save th
MOSCOW - Russia s AIDS problem is exploding in spite of official statistics showing that the HIV growth rate was down by more than half this year, the country s top AIDS expert said Wednesday. Some 43,000 new HIV cases were registered in Russia in the first 11 months of 2002, down more than 50 percent from the 87,000 r
LONDON (AP) - For the first time in the 20-year history of the AIDS epidemic, as many women as men are infected with HIV, a United Nations report says. The report, presented Tuesday in London, paints a dismal picture of a disease invading regions of the globe where it had for many years tricked experts into believing s
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A Baptist minister took an HIV test in front of his congregation then implored parishioners to do the same after church as part of an effort to raise awareness about AIDS. Of the 700 members of the True Bethel Baptist Church who watched the Rev. Darius G. Pridgen endure the needle prick, 105 stopped by
GENEVA -- Negotiators opened talks Monday at the World Trade Organization on the issue of access to medicines in hopes of reaching a compromise by an end-of-year deadline between the United States , which wants to protect its pharmaceutical industry, and developing countries stricken by epidemics. Diplomats enterin
SHANGHAI, China -- In a first, China will allow a person infected with the virus that causes AIDS to marry someone healthy, a matchup aimed at raising awareness of the disease, state media said Monday. The unidentified couple, a woman with HIV and her fiance, will hold their wedding in Beijing next Sunday to mark World
BUCHAREST, Romania - Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday was honored with an award to thank her for helping toward expanding NATO , which Romania was invited to join last week. President Ion Iliescu conferred on Albright the National Order for Faithful Service, also as a sign of Romania s grati
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Rapper Sean P. Diddy Combs accused the media of ignoring the severity of the AIDS epidemic before performing at an AIDS-awareness concert Saturday. I don t think you see enough of this story in your face, an indignant Combs told reporters. There are millions and millions of people that are dy
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- AIDS is the leading killer of women in South Africa and is claiming increasing numbers of lives every year, according to a government study released Thursday. AIDS-related illnesses were responsible for 9.8 percent of female deaths in South Africa in 2001, up from 5.6 percent in 1997, the
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - Actor Danny Glover began a three-day visit to Trinidad on Wednesday to film a television program on HIV /AIDS and children, a U.N. spokeswoman said. The 55-year-old American, who starred in the Lethal Weapon movies and the film The Color Purple, arrived early Wednesday at the Caribbean coun
TORONTO - Police completed a five-year investigation of a tainted blood scandal that infected thousands of Canadians with HIV and hepatitis C by filing charges Wednesday against four doctors, the Red Cross and a U.S. pharmaceutical company. The charges include criminal negligence causing bodily harm, which carries a ma
ENTEBBE, Uganda - AIDS and malaria are costing Uganda over a billion dollars a year in lost wealth and ruining the health ministry, the country s president said Monday. The AIDS epidemic costs Uganda US$702 million a year while malaria costs the East African nation US$348 million a year, President Yoweri Museveni told
NEW DELHI, India - Hollywood actor Richard Gere wants Western nations to do more to prevent HIV/AIDS in Asia, where many fear the disease is spreading fast. I think we in the West can do much more to help and we re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, Gere said in an interview to the BBC world service Friday.
SYDNEY, Australia -- Nations rich and poor agreed Friday they must work hard to strike a deal by next month that will provide cheaper drugs to poorer countries -- a crucial step in efforts to negotiate a new global trade pact, two officials said. As 25 members of the World Trade Organization met in a hotel at Sydney s
LUSAKA, Zambia - AIDS activists criticized a Zambian official Thursday for his proposal to round up everyone infected with HIV and force them into isolation camps. Alex Chama, deputy minister for Luapula province, made his comments during a parliamentary debate Wednesday over a bill to form a National AIDS Council secr
SOWETO, South Africa -- U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans rocked a toddler on his lap Thursday as he told South African parents that big business can help solve many of the problems plaguing developing nations. The road to prosperity and peace is through commerce, Evans said during a visit to the Shezi Children s Cl
NEW DELHI, India -- Hoping to stave off a rise in the popularity of free, open-source software, Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday announced a $400 million investment in India to expand the company s operations and boost computer literacy. The three-year initiative - part philanthropy, part business boost -
NEW DELHI, India -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates pledged $100 million Monday to fight AIDS in India, a dramatic initiative he said would focus on helping women protect themselves from careless partners. The $100 million contribution from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest grant the organization has
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Bill Gates chatted with an HIV -positive patient Monday as he opened his controversy-laced visit to India, where he plans to talk business and give money to help fight AIDS. Coming to India is valuable to me for both business and personal reasons ... it s a place where I believe we can make subs
NEW DELHI, India - India on Friday rejected a U.S. government report warning that the South Asian nation could soon have the highest number of people with HIV/AIDS in the world, and demanded that its authors explain the basis of the forecast. It is completely inaccurate to claim India will have over 25 million people l
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A Malaysian court on Friday ordered the government to pay 500,000 ringgit (US$131,578) to an 8-year-old boy who contracted HIV from his mother after she became infected during a blood transfusion. The mother received the transfusion at a public hospital in Raub, about 120 kilometers (70 miles)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government approved a new 20-minute HIV test on Thursday that promises to let more Americans than ever before learn on-the-spot if they re infected with the AIDS virus. It s not the first rapid HIV test: a 10-minute version has been sold since the mid-1990s, but was so difficult to use accurately
MADRAS, India - India could soon have the highest number of people with HIV/AIDS in the world if the spread of the disease is not checked, the U.S. Ambassador said Wednesday. If the disease is unchecked here, India could soon surpass South Africa with the highest number of HIV/AIDS sufferers in the world, Ambassad
VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican repeated its opposition to using condoms as a way to fight AIDS, saying Wednesday that chastity was the best way to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. Monsignor Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Workers, acknowledged that to some, the Vatican pos
BEIJING -- With one million Chinese infected with the AIDS virus, China s health minister says prevention work is lagging and has issued an urgent call for more trained health workers, state media reported Monday. AIDS in China has entered a critical epidemic level and is spreading from people considered most at risk,
LONDON -- Former South African President Nelson Mandela, an admirer of Princess Diana s humanitarian work, paid respect to the late royal by laying a wreath at her family s country home, Althorp House. Mandela had lunch Friday with Diana s brother, Earl Spencer, and local dignitaries before laying a wreath of white lil
JAKARTA, Indonesia - An American nurse detained in Indonesia s Aceh province since she and a British woman were charged Sept. 10 with contacting a rebel movement said Saturday her health was deteriorating due to her HIV-related condition. Joy Lee Sadler, 57, of Waterloo, Iowa, contacted The Associated Press from provin
ATLANTA -- Syphilis is on the rise in the United States for the first time in more than a decade, largely because of outbreaks among gay and bisexual men in several big cities, the government reported Thursday. The trend suggests a potential resurgence in transmission of the AIDS virus, the Centers for Disease Control
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union s head office announced plans Wednesday to facilitate the sale of cheaper drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in poor nations. Under the proposed system, manufacturers will be able to register medicines with the EU for sale at cheap prices in developing nations.
LONDON - Governments may have to consider legislation to reduce the proportion of salt, fat, sugar and other unhealthy components in manufactured foods, according to a new report by the World Health Organization . The recommendation is part of a package of suggestions contained in this year s annual World Health Report
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South Africa plans to cut taxes and increase its spending on AIDS and health care in its next budget, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament Tuesday. The government also plans to increase spending on social programs, he said. Poverty reduction is the overarching goal of South African e
NEW YORK -- A snakelike train carrying iron ore through the Sahara, the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, a mother grieving by the open casket of her AIDS-stricken child, a family having breakfast in their Western-style kitchen in Johannesburg. These are some of the varied images of Africa on view in a traveling exhibit at G
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Rapper Sean P. Diddy Combs and Microsoft mogul Bill Gates have more than just lots of cash in common - the unlikely duo are pairing up in the fight against AIDS. Combs and singer Alicia Keys, along with several South African artists, are scheduled to perform at MTV s HIV/AIDS Awareness Conc
KAMPALA, Uganda - Nearly one million Ugandans have died as a result of AIDS since the deadly disease was first identified in the East African nation in 1983, the Health Ministry said. In a report released Wednesday, the ministry said 947,552 people have fallen victim to AIDS-related diseases during the last 19 years, i
WASHINGTON -- Two Democratic congressmen contended Monday that the Bush administration is putting ideology over science, citing appointments to advisory committees and the removal of information from Web sites. Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Sherrod Brown of Ohio demanded explanations in a letter to Health and Hu
WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Monday proposed an election-year solution to rising prescription drug costs, ordering the government to block pharmaceutical companies from filing multiple patent-protection lawsuits that can stall cheaper products for years. This is another important advancement in the cause of bringing
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Prisoners cram into cells soaked in grime and sweat. They share mattresses, tattoo needles and dirty razors. Rape is common. South Africa s prisons have become a breeding ground for the AIDS virus, and prisoners now represent one of the hardest-hit segments of a country plagued by the dead
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) -- Eleven-year-old Isabella Robbins has a message to share with the world. She has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and it s OK. Isabella, together with her classmates and parents, were among some 20,000 people who participated Sunday in the AIDS Walk Los Angeles. The fifth-grader and her fr
RUSTENBURG, South Africa (AP) -- When Zydwell Sitofe s daughter spoke her first words, he was more than 600 miles away. Like most of South Africa s 300,000 gold and platinum miners, he works far from home and sees his family only once a year. The miners live crowded together in squalid buildings -- without the joys of
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Bill Clinton, once famously described by author Toni Morrison as our first black president, is being inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame as an honorary member. The former president will be the first non-black recognized in the hall s 10-year history. He is expected to attend the Saturday
MOSCOW - Russia s HIV-positive population could soon reach 3 million to 4 million given the country s skyrocketing infection rate, a top AIDS official said Tuesday, according to news reports. There are 215,000 officially registered infected people, said Oleg Yurin, deputy director of the Center for AIDS Prevention and
DAKAR, Senegal -- Senegal s president said he has dismissed the head of a humanitarian organization for his alleged role in trafficking cheap AIDS drugs that were meant to go to Africa but were sold off in Europe. Latif Gueye committed extremely serious errors, President Abdoulaye Wade said on national television, anno
HANGZHOU, China -- China has no time to lose in preventing a massive outbreak of AIDS and the crippling social and economic costs it would bring to the world s most populous country, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday. Annan s plea for action, in remarks to students at Zhejiang University, was the highest-pr
New York (AP) - Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and its U.S. partner Trimeris Inc. said Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted a priority review to their AIDS drug, Fuzeon. The priority review means the drug will go through the approval process within six months instead of up to 12 months. Priority
WASHINGTON -- Making smallpox vaccine available is the first step. Getting people to take it may be much harder. The vaccine protects recipients against smallpox, but it can also kill. So the Bush administration is preparing an extensive education plan to help people understand the risks and the benefits as it finalize
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The South African government, long criticized for its slow response to the AIDS crisis, has announced it was investigating the possibility of providing AIDS medicine through the public health system. The announcement Wednesday night, following a Cabinet meeting, highlighted the serious cha
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations warned on Thursday that the global cost of treating HIV and AIDS cases and containing the epidemic could reach US 10.5 billion a year by 2005. The estimate was drawn up by U.N. officials for a meeting in Geneva of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, a U.N. statem
WASHINGTON -- Relief for the health problems, economic woes and violence plaguing Africa is being hindered by widespread ignorance in many industrial nations, including the United States , former President Clinton said Wednesday. Many Americans view Africa as a single country rather than a continent, Clinton said.
LOS ANGELES -- Viacom Inc. will use its vast media holdings, including the Paramount studio, CBS and MTV, in a global anti-AIDS campaign, the company said Wednesday. Working with the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, Viacom plans to distribute AIDS and HIV awareness messages through its TV and radio programming, onli
BANGKOK, Thailand - Wanting cheaper HIV/AIDS treatment for Thailand s estimated 1 million sufferers, victims of the disease and consumer activists on Wednesday filed a lawsuit to invalidate a drug patent held here by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb . In legal action presented to the Central Intell
NEW YORK -- The U.S. abortion rate dropped significantly during the second half of the 1990s, particularly among teen-agers, and experts attribute the decline to AIDS fears and better awareness of contraception. The rate fell 11 percent between 1994 and 2000, from about 24 abortions for every 1,000 women of childbearin
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- An American and two Britons won this year s Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for discoveries about how genes regulate organ growth and a process of programmed cell suicide. Their findings shed light on the development of many illnesses, including AIDS and strokes. Britons Sydney Brenner, 75, and
In Little Rock, Ark., a 75,000-square-foot warehouse that distributes food to 450 food banks is nearly half empty. Corporate food gift cutbacks are to blame, and the donations that do come in are mostly junk food rather than eggs, cheese, canned vegetables and produce. In Miami, a non-profit support and education group
NEW YORK -- The director of the newest museum in this culture-packed city is surveying the prizes of his permanent collection - leather straps, condom boxes, video porn playing on large screens. He stops and points at a 1940s Wonder Woman comic book cover. Just look at her, Daniel Gluck says. The cinched waist, the hig
McLEAN, Virginia - The spread of HIV is expected to accelerate in Asia and Africa over the next decade with 75 million cases likely in five of the world s most populous countries by 2010, a U.S. intelligence report predicts. The rapid growth of HIV as well as AIDS cases will heavily tax the economies and public health
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has pulled information about the effectiveness of condoms from a government Web site and is engaged in a witch hunt against those who promote condoms in the fight against AIDS, several groups charge. They argue that the administration is hostile to HIV prevention and sex education t
WASHINGTON -- Several hundred transfusion recipients around the country - adults undergoing heart surgery and children with certain inherited anemias - are being enrolled in a bold experiment: They ll receive donated blood that has essentially been sterilized. Today s blood supply is very safe because it undergoes nume
WASHINGTON -- Top financial leaders ended their weekend meetings by promising action to prevent plunging stock markets from derailing the global economy s fragile recovery and vowed to draw up a plan to help bankrupt nations by April. The leaders completed their meetings without major protests in the streets or disagre
ORANGE FARM, South Africa -- Nelson Mandela and former President Clinton spoke with South African youth Saturday to boost AIDS awareness and prevention. Clinton and Mandela, the former president of South Africa, greeted a roaring crowd in the township of Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg. The former leaders listen
WASHINGTON -- Chanting protesters used puppets, homemade signs and music Saturday to drive home their message against trade and economic policies they say hurt the poor and put unmanageable burdens on the Third World. Their goal for the day: surround the financial institutions where officials from around the globe were
SAN DIEGO -- People with genital herpes who worry about passing the virus to others should be offered a prescription drug that has been shown for the first time to reduce transmission, a researcher says. The drug, called Valtrex, is already widely used to treat and prevent flare-ups of genital herpes. A study released
WASHINGTON (AP) - In research that solves a 16-year medical mystery, scientists have identified a group of proteins that inhibit the progression of HIV in people who are resistant to the virus that causes AIDS. The study, using a new protein-identification tool, identified the proteins in a disease-blocking substance,
ATLANTA (AP) - An increase in syphilis infections among gay and bisexual men in New York and elsewhere indicates they may be letting their guard down against sexually transmitted diseases, the government said Thursday. Syphilis infections more than doubled in New York City last year, mostly among gay and bisexual men,
Great athletes inspire awe, surprise, fascination. Magic Johnson did all that and more. He made people smile. These days, when sports sometimes seem oh-so-serious and too many stars appear angry with the world or aloof from it, a glimpse at Magic s own wide-eyed, 1,000-watt smile would be mighty welcome. His induction
UNITED NATIONS - The food crisis in six southern African countries is being exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has left millions of starving children orphaned and some heading households where all earning adults have died, a top U.N. official warned Thursday. About 14.4 million people in Zimbabwe
KIGALI, Rwanda - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Wednesday said the world has a stake in helping Africans survive AIDS and in using the knowledge gained to help other regions of the globe where the disease is growing at alarming rates. I believe reversing the AIDS (pandemic) is the most important issue that is fa
GENEVA -- Warning that fake medicines are killing many hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, a conference of health experts, enforcement agencies and pharmaceutical companies Tuesday called for tougher international measures to stop the deadly trade. There is no single country which can be called a safe hav
BEIJING - (AP) -- Chinese AIDS activist Wan Yanhai was released Friday after being held for nearly a month by state security agents who said he leaked official secrets. Wan, last seen Aug. 25 in Beijing, said he was released after he admitted that distributing a government report on the spread of AIDS had been a mistak
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- As world leaders wrapped up their annual session at the United Nations, it was clear that the U.S.- Iraq standoff had stolen the show despite much-lauded plans to focus on African development, the AIDS epidemic and education. The General Assembly heard from 188 speakers during the nine-day me
In Little Rock, Ark., a 75,000-square-foot warehouse that distributes food to 450 food banks is nearly half empty. Corporate food gift cutbacks are to blame, and the donations that do come in are mostly junk food rather than eggs, cheese, canned vegetables and produce. In Miami, a nonprofit support and education group
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- AIDS activists and the nation s largest labor federation filed a complaint Thursday in an attempt to force two pharmaceutical companies to drop the price of their anti-AIDS drugs. The companies, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim , alr
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A doctor who once headed the Presidential Advisory Council on AIDS and HIV has been accused by state regulators of sexually molesting two patients at his office. Dr. R. Scott Hitt, an AIDS specialist and gay activist, said he touched one patient inappropriately in August 2000 and crossed a boundary w
SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts - Magic Johnson s latest checkup confirmed he is free of AIDS symptoms, 11 years after he first tested positive for HIV. The former NBA star, who will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame next week, said his doctor told him last week he is still healthy. He said, Man, whatever you re
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - HIV and AIDS infection rates are skyrocketing in much of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, with young people comprising the majority of new cases, the U.N. Children s Fund warned in a report released Wednesday. Nearly 80 percent of newly registered infections from 1997-2000 in the Common
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Poverty remains the single largest cause of bad health in Europe, the World Health Organization said Tuesday as it presented a snapshot of the health situation in its vast European region. The report covering 51 countries in the agency s European sphere and 870 million p
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Kami, a mustard-colored furry Muppet, likes nature, telling stories and collecting stuff. She also happens to be HIV-positive. To plaudits from education officials and AIDS activists, the producers of South Africa s version of Sesame Street on Tuesday unveiled the first Muppet infected with t
The United Nations Aids agency, UNAIDS , reported that in 2001 sub-Saharan Africa was the most afflicted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic of any region in the world. UNAIDS statistics include: -A total of 28.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with HIV/AIDS. -In 2001, 3.5 million new cases of infection in the regio
UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a war on AIDS and the promotion of girls education as the world body focused Monday on what one African leader called extricating Africa out of her long night of misery. Launching the debate, Annan proposed stronger work on a new partnership to help Africa
UNITED NATIONS -- African leaders want the world s richer nations to help the continent emerge from decades of conflict and poverty to become a major player in the world economy - and they have plenty of ideas. The U.N. General Assembly is interrupting its annual ministerial meeting for a daylong discussion Monday on h
WASHINGTON -- Smallpox vaccine would be offered first to hospital emergency workers and slowly extended to other doctors, nurses, police and, eventually, the general public, under a Bush administration plan in the final stages of development. The plan would begin vaccinations for those at the greatest risk of contactin
WASHINGTON -- Life expectancy is at an all-time high, and the gaps between blacks and whites, men and women are continuing to narrow, the government reported in its annual look at American health. Overall, the death rate is on the decline for babies, adults and older people alike, with AIDS, homicide, cancer and heart
The text of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan s speech to the United Nations on Thursday, as released by the United Nations: Mr. President, distinguished heads of state and government, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. We cannot begin today without reflecting on yesterday s anniversary and on the criminal challenge s
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea - Papua New Guinea has launched its own brand of condoms and will hand them out free at health clinics in an attempt to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS across the impoverished Pacific nation. The nation s AIDS Council said Friday the new Karamap condoms would form part of a new awareness pr
BEIJING -- A missing Chinese AIDS activist who reportedly has been detained by China s secret police was named the recipient Thursday of a health award given by U.S. and Canadian groups. Wan Yanhai, who was last seen Aug. 25 in Beijing, is being recognized for publicizing an unsanitary Chinese blood-buying industry tha
WARWICK, England -- People come into contact with others up to 1,000 times more frequently than they did a century ago and infectious disease experts say scientists need to better understand human behavior and movement in the global battle against germs. Scientists gathering Monday at the annual meeting of Britain s in
NEW YORK - Swiss researchers have documented a rare case of a patient contracting a second HIV infection years later with a different strain of the virus. Doctors once assumed that patients natural immunity would keep them from getting the virus more than once. However, in Thursday s New England Journal of Medicine, re
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Unfurling banners and shouting Shame on Bush, dozens of activists at the World Summit heckled Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday as he defended America s record on the environment and helping the developing world. Thirteen activists were dragged from the room. Boos from the r
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- In a direct rebuke to America s critics, Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United States has not shirked its responsibility to take a leading role in solving global problems. Arriving in Johannesburg, where he addressed the World Summit on Sustainable Development on Wednesday, Powel
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Tonya Payne got four years in jail for luring a 15-year-old boy into her trailer and raping him, exposing him to the AIDS virus. When she gets out this week, she says, she will be a changed woman - thanks to a sex offender treatment program Tennessee recently began offering to female inmates. If
BANGKOK, Thailand - A private charity said Friday it was fooled into distributing a purported AIDS cure to thousands of patients that its own research later showed to be useless. We found that we were fooled by the company producing the pill. We have stopped distributing it, said Dr. Sek Aksaranukroh, a doctor working
BANGKOK, Thailand - Warning that sailors are highly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS , the United Nations launched Friday a new educational program for maritime industry workers about the dangers of unprotected sex. U.N. officials, who met with maritime officials from seven countries, said sailors save a lot of money during
WASHINGTON (AP) - Larry Kramer was given six months to live. His liver was failing, but because he was HIV positive, he was told he wouldn t qualify for a liver transplant. Then the longtime AIDS activist found one of the few hospitals willing to transplant people with HIV. After surgery in December at the University o
WASHINGTON - Patients with HIV are successfully receiving liver and kidney transplants, researchers reported Thursday, challenging widespread reluctance by transplant centers to give scarce organs to people with the incurable disease. The research, presented at a transplant conference in Miami, offers the latest medica
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Efforts to uplift the world s poor will be meaningless without a massive international campaign to fight the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa and other developing nations, a top U.N. official said Thursday. If AIDS is not brought under control, if people are not alive, if people are not healt
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP)- Dutch researchers theorize that an AIDS-like epidemic wiped out huge numbers of chimpanzees 2 million years ago, leaving modern chimps with resistance to the AIDS virus and its variants. If true, the hypothesis would explain why chimps, which share more than 98 percent of their DNA with hum
HAVANA, Cuba - A group of 23 American students began intensive Spanish courses this week before starting their six-year medical program on the communist-ruled island. The group arrived Aug. 20 at the Latin American School of Medicine, with more than 6,000 students from 24 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Afri
HURON, South Dakota - A college student was ordered Thursday to spend 120 days in jail for having sex with his girlfriend without revealing that he had the AIDS virus. Nikko Briteramos, 19, a basketball player at SiTanka-Huron University, was the first person convicted in South Dakota of intentionally exposing another
BEIJING -- A leading Chinese AIDS activist is missing and the group he founded has been banned by the government, human rights groups reported. Secret police had been tailing Wan Yanhai since the organization he founded, Aizhi Action Project, was banned July 1, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said
SEATTLE - Low-tech efforts to slow the spread of HIV and give women some control over contraception got a dlrs 46 million boost Wednesday from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grants will support research at three U.S. universities to help efforts at stemming the estimated 29 million new HIV infections expe
WASHINGTON -- White House officials are considering how many Americans to vaccinate against smallpox, but that s just one of many issues complicating planning for what officials see as the scariest bioterror scenario. Smallpox, a highly contagious and fatal disease, was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. The
MOSCOW - More than 3,500 new HIV cases are registered every month in Russia , the State Statistics Committee reported Wednesday. In June, 3,573 HIV cases, including 30 children, were registered, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the newly released government statistics. In May, the government registered 3,569 H
HARARE, Zimbabwe -- As many as 300,000 people in southern Africa could die from preventable diseases in the next six months if hunger and malnutrition are not addressed, health officials warned Tuesday. Disease and declining health services have made the lack of food faced by 14 million people across southern Africa th
UNITED NATIONS -- Two years ago, Secretary-General Kofi Annan challenged world leaders to use their power to give billions of people a better life by 2015. In his first report card on Monday, he said they re not moving fast enough to cut poverty, improve education, reduce child mortality and fight AIDS. World leaders a
SOFIA, Bulgaria - Six months after a Libyan People s Court dropped conspiracy charges against six Bulgarian medics accused of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus, the case has been sent to a criminal court, officials announced Monday. Conviction by the People s Court likely would have meant the death sentence
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa s revered former president, Nelson Mandela, revealed that he lost three young relatives to AIDS in comments published Sunday. Mandela, who has actively promoted AIDS awareness since stepping down as president in 1999, told the Sunday Times newspaper his niece and his nephew s
GENEVA (AP) - The head of the World Health Organization said Friday she will not seek re-election when her current term expires in July 2003. My decision to complete my work as director-general at the end of my current term reflects the fact that I have had leading positions in political and public office for nearly 30
HANOI (AP)--A Vietnamese company has started producing a lower-priced AIDS drug under a government program aimed at making it more affordable for the growing number of poor AIDS patients, an official said Thursday. The drug will cost patients about $1,850 ($1=VND15,294) a year, about one-fourth to one-sixth the previou
NEW YORK (AP) - The federal government has approved tests of an experimental and potentially expensive AIDS drug that could prolong the lives of patients with drug-resistant strains of HIV. Dubbed Fuzeon by its developers, Roche Group and Trimeris Inc., the drug won a priority, six-month review from the Food and Drug A
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - AIDS activists from 22 countries banded together Thursday to create a new pan-African drive to battle the deadly epidemic and secure access to treatment for millions of sufferers. All of us are trying to prevent a holocaust against poor people, said Zackie Achmat, chairman of South Africa s Tr
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- AIDS killed 3 million people last year. The year before, tuberculosis killed 1.7 million and malaria more than a million others. Millions more died from diarrhea and other easily preventable diseases. A decade ago, world leaders at the Earth Summit in Rio promised to tackle diseases of the
ALYTUS, Lithuania - Aleksandras Kreslinas landed a 10-year sentence for armed robbery but fears it may amount to a death penalty since he became infected with HIV while in Lithuania s Alytus prison. I don t know if I ll walk through these gates alive, said the pale and unshaven 51-year-old, speaking inside the dilapid
WASHINGTON -- Looking ahead to the Earth Summit next week, the Bush administration is proposing a nearly $4.5 billion spending plan to help African nations improve their health and environment. The plan will be presented at the U.N.-sponsored summit in Johannesburg, South Africa , and revolves around the administratio
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP)--The first Libyan foreign minister to visit Bulgaria in 17 years said Wednesday that justice would prevail in a trial against six Bulgarian medical workers accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS. A Libyan court recently dropped conspiracy charges against fi
BANGKOK, Thailand - An advertisement that depicts a woman carrying a goldfish in a water-filled condom has been pulled from television in communist Laos after authorities deemed it too explicit, a U.S.-based voluntary group that sells the condoms said Monday.
LONDON - The government said Monday it was writing off 28 million pounds (dlrs 43 million) in debt owed by Cameroon to allow the African country to spend the money on health and education initiatives. Richard Wildash, Britain s ambassador to Cameroon, said the debt relief would help provide HIV/AIDS health programs, ur
PBS President Pat Mitchell won t rule out the appearance of an HIV-positive Muppet on Sesame Street, but she and the show s producers have said no HIV-positive character currently is planned for the U.S. An HIV-positive character will join South Africa s version of the show in September. Some U.S. lawmakers had express
BEIJING -- A generic version of the anti-AIDS drug AZT will be available in China before the end of the year as a low-cost alternative to imported medicines, the drug s manufacturer said Friday. Northeast General Pharmaceutical Factory, a state-owned drug manufacturer in the northern city of Shenyang, has begun hos
CIBEUREUM, Indonesia -- Shivering in the early morning mist, recovering heroin addict Slamet prepares to start another day of Islamic prayer and meditation. The 28-year-old man used to spend most of his time stealing and shooting up. Now, after eight months in an Islamic drug rehabilitation center high in the hills of
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A bill that would allow pharmacists to sell needles to adults without a prescription passed the state Assembly on Thursday. The bill, authored by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, is intended to cut down on the transmission of HIV and other diseases caused by sharing needles among drug addicts.
WASHINGTON -- The global economic slowdown is making it more difficult for poor countries to maintain family planning programs aimed at reducing their high birth rates, said a study being released Thursday. The finding was included in the annual report on global population trends by the Washington-based Population Refe
LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, under increasing fire for spending a third of his time abroad since he was elected three years ago, responded on Tuesday, saying his frequent trips were a national necessity. Obasanjo s globe-trotting sparked heated debate in the West African country after the new
NEW YORK - Meshell Ndegeocello is teaming up with the Gay Men s Health Crisis to help fight AIDS. The singer will be the musical director of You Rock My Soul, a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 11. Ndegeocello will also be among the evening s performers. We all have the power to make a difference in the fight a
NASSAU, Bahamas - An agreement with drug makers to sell cheaper HIV /AIDS drugs to Caribbean countries will greatly improve patients access to treatment in the Bahamas, a health official said Monday. Six leading pharmaceutical companies agreed to slash prices of anti-retroviral drugs during a July AIDS conference in Ba
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - With a swipe at South Africa s often criticized AIDS policy, diamond giant De Beers announced Monday it would heavily subsidize the cost of AIDS medicine for its employees. The announcement made De Beers the latest major business in southern Africa to offer its employees medicine to fight t
NASSAU, Bahamas - An agreement with drug makers to sell cheaper HIV /AIDS drugs to Caribbean countries will greatly improve patients access to treatment in the Bahamas, a health official said Monday. Six leading pharmaceutical companies agreed to slash prices of anti-retroviral drugs during a July AIDS conference in Ba
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union s head office said Friday it would spend an additional 22 million euro (dlrs 21 million) to fight the spread of AIDS in poor countries. In a statement the European Commission said it would spend the money on funding prevention programs for younger people who are especially vulner
ORLANDO - (AP) -- Government scientists plan to test a new smallpox vaccine in Orlando and two other cities. The tests will determine what dosage protects people against the virus as a biological weapon. Orlando s study will include 120 people, ages 18 through 29, who have never been vaccinated for smallpox. Other test
MASERU, Lesotho - HIV-infected rapists who know they carry the deadly virus could face the death penalty under a bill introduced Wednesday in Lesotho s parliament. The bill, introduced by Justice Minister Refiloe Masemene, would provide for the compulsory testing of all sexual offenders. Those who knew they were infect
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - AIDS activists threatened Wednesday to sue the South African body that regulates medicines if it withdraws its approval of an AIDS drug for use in stopping HIV s spread from women to their babies. South Africa s Medicines Control Council said this week it was still reconsidering its approva
WASHINGTON (AP) - A failed HIV therapy should be sold instead to treat the liver-destroying hepatitis B virus, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration ruled Tuesday. If the FDA agrees, Gilead Sciences adefovir would become the first new treatment in years for the estimated 1.2 million Americans struggling with the
TOKYO - People in their teens and 20s account for nearly 40 percent of all Japanese newly infected with the AIDS virus, according to new Health Ministry figures that officials say underline a disturbing new trend. While the overall number of Japanese infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, remains low compared t
HOUSTON - A medical center in Texas has issued a recall of body parts shipped to research facilities across the United States , warning that some may have carried infectious diseases, including HIV. The University of Texas Medical Branch said Monday that the diseased body parts may have been shipped accidentally becaus
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Mining giant Anglo American said Tuesday it would soon begin supplying free anti-AIDS drugs to workers infected with the deadly disease. The plan would benefit the estimated 86 percent of Anglo s 90,000 employees who lacked enough medical coverage to afford the lifesaving drugs, said compan
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A prominent U.S. economist on Monday blasted the world s wealthiest countries, particularly the United States , for not providing enough assistance to poor nations such as Cambodia. Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Harvard University and the director of Columbia University s Earth Institute, said du
MBABANE, Swaziland -- A government plan to buy Swaziland s king a $250 million luxury jet drew protests Friday in this South African nation, which has been plagued by severe food shortages. Parliament called for the resignation of Swaziland s prime minister, who arranged to buy the plane for King Mswati III at a price
NEW YORK (AP) - A former public school second-grade teacher accused of sexually abusing six boys was HIV positive at the time of at least one of the alleged attacks, prosecutors said. Milton McFarlane, 39, was arraigned Thursday on reckless endangerment and other charges, accused of molesting six boys between the ages
HANOI, Vietnam - Just over 9,000 new cases of HIV infection were logged in Vietnam during the first seven months of this year, bringing the total number of HIV carriers in the country to more than 50,000, official media reported Thursday. The 9,024 people testing positive for the virus that causes AIDS through July rep
BANGKOK, Thailand - A Bangkok hospital says it has cut the rate of HIV transmission from pregnant mothers to their unborn children using a drug cocktail rather than a single anti-retroviral dosage. The government-run Siriraj Hospital said in a statement Tuesday that it gave 106 pregnant women infected with HIV, the vir
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Thousands of college students and teachers marched Monday to call for better programs to combat HIV and an end to the stigma attached to the virus that infects 11 percent of the country. Bearing AIDS-awareness posters, the activists marched through various South African cities, asking young
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - A green pock-faced monster with red eyes and fangs is depicted as the HIV virus in a new children s book that seeks to explain the science of AIDS to South African children. In the book, Staying Alive, Fighting HIV/AIDS, colorful pictures and simple text describe how the deadly HIV vir
PASADENA, California - A public television executive said he won t rule out the appearance of an HIV-positive Muppet on Sesame Street, saying the show s approach will reflect the virus impact on U.S. children. An HIV-positive character will join South Africa s version of the show in September, and some federal American
ST. GEORGE S, Grenada - The World Bank will loan Grenada dlrs 6 million to help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, a bank official said Friday. Caribbean governments have been emphatic about developing a strategy to curb this epidemic, said Lee Morrison, World Bank spokesman for Latin America and the Caribbean.
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP)--South Africa s President Thabo Mbeki accused the U.N. s Global Fund for AIDS Thursday of flouting its own rules by funding anti-AIDS programs without proper government approval. The $60 million grant from the U.N. s Global Fund to Fight Aids was originally earmarked for AIDS victims in the
TAMPA - (AP) -- An attorney for a man infected by HIV after receiving a tainted transfusion said Wednesday he will sue Florida Blood Services and the Tarpon Springs hospital where the man got the blood. Tampa lawyer Hendrik Uiterwyk said he planned to file the suit today on behalf of the 24-year-old man and his 6-month
SAN FRANCISCO -- Frustrated by the government s determination to shut down medical marijuana clubs, San Francisco is thinking about growing its own. The Board of Supervisors voted late Monday to put a measure on the November ballot that would have city officials explore the possibility of growing marijuana on publicly
WASHINGTON -- Well-educated patients are better able to follow the complex medical treatments needed to treat some diseases than are patients with less schooling, according to a RAND study. Researchers at RAND, a nonprofit research institution in Santa Monica, Calif., examined the health of patients with HIV and with d
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- More than 25,000 walkers raised $3.5 million for AIDS-related services. Sunday s 10-kilometer walk through Golden Gate Park benefited the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and 35 other organizations in five Bay Area communities. For this year s AIDS Walk to raise such an extraordinary amount of money,
WASHINGTON - The van stocked with condoms, candy and compassion rolls past the White House and into Girls Town, where the city s female prostitutes spend their nights. With the emergency hot-line number on the outside, humor and advice on the inside, the van is a popular spot on the track. Hey, want some free condoms?
ST. PETERSBURG -- (AP) -- Federal and state authorities are investigating how two people became infected with HIV after receiving tainted transfusions from the Tampa Bay area s primary blood bank. The Food and Drug Administration will look into Florida Blood Services procedures, including the handling and testing of bl
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House made it official Friday: Joseph O Neill is taking over the helm of President Bush s office on AIDS policy, replacing an openly gay director whose activism rankled some conservatives. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer issued a statement naming O Neill, an openly gay physician w
WASHINGTON - The White House is shaking up its AIDS office, shifting its director elsewhere in the Bush administration and replacing him with another federal AIDS official, officials said Thursday. Scott Evertz has been head of the Office of National AIDS Policy since April 2001. He is the first openly gay person nomin
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Two people contracted HIV from blood transfusions after tests failed to find the virus because the donor s infection was in its early stages, officials said. The incident marks the second time since the nation s blood banks implemented new screening technology in 1999 that HIV has been trans
BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai government plans to give free HIV drugs to 10,000 patients, expanding a program that covers 3,000 people, thanks to a cheap new anti-retroviral cocktail it started producing this year, officials said Friday. The expanded program, called Access to Care, is expected to start by September, Dr.
UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations launched an appeal Thursday for $611 million to prevent famine in southern Africa, with nearly half the money earmarked for Zimbabwe which once exported food to hungry neighbors. There is still an opportunity to avert famine and to save lives, but the window is closing rapidly, U.N
BARCELONA, Spain -- Death has become so much a part of life in southern Africa that church history professor Paul Gundani s face barely bespoke loss as he rattled off the people in his family recently struck down by AIDS. My sister last week, and my brother last year, the 42-year-old Roman Catholic theologian said, as
BARCELONA, Spain -- Former President Clinton embraced former South African President Nelson Mandela to wild cheers at the world AIDS conference Friday and declared that the battle against AIDS must be won. One hundred million AIDS cases means more terror, more mercenaries, more war, destruction, and the failure of frag
NEW YORK (AP) - The South African version of Sesame Street is introducing a character with a problem far more serious than scraped knees or missing cookies. She s HIV positive. The Muppet character will join the cast of the children s show in September to help educate children about AIDS at the urging of the South Afri
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad - A deal with drug makers to provide cheaper HIV/AIDS drugs in Caribbean countries promises a significant boost for treatment of patients with the virus, health officials said Friday. Caribbean leaders sealed the accord with six pharmaceutical companies at an AIDS conference in Barcelona,
BARCELONA, Spain -- More determination and more money must be devoted to the worldwide war against AIDS if the heartless march of HIV across the globe is to be thwarted, experts said Friday. Doctors, international public health officials and activists delivered their report cards on the achievements of the world s figh
BARCELONA, Spain -- Former President Clinton and South African leader Nelson Mandela called on world leaders Friday to recognize that the AIDS epidemic is a threat to international peace and economic stability. We cannot lose our war against AIDS and win our battle against poverty, promote stability, advance democracy
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - The first HIV-positive Muppet will soon join the cast of Sesame Street in South Africa to educate children about the deadly virus that infects more than 10 percent of the country. The female character, whose color, name and personality traits are still on the drawing board, will be int
BARCELONA, Spain - In the early 1980s, former heroin addict Carlos Ortega lived a careless life, shooting up constantly with dirty needles picked up off the street and shared among a half-dozen junkies. Like thousands of other Spaniards at that time, he had never heard of AIDS until a doctor told him he had it. Be
PARIS -- Stephane Gaudin, a 15-year-old hemophiliac who received a transfusion with AIDS-tainted blood, died in 1993 - a year after his 11-year-old brother, Laurent. His death came during the trial of doctors and officials who allegedly knew that Stephane, his brother and others were getting transfusions with bad blood
HURON, S.D. -- An HIV-infected college student whose arrest on charges of having unprotected sex with a woman spread fear on campus and prompted the testing of hundreds of people for AIDS pleaded guilty Thursday and could get up to 15 years in prison. Nikko Briteramos, a 19-year-old SiTanka-Huron University basketball
BARCELONA, Spain -- An important step in the fight against AIDS in the developing world is for poor nations to immediately make a deal with drug companies or other countries to provide affordable HIV drugs, former President Clinton said Thursday. Clinton joined a panel of former heads of state at the 14th International
BARCELONA, Spain -- For the United States and other wealthy countries, the worst of the AIDS pandemic may be over, thanks to new powerful drugs. For vast swaths of sub-Saharan Africa, however, a massive plague is bringing death and misery and pushing entire nations toward the brink of economic collapse.
NEW DELHI, India -- The World Health Organization has approved three generic drugs made by India s Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. for use in AIDS prevention programs, the pharmaceutical company said Wednesday. The United Nations agency approved zidovudine,
BARCELONA, Spain -- The AIDS pandemic is increasingly becoming one of young women, experts say. About half of all new infections are in women and among people in their late teens and early 20s, females account for nearly two-thirds of new cases. Sex between men and women continues to be the main way HIV is spread in th
BARCELONA, Spain -- The number of children in the developing world who have lost at least one parent to AIDS will increase from 13.4 million today to 25 million in the next eight years, experts said Wednesday. Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. AIDS agency, said the orphans report was one of the most shock
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. -- Two dozen junior high school students apparently shared a needle provided by their diabetic teacher to draw blood samples during a science class last year, school officials said. In a May 2001 class at Keith Junior High School, teacher Kevin D. Cadieux loaded a new needle into his lancet and asked
BARCELONA, Spain -- The head of a global AIDS fund promised that a detailed spending plan to battle the pandemic would be set up by October. Speaking Tuesday at the 14th International AIDS Conference, Dr. Richard Feachem said the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria will be able to announce exactly how m
BARCELONA, Spain -- The number of infants born in the United States with HIV infection has declined by 80 percent during the last decade, new research shows. Experts say the finding, presented Tuesday at the high-profile 14th International AIDS Conference, represents a great success story in the battle to reduce the ra
BARCELONA, Spain -- Thailand plans to host the world s largest HIV vaccine trial this year, using two separate vaccines in an approach designed to deliver a double punch to the AIDS virus. The experiment, which is not the first of its kind but the largest, is expected to take five years and would be conducted by the U.
BARCELONA, Spain -- Shrieking protesters at the AIDS conference in Spain drowned out U.S. health secretary Tommy Thompson as he attempted to speak about American global AIDS programs on Tuesday. About 40 people who demanded more U.S. funding clambered onto the lecture platform as Thompson tried to address the 14th Inte
BARCELONA, Spain -- A new drug that attacks the AIDS virus in an entirely different way could dramatically restore the health of HIV patients whose infections have outfoxed all existing medicines, research indicates. Studies presented Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference found that patients for whom current
BARCELONA, Spain -- A study of young gay and bisexual men in major U.S. cities found that more than three-quarters of those infected with HIV were unaware they had the AIDS virus. The finding, presented Monday during the first day of scientific sessions at the 14th International AIDS Conference in Spain, is a worrying
HONG KONG - A leading HIV/AIDS expert plans to set up an institute in Hong Kong to develop a vaccine and try to prevent the deadly disease from spreading in Asia. Dr. David Ho, the scientific director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City, has agreed to establish and head an HIV/AIDS center at the
BARCELONA, Spain - The United States must revive the passion with which it once tackled the AIDS epidemic, otherwise infection rates could start climbing again, the U.S. AIDS prevention chief said Sunday. U.S. AIDS cases and HIV infections have remained fairly stable since 1998 at about 10,000 new infections every thre
BARCELONA, Spain -- In the last two years, the world has awakened to the AIDS tragedy and what it takes to bring it under control, but there is no indication that the epidemic is leveling off worldwide and strategies known to prevent the spread are still grossly underused, the U.N. s AIDS chief said Sunday. More than 1
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The van stocked with condoms, candy and compassion rolls past the White House and into Girls Town, where the city s female prostitutes spend their nights. With the emergency hot line number on the outside, humor and advice on the inside, the van is a popular spot on the track. Hey, want some free con
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) -- Fifteen Caribbean nations have reached a deal with major pharmaceutical companies to buy drugs for AIDS patients at discounts of up to 90 percent, officials said Saturday. Six companies -- including the U.S.-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Merck & Co.
CHICAGO -- New treatment guidelines suggest symptom-free HIV patients can wait longer than previously recommended to begin taking AIDS drugs. The threshold for initiation of therapy has shifted to a later time in the course of HIV disease because of increased awareness of the effectiveness of AIDS drugs and their toxic
YANGON, Myanmar - Australia will donate dlrs 4.5 million to fight HIV /AIDS among intravenous drug users in Myanmar, Vietnam and China under an agreement signed Friday. Drug users who share needles account for two-thirds of all reported HIV cases in the three As
BANGKOK, Thailand - Preliminary results of a study by Thai doctors suggests that the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission may be reduced by the use of a two-drug cocktail, a government official said Friday. The results raise hope that hundreds of thousands of newborn babies, who become infected in the womb, could b
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa s Constitutional Court ordered the government Friday to give HIV-infected pregnant women access to a key AIDS drug that could prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies. AIDS activists celebrated the ruling as an important victory in their fight to change the govern
LONDON -- About 45 million more people worldwide will be infected with the AIDS virus in the next eight years, a huge increase that can be averted only with drastic action, experts say. In research released Friday ahead of next week s International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, scientists estimate 29 million of the cas
PARIS -- An appeals court on Thursday threw out a long-standing case against 30 people who could have faced trial for their alleged roles in an AIDS-tainted blood scandal more than a decade ago. The decision shocked families of victims, who were infected or died because they received transfusions tainted with the HIV v
CORRY, Pa. -- An HIV-positive man was sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison for having unprotected sex with two teen-age girls and soliciting sex from a third. James Willison, 37, pleaded guilty in June to two counts of aggravated assault for having sex with the minors and for failing to tell them he was HIV positiv
ACCRA, Ghana - Ghana said Wednesday it had signed a deal for low-cost HIV drugs with a Western drug company. The deal with Merck Sharp & Dohme was signed by Health Minister Kwaku Afriyie and Marc Devaux, managing director of the company s Africa division. The company agreed to supply anti-retroviral drugs to the We
UNITED NATIONS -- The world is only at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which is spreading rapidly in southern Africa, Eastern Europe and the world s most populous nations: China , India and Indonesia , a new U.N. report said Tuesday. Even in Europe and North America, unsafe sex is leading to hig
WASHINGTON -- A scientist on the front lines of the anthrax investigation has been tapped to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials said Tuesday. Dr. Julie Gerberding will become the first female director of the CDC, the nation s top public-health agency. Dr. Gerberding, 46 years
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (AP) - Thabani Ndlovu, 24, lies emaciated and barely moving on a ratty mattress in a patch of winter sunlight in his father s backyard, dying of a disease that is ravaging his country. According to statistics released Tuesday by UNAIDS , Zimbabwe has the second-highest HIV rate in the world, w
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - New evidence shows that the HIV /AIDS epidemic has not peaked and the HIV virus is now spreading rapidly in the world s most populous countries, including China , India and Indonesia , according to a U.N. report. The UNAIDS report on the HIV/AID
MOSCOW - Russia s top AIDS official warned Monday that the country s rate of HIV infection is growing and that Russia could soon face an AIDS epidemic on the scale of that in some African countries, where the rates of infection reach up to 30 percent. The epidemic of HIV infection in Russia is continuing, and now inter
NASSAU, Bahamas - Several drug companies are considering cutting the cost of HIV/AIDS treatments in the Caribbean, officials in the region said. During talks with Caribbean officials this week in the Bahamas, U.S. drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., GlaxoSmithKline of Britain and the
WASHINGTON (AP)--A scientist on the front lines of the anthrax investigation and a longtime seeker of an AIDS vaccine are the leading candidates to become the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials say. Public health experts are urging the Bush administration to appoin
WASHINGTON (AP)--The U.S. National Institutes of Health is awarding Chinese scientists a $14.8 million grant to expand AIDS research. The grant announcement came a day after a United Nations report said China is on the brink of an explosive AIDS epidemic that could leave 10 million people infected by the end of the dec
BEIJING -- Health officials on Friday rejected a United Nations report criticizing the government for not doing enough to steer China away from an AIDS epidemic. The study, HIV/AIDS: China s Titanic Peril, said China is on the brink of an explosive AIDS epidemic and could have 10 million infected people by the end of t
GENEVA - Researchers should work urgently on developing a microbe-killing chemical that women can use to protect themselves from the AIDS virus, the World Health Organization said Friday. A thorough review of studies of nonoxynol-9 has confirmed doubts about the AIDS-fighting potential of the widely used spermicide, a
HURON, S.D. (AP) - A lawyer for a man accused of knowingly exposing a woman to HIV argued Thursday that the state law under which his client is charged is unconstitutional. In court papers, attorney Gary Blue, who is seeking dismissal of the case, said the law threatened to inhibit the fundamental right to reproduce an
SYDNEY (AP)--A rise in the number of gay men having unprotected sex and a growing resistance to treatment drugs is fueling a second wave of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Australia , health officials warned Thursday. The Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations is so concerned about what it describes as the government s
BEIJING - Ten million people could be infected with HIV by the end of the decade as China approaches the brink of an explosive epidemic of the disease, according to a U.N. study released Thursday. The country is on the verge of a catastrophe that could result in unimaginable suffering, economic loss and social devastat
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan used the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Drug Trafficking on Wednesday to remind the world that drug use can cause HIV and AIDS. Taking intravenous drugs with needles infected by the HIV virus that causes AIDS accounts for much of the disease s rapid advance in
MADRID, Spain - Organizers of the international AIDS conference accused the Spanish government on Tuesday of preventing dozens of people with the HIV virus from attending this year s meeting in Barcelona. Some are threatening to boycott holding future meetings in other developed countries with restrictive immigration p
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The first major study of the AIDS epidemic in developing countries found very high awareness of the disease, but few people who believe they are at risk of catching the HIV virus. The study of 24 countries in Africa, seven in Asia and eight in Latin America and the Caribbean found that even in pla
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell called Monday on U.S. business leaders with overseas operations to adopt fair employment practices to ensure there is no discrimination against persons with the HIV virus. This is one of those lessons we have to get to all employers and nations around the world - that they m
Kim Curtis and Margie Mason, Associated Press Writers
SAN FRANCISCO -- Dr. Jeffrey Klausner realized he had to do something when he walked through one of the city s sex clubs and heard pill wrappers crunching beneath his feet. I picked one up, and it was a Viagra sample, said Klausner, who heads the city health department s sexually transmitted disease unit. I thought, W
UNITED NATIONS -- A year after the 189-nation General Assembly adopted a plan to halt the AIDS epidemic, a U.N. report issued today said dramatic changes in sexual awareness and behavior are still needed in many poor countries to stop the advance of the killer disease. The report examined data from 39 countries in Afri
UNITED NATIONS -- A year after the 189-nation General Assembly adopted a plan to halt the AIDS epidemic, a U.N. report issued Sunday said dramatic changes in sexual awareness and behavior are still needed in many poor countries to stop the advance of the killer disease. The report examined data from 39 countries in Afr
WASHINGTON -- The need for a global action plan on problems such as environmental decline and poverty has never been as evident as it is this year, the Worldwatch Institute said Friday. The gap between rich and poor is widening, AIDS and other diseases pose health challenges and ecosystems are getting battered, the ins
MAPUTO, Mozambique - Mozambican businesses Thursday launched a new organization Friday aimed at ending the stigmatization of HIV in the workplace. The organization - Businessmen Against AIDS - aims to combat faced by employees with the virus. We must ensure that these people have access to certain conditions that impro
13 PHILADELPHIA -- Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC is freezing the wholesale prices of its HIV and AIDS drugs until January 2004. The London-based drug maker, which has its U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia and North Carolina, said Thursday that it was implementing the price freeze to address funding shortfall
UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged leaders of the world s major industrialized nations to make firm pledges of action and money at their summit next week to fight the poverty that billions of people face every day, especially in Africa. In an open letter to the leaders of the eight richest and mo
WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday proposed spending $500 million over the next five years to keep mothers in parts of Africa and the Caribbean from passing the AIDS virus to their babies. He called on other world leaders to help save children from disease and death. Medical science gives us the power to save th
JERUSALEM - Initial tests refute claims that a Palestinian suicide bomber who blew himself up near an Israeli border police patrol this week carried the virus that causes AIDS, Israeli health officials said Wednesday. In Monday s attack, the bomber killed himself but caused no injuries to others. After the incident, ru
NEW YORK (AP) - OraSure Technologies Inc. s stock rose Monday on news the Beaverton, Ore, company and Abbott Laboratories settled a patent dispute and agreed to jointly distribute a test that rapidly detects HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. OraSure s OraQuick device can detect HIV-Type 1 antibodies within 20 minutes, c
Pregnant women with HIV can safely take AIDS drugs without risk of having a premature baby or one with neurological problems, a study found. The study did find a slightly increased risk--from 1% to 2%--of babies with the lowest birth weights, or less than 3.3 pounds, if the drugs included what are known as
NEW YORK -- At an anti-AIDS gala that drew both celebrities and protesters, former President Clinton urged the Bush administration to come up with $2.4 billion annually to fight the disease around the world. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called AIDS the worst epidemic that mankind has ever faced, while rock star Mi
Pregnant women with HIV can safely take AIDS drugs without risking a premature baby or one with neurological problems, a study found. The study did find a slightly increased risk - from 1 percent to 2 percent - of babies with the lowest birth weights, or less than 3.3 pounds, if the drugs included what are known as
The United Nations warned Wednesday that AIDS is worsening Africa s food crisis by cutting down farmers in some of the world s hungriest countries. In the past 20 years, the disease has killed 7 million farmers in Africa, cutting labor productivity by up to 50 percent, the joint UNAIDS agency said. The agency n
VILNIUS Lithuania - Several thousand inmates in Lithuania have gone on a hunger strike to demand that authorities do more to stem the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS and to improve general conditions within the prison system. Some 5,400 of 11,000 prisoners at the ex-Soviet Baltic republic s four largest pr
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP)--The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, continues to fall behind on development goals set during a United Nations conference two years ago, said a U.N. report released on Monday. Nepal is not on track to achieve any targets that the world s leaders set at the
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)--An opposition leader caused an uproar in Parliament Monday when he said that the failure of Cambodia s government to make available cheap drugs had allowed AIDS to kill more people than during the Pol Pot regime. Sam Rainsy, the leader of Cambodia s main opposition party, was speaking to nati
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The AIDS infection rate among young South Africans appears to have dipped slightly and overall infection rates appear to be stabilizing, according to figures released by the health ministry Monday. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said a report showed that the infection rate of pre
- At the 1996 World Food Summit, delegates pledged to reduce the number of the world s hungry people from about 800 million to 400 million by 2015. - Currently, there is an annual reduction of about 6 million in the number of hungry people in the world. That must increase to 22 million a year to meet the 1996 U.N. targ
NAIROBI, Kenya - Religious leaders from across Africa opened a conference in Kenya s capital Monday to discuss how best to prevent the spread of HIV All readily agreed that abstinence and fidelity, not condoms, was the best solution. The World Conference on Religion and Peace brought together more than 150 Roman Cathol
(06-07) 01:02 PDT MOSCOW (AP) -- The stench of sweat, cheap cigarettes and jailhouse gruel from decades of inmates at Moscow s 18th century Butyrka prison is slowly being overpowered by a new odor: fresh paint. Butyrka, one of Russia s most infamous jails, is getting a boost from a $2.5 million government-funded renova
WASHINGTON (AP) --Senate Republicans decided to seek less money for fighting AIDS in Africa and elsewhere after White House officials said they would unveil a new plan to combat the disease abroad, a GOP lawmaker said. In the next few days, President Bush will propose spending about $500 million to prevent transmission
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)--Female Cambodian lawmakers, aghast that legislation on AIDS prevention singles out women for special education, said Tuesday that promiscuous Cambodian men need more information about the disease. Cambodian men are notorious for frequenting brothels, even as the country s HIV/AIDS infection r
CHICAGO -- One of the world s leading medical journals has put itself and its competitors under the microscope with research showing that published studies are sometimes misleading and frequently fail to mention weaknesses. Some problems can be traced to biases and conflicts of interest among peer reviewers, who are ou
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- The Irish rock star and the U.S. treasury secretary joked and argued their way across Africa for 12 days, raising awareness of the problems faced by the world s poorest continent. U2 s Bono, the passionate liberal wearing designer wraparound glasses, and Secretary Paul O Neill, the pragmatic co
SOMERSET WEST, South Africa - Researchers said Monday they were about seven to 10 years away from developing an AIDS vaccine in Africa - home to 70 percent the world s HIV cases. There is light now in the dark continent, Malegapuru Makgoba, chairman of the Medical Research Council, was quoted as saying by the South Afr
KIEV, Ukraine - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called fighting escalating rates of HIV infection and better alleviation of the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident his top priorities for Ukraine on Monday - but his talks were overshadowed by tensions between India and
WASHINGTON (AP) - A form of RNA developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology silences genes that play a role in HIV infection, potentially showing a new way to combat the virus that causes AIDS . The team used short forms of RNA - ribonucleic acid - that turn off genes vital for the production
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Pharmaceutical company Medivir said Friday that early tests of an HIV drug showed strong results among patients who haven t responded to other treatments. The results came from a small phase II clinical study of 15 patients who have developed resistance to other types of HIV drugs. Medivir spoke
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O Neill and Irish rock star Bono on Thursday visited an Ethiopian hospice and orphanage run by missionaries, one of the last stops of their African tour. Dozens of patients, some with bandaged, quietly lined walkways and alleyways. O Neill said he was deeply moved a
LUSAKA, Zambia -- With his people growing ever more desperate, Zambia s president has become the latest southern African leader to declare the regional food shortage a national disaster. Two U.N. food agencies estimate 10 million people are on the brink of starvation - a number that doesn t take into account the 4 mill
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam s southern commercial center, is planning to extend the length of its mandatory rehabilitation programs for drug addicts to at least two years, an official said Tuesday. The move is aimed at reducing relapse rates, providing more job training and improving addicts healt
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)--Zimbabwe has suspended import restrictions on drugs to treat the deadly AIDS pandemic, which claims more than 2,000 lives a week in the southern African nation. The Justice Ministry invoked emergency powers to lift regulations requiring AIDS drugs to be registered with the state Medicines Control
WASHINGTON (AP) - A dental hygienist demoted when his employer discovered he has the virus that causes AIDS lost a Supreme Court appeal Tuesday. The high court could have used the case to further clarify the rights of the disabled under a landmark civil rights law. Spencer Waddell tested positive for HIV in 1996, while
LOS ANGELES (AP) - AIDS Healthcare Foundation, one of the largest providers of specialized care for HIV patients in the United States , said it will bar GlaxoSmithKline from marketing drugs at its outpatient sites to protest the company s pricing policies. Although the British-based company offers reduced prices fo
SOWETO, South Africa -- After meeting several of this country s 4.7 million HIV-positive citizens Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O Neill and rock singer Bono expressed anger and shock at the South African government s use of anti-AIDS funds. Why are not all the women getting treatment? O Neill asked after talkin
SOWETO, South Africa (AP) --Irish rock star Bono s voice cracked Friday as he tried to explain the emotions he felt talking to a group of mothers infected with the AIDS virus. This is an amazing place, amazing people, he said at the prenatal HIV clinic at Soweto s Chris Hani Baragwaneth hospital. This is very, very ha
NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya is about to become one of the few African countries offering HIV-positive pregnant women a free drug that helps prevent transmission of the virus that causes AIDS from mother to child, a health ministry spokesman said Friday. Selected government hospitals around the country will start administeri
SOWETO, South Africa (AP) -- The women at the AIDS clinic in Soweto may have had no idea who their two visitors were, but the patients stories had a deep impact on Treasury Secretary Paul O Neill and rock star Bono. This is an amazing place, amazing people, Bono, his voice cracking, told a group of HIV-infected women F
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - John Santini is building implantable microchips that he hopes someday will replace needles and complicated drug regimens. He isn t there yet, but three years after attracting attention by demonstrating an early version of the device in a laboratory beaker, he insists that his company, MicroCHIPS
KIEV, Ukraine - Events in a nationwide public awareness campaign took place in 14 Ukrainian cities on Sunday, coinciding with Global Remembrance Day for those who have died of AIDS . The campaign included programs in schools, seminars, concerts, booklet distribution on the streets and a memorial quilt. The program
GENEVA (AP) - Acting on fears of bioterrorism, the 191 World Health Organization members on Saturday formally reversed a long-standing order for the destruction of all smallpox virus stocks and recommended they be retained for research into new vaccines or treatment. The World Health Assembly, the U.N. health agency s
GENEVA -- In response to a rapid increase in the use of alternative medicine over the last decade, the World Health Organization has created the first global strategy for traditional medicine. The U.N. health agency aims to bring traditional, or alternative, therapies out of the shadows by intensifying research into th
BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand, which recently began producing a low-cost, single-pill anti-HIV drug cocktail, has offered to transfer its AIDS -fighting drug technology to poor developing nations. Zimbabwe , South Africa , Uganda and
MOSCOW - Russia s economy could suffer substantially in the next couple of decades if the country doesn t take steps soon to stem the spread of HIV, World Bank experts said Wednesday. World Bank analysts and Russia s Federal AIDS Center worked out forecasts of economic damage through 2020 based on current rates of HIV
GENEVA - Argentina is facing a desperate fight to stop the country s economic problems having a serious effect on the population s health, the health minister said Wednesday. We have a very critical period ahead of us - the next 30 or 40 days, Gines Gonzalez Garcia told reporters. Already 15 million people - almost
SINGAPORE - This wealthy city-state needs to subsidize drug cocktails used to fight AIDS , like other developed countries, AIDS-rights activists said Wednesday. Currently, Singapore is in a unique position in the world as the only developed nation which does not provide government assistance for the anti-retroviral dr
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- In the world of high-grade marijuana, sticks, seeds and stems are not welcome ingredients. So when medical marijuana researchers claimed to have found such cannabis chafe among the pot imported from a government farm, they came to a sour conclusion. These are not kind buds for medical marijuana
Talk about odd couples - Paul O Neill, the ramrod straight, silver-haired Republican U.S. Treasury Secretary and Bono, the shaggy-haired, Irish rock star, with the wraparound sunglasses. They are pairing up, not for the summer concert circuit, but a 10-day tour of some of the most destitute countries in the world in su
LOS ANGELES (AP) - An AIDS -stricken, 4-year-old Thai boy who was used as a prop by immigrant smugglers will be granted a special visa to remain in the United States , it was reported Monday. Phanupong Got Khaisri can stay in the country for at least three years under the special visa for victims of human trafficking,
Newly divorced after 23 years of marriage, Jane P. Fowler was hesitant to re-enter the dating scene. When the then 50-year-old woman finally began seeing someone, it was a man she had known for years — a man she now believes infected her with the AIDS virus. I had no idea what was out there, said the Kansas City, Mo.,
UNITED NATIONS -- The first U.N children s summit ended with 180 nations pledging to improve the lot of the world s 2 billion youngsters, but the outcome didn t seem to satisfy anyone, including American delegates. The United States - together with the Vatican and Islamic countries including
NEW DELHI, India - Faced with an emerging HIV /AIDS epidemic, India s ruling and opposition party leaders buried their differences briefly Saturday to map out a campaign to tackle the disease. This is a concern that is shared equally by the central and state governments, as also by all political parties, said Prime Mi
UNITED NATIONS - When Inviolata Mmbwavi discovered that she was HIV positive, she was so ashamed that she hid in her home in Kenya for three years. But the death I was waiting for never came, so I decided to do something, Mmbwavi said Friday at a panel on HIV/AIDS and children on the last day the U.N. children s summit
WASHINGTON -- Newly divorced after 23 years of marriage, Jane P. Fowler was hesitant to re-enter the dating scene. When the then 50-year-old woman finally began seeing someone, it was a man she had known for years - a man she now believes infected her with the AIDS virus. I had no idea what was out there, said the Kans
UNITED NATIONS -- When Inviolata Mmbwavi discovered she was HIV positive, she was so ashamed that she hid in her home in Kenya for three years. But the death I was waiting for never came, so I decided to do something, Mmbwavi said Friday at a panel on HIV/AIDS and children on the last day the U.N. children s summit.
DECATUR, Illinois - A humanitarian effort to send soy-based products to Botswana to help feed HIV patients could help lay the groundwork for future trade between Africa and U.S. agriculture companies, Botswana trade minister Pelonomi Venson said Friday. She and Vice President Ian Khama led a delegation from Botswana to
WASHINGTON -- Patients prescribed the AIDS drug Combivir should immediately make sure they got the right pills, the manufacturer says, after people in four states bought Combivir bottles that actually contained another AIDS drug called Ziagen (
LONDON - The High Court heard arguments Friday over the future of a three-year-old HIV-positive girl whose father has refused to let her be treated with conventional medicine. No decision was announced after the private hearing before the Family Division of the High Court, and authorities gave no details about the proc
UNITED NATIONS - After a Ugandan teen-ager pleaded for universal education, Mongolia s prime minister challenged world leaders on Thursday to find money to put every child in school as readily as they spend funds to buy arms. At the second day of the U.N. children s summit, some leaders were already responding to calls
AMMAN, Jordan - Seven million children aged under 5 suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth in Mideast and North African countries, a United Nations children s fund report said Thursday. Despite a decrease in child mortality rates, malnutrition remains an important issue, with malnutrition rates among the region s
ATLANTA (AP) - Hoping to head off a new surge of infections, the government recommended for the first time Thursday that sexually active gay and bisexual men get tested once a year for the AIDS virus. Previous guidelines from federal health officials have been less specific, urging doctors to recommend HIV tests for pa
LONDON - A three-year-old HIV positive girl, whose father refused to let her be treated with conventional medicine, was taken into custody Wednesday when the pair arrived at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Australia . The father and daughter were escorted off the plane as it sat on the tarmac by six uniformed policem
UNITED NATIONS - Key facts about the U.N. Children s Summit from May 8-10: OFFICIAL NAME: The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. It is the first-ever U.N. Special Session on Children. The 1990 World Summit for Children was not an official U.N. meeting. WHO S ATTENDING: About 3,000 official del
WASHINGTON - A good, basic education and not merely instruction about preventing the spread of HIV is among the strongest weapons against the AIDS epidemic, the World Bank said in a report Tuesday. But the same countries in Africa where the disease is particularly widespread are already having trouble providing primary
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australia is redrafting its foreign and trade policies to focus more tightly on Asian markets, the government said Tuesday. We ve been looking and working quite energetically at strengthening the framework of our relationship with Japan , Korea and
WASHINGTON -- The president of Uganda on Monday called for passionate trade with the United States as a backstop to President Bush s proposal linking increased U.S. aid to political reform in poor countries. After meeting with Bush at the White House, President Yoweri Museveni said they discussed ways to get more Ugand
GENEVA - One child in eight worldwide is involved in labor that could cause physical or mental damage, the United Nations labor agency said Monday. Some 246 million children worldwide are involved in unacceptable forms of child labor, of whom 179 million - most below the age of 15 - are in hazardous employment such as
BANGKOK, Thailand -- HIV/AIDS is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions in parts of Asia and the Pacific, the United Nations warned Monday, adding that the newest threats are in India and China . At the present rate of new infections, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Asia-Pacific could reach
GENEVA - The international Red Cross said Monday it is launching a new campaign to tackle the stigma and discrimination faced by people with HIV /AIDS - prejudice which it says stokes the worldwide epidemic. Millions of people worldwide fail to seek treatment for AIDS, where drugs are available, because they are afraid
(05-05) 23:02 PDT KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- An African kingdom has a plan to stop the spread of HIV. It s going to revive an old tradition by rewarding virginity. Those who remain virgins into their early 20s will get a gift to start launch them into adulthood -- for men, perhaps a few head of cattle; for women, a refrig
BENGHAZI, Libya - Bulgaria s foreign minister placed flowers at the tomb of several Libyan children who died of AIDS and expressed his sorrow at the plight of hundreds more whose HIV infection is blamed on Bulgarian health workers. Solomon Pasi was received Saturday at a Benghazi hospital, where HIV-infected children h
BANGKOK(AP)--More than 700 workers from Myanmar suffering from communicable diseases including HIV will be deported soon, an official said Saturday. The workers were identified during medical checkups, which are mandatory for foreign workers at the time of renewal of their work permits, Dr. Winai Withoonkija, permanent
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Doctors and laboratories, for the first time beginning July 1, will be mandated to report newly diagnosed HIV cases to public health officials statewide. Health providers will not use the patient s name, but a code of mainly numbers. However, patients who receive testing at anonymous sites, where the
EDITOR S NOTE -- AIDS orphans and the impact of the disease on children will be a major topic at the United Nations summit on the world s children, which convenes in New York on May 8. Ahead of the three-day conference, an Associated Press correspondent profiled three infected children who live at orphanage outside Joh
SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgaria s foreign minister was heading to Libya on Friday to visit hundreds of children infected with the AIDS virus in a scandal that Libyan authorities blame on six Bulgarian medics. A Libyan court recently dropped charges of conspiracy against the five Bulgarian nurses and a doctor who were accuse
SYDNEY, Australia - A judge removed a three-year-old HIV positive girl from the custody of her British father who has refused medical treatment for her, and ruled Friday that both be returned to the United Kingdom where the child can receive medical help. The father, a practitioner of alternative medicine who canno
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The South African government has not responded to the AIDS pandemic with appropriate urgency, AIDS activists argued Friday in the government s appeal of a ruling forcing it to provide a key AIDS drug to HIV -positive pregnant women. Lawyers representing AIDS activists said the government wa
HURON, S.D. (AP) - For years, AIDS wasn t much more than a big-city problem to people in this farming town on the windswept plains of South Dakota. But the fear finally struck home last week with the arrest of Nikko Briteramos at SiTanka Huron University The 18-year-old basketball player from Chicago became the first p
GENEVA - The international Red Cross movement on Thursday appealed for 6.8 million Swiss francs (dlrs 4.25 million) to help support 450,000 people in the drought-hit southern African nations of Malawi , Zambia and Zimbabwe . According to U.N. estimates, 2.6 million people in the region are already suff
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Nearly 5,000 demonstrators marched to the Constitutional Court Thursday to protest the government s appeal of a ruling forcing it to provide a key AIDS drug to HIV-positive pregnant women. The government is wasting taxpayers money in the continuing court battle, said Zackie Achmat chairman
KAMPALA, Uganda - An African kingdom has a plan to stop the spread of HIV. It s going to revive an old tradition by rewarding virginity. Those who remain virgins into their early 20s will get a gift to start launch them into adulthood — for men, perhaps a few head of cattle; for women, a refrigerator or stove. In f
Scientists who scrutinized the immune systems of HIV patients have confirmed a long-standing suspicion: The deadly virus targets the very cells programmed to attack it. The findings could help in the design of effective HIV vaccines, and also raise a caution about drug holidays, in which HIV patients are temporarily ta
Minorities account for nearly half of all Americans infected with HIV but are less likely than whites to be included in research on new AIDS drugs, a study shows. The researchers found there was usually no difference in participation between men and women in such research. Earlier studies have suggested minorities, as
EDITOR S NOTE - Hundreds of thousands of South African children are infected with the AIDS virus. Many have been orphaned or abandoned; the parents of others simply cannot care for the increasingly ill children. This is a look at three of those children. ROODEPORT, South Africa (AP) - Khanyisane Sikhosane, 8, has never
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica s three leading HIV -AIDS treatment centers may close their doors if they don t come up with Jamaican dlrs 16 million (dlrs 337,000) within a month to keep running for the next year. Jamaica AIDS Support, with centers in Kingston, Ocho Rios and Montego Bay, has a staff of 27 and offers treat
LONDON - Teachers must do more to counter a false message given by popular teen magazines that all teen-agers are sexually active, government inspectors said Tuesday. The education inspectorate Ofsted said schools are good at teaching pupils the biological facts about sex, but they need to do better when it comes to ed
BEIJING - AIDS drugs paid for by donors have done wonders for 8-year-old Zhang Xiaqing. The lesions are cleared up, the diarrhea is gone and a mischievous sparkle has returned to her brown eyes. Xiaqing is ready to start school again after a sojourn in China s capital that began in despair and ended in a healthy dose o
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- The governor said Friday that hundreds of people will be tested for the AIDS virus because an infected 18-year-old man had unprotected sex with another person. Nikko Briteramos, a freshman at Si Tanka-Huron University, was jailed Tuesday and accused of having sex with a woman after he had been told
SINGAPORE - A Singapore judge spared a 43-year-old man three strokes of the cane Friday after finding out the man was HIV positive, local television reported. The man, who was not identified by name, was convicted of drug consumption and possession in the Singapore courts last month and sentenced to five years in jail
MESA, Ariz. -- Simba has had a good life since he retired from the Ice Capades more than two decades ago. The 31-year-old chimpanzee lives here with five other chimps in a clean enclosure shaded from the desert sun. For lunch, he eats half a melon, six oranges, a bunch of spinach and a head of lettuce. His caregivers c
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Berkeley bicyclist has sued the organizer of the AIDS Vaccine Rides for allegedly misrepresenting how much money raised by the events ends up going to medical research. Mark Cloutier, who also is a lawyer, on Wednesday sued Los Angeles-based Pallotta Teamworks in San Francisco Superior Court. He
NEW YORK (AP) - Less than a year after its creation, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS , Tuberculosis and Malaria on Thursday announced a first round of 40 grants that will provide $378 million to fight the diseases in 31 severely stricken countries. Africa, where AIDS is most rampant, will get 52 percent of the money, wit
MASULA, Malawi - After two years of crop failure, Tamatuma Nkhaniyachuma has only a few dozen corn cobs left to feed her two children and three grandchildren for the rest of the year. When that food is finished, she has no idea what they will do. I don t think I will last the year, she said. Throughout southern Af
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP)-- Democracy is spreading through Africa, but poverty, conflict and the AIDS epidemic remain obstacles to economic development, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday. But the challenges are being met with African-led initiatives that emphasize responsibility and ownership on the
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - Democracy is spreading through Africa, but poverty, conflict and the AIDS epidemic remain obstacles to economic development, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday. But the challenges are being met with African-led initiatives that emphasize responsibility and ownership on
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Gold mining giant AngloGold estimated Wednesday that between 25 and 30 percent of its South African work force was HIV positive and called for a coherent national strategy to combat the AIDS epidemic. One of the world s largest gold producers, AngloGold has about 44,000 South African employees
UNITED NATIONS - The United States has earmarked dlrs 500 million for a new fund to fight AIDS around the world and is sending dlrs 250 million immediately to help finance new programs to tackle the killer disease, a U.S. official said Tuesday. A year ago, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a war chest of dlrs 7
TOWSON, Md. (AP) - A Baltimore man has been sentenced to life in prison for raping a Towson University student while she walked home from work last year. Anthony J. Miller, 30, was convicted this month of first-degree rape. Prosecutors said he followed the woman across campus, attacked her and threatened to inject her
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A terminally ill death row inmate who wanted to be released from prison to a hospice died in the prison hospital Monday morning. Edward Lemons, 34, was given two death sentences for the 1994 murders of two Goldsboro residents. His attorneys asked Gov. Mike Easley and correction officials either to
GENEVA (AP) - The World Health Organization on Monday for the first time put AIDS drugs on an international list of essential medicines and issued treatment guidelines suitable for poor countries. The U.N. health agency said it hoped the measures would lead to a huge increase in the number of people gaining access to t
RALEIGH, N.C. - A terminally ill death row inmate who wanted to be released from prison to a hospice died in the prison hospital Monday morning. Edward Lemons, 34, was given two death sentences for the 1994 murders of two Goldsboro residents. His attorneys asked Gov. Mike Easley and correction officials either to grant
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - The United States will send health experts to help Caribbean governments fight the regional spread of HIV/AIDS, Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said Saturday. We are here today to extend to you and the Caribbean, the hand of partnership as we fight against AIDS, Thompson told more than 20 Car
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South African President Thabo Mbeki has distanced himself from theorists who doubt the existence of AIDS, just days after his government reversed its controversial opposition to AIDS medicine, a newspaper reported Sunday. Mbeki had come under withering criticism for questioning the link bet
HOUSTON - As the AIDS virus grows more resistant to medicines that once helped hold off symptoms, Texas is considering changing its Medicaid program to pay for tests that determine which prescriptions work best. Medicaid programs in 44 states pay for two tests that determine which drugs will work and which won t, and V
SAN FRANCISCO - The stock price of Trimeris Inc., a small biotechnology company, soared on stellar results from pivotal human tests on its experimental AIDS drug, which could help patients resistant to currently available treatments. Trimeris of Durham, North Carolina is codeveloping the drug, dubbed T-20, along with t
PRETORIA, South Africa - After more than two years of despair over South Africa s stubborn AIDS policy, activists and critics expressed guarded optimism Thursday over the government s announcement of major changes to its controversial program. The government had long argued AIDS drugs were unproven and too toxic to dis
MAPUTO, Mozambique - Up to 65,000 Mozambicans over the age of 15 were expected to die of AIDS this year, while an estimated 500 new HIV infections occur every day, according to the health ministry. The current AIDS situation in Mozambique is serious and will worsen unless we take action now, Avertino Barreto, the depu
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The pulsing rhythms of atabaque drums fill the temple, sending the guests spinning, clapping and singing the praises of Ossae, the Yoruban god of medicine and herbs. It s an unusual setting for a health meeting, but this is a special audience. High priests and priestesses of Afro-Brazilian reli
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - In a major shift in policy, the government announced on Wednesday that sexual assault victims would be given access to AIDS drugs. The government had long argued that the drugs safety remained unproven, and ignored pleas that they be provided to rape victims. In a statement issued after it
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South African hospitals and clinics were given the go-ahead Wednesday to dispense a key AIDS drug that can help prevent HIV -positive women from passing the virus on to their children at birth. The government had argued the safety of the drug n
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe prepared to mark 22 years of independence with little to celebrate Wedneday as it faces economic crisis, looming starvation, crumbling health services and a continuing dispute over last month s presidential election. Construction worker Abel Kahuni, fired by a building firm last year, said h
NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenyan HIV patients have faced periodic shortages of critical drugs over the past six months, hampering their treatment and threatening to create drug-resistent strains of the virus that causes AIDS , an advocacy group said Tuesday. Those few HIV patients who can afford discounted drugs have found it d
TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian school children will be taught about AIDS and how to avoid it for the first time starting with the new academic year that opens in September, the head of the country s AIDS program said Monday. In a country where talk of anything related to sex is largely taboo, Iran s Education Ministry had shun
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The pulsing rhythms of atabaque drums fill the temple, sending the guests spinning, clapping and singing the praises of Ossae (Oh-SY-eim), the Yoruban god of medicine and herbs. It s an unusual setting for a health meeting, but this is a special audience. High priests and priestesses of Afr
Here are some of the recommendations in the plan of action approved Friday by the U.N. Second World Assembly on Aging: * Change attitudes, policies and practices so that the enormous potential of aging in the 21st century may be fulfilled. * Recognize all human rights and fundamental freedoms of older persons, reaffirm
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - The leader of apartheid South Africa s germ warfare program criticized police and prosecutors on Friday and said his trial on murder, fraud and drug charges was a huge waste of money. However, Dr. Wouter Basson told reporters a day after being acquitted on all 46 counts that he always beli
WASHINGTON -- As different as chimps and humans look, they re mostly identical genetically - except for their brains. A team of European and American researchers compared gene activity in the brains, liver and blood of chimpanzees and humans. They found that the two share about 98.7 percent of the same genes and have v
DUBLIN, Ireland - The government struck a deal Thursday to allow relatives of hemophiliacs who died from HIV -tainted blood products to gain financial compensation, a move the health minister said would end a major trauma in Irish life. The agreement announced by Health Minister Micheal Martin and the Irish Hemoph
Women whose sex partners are circumcised may be less likely to get cervical cancer, a study suggests. Cervical cancer is caused by the same virus responsible for genital warts. The study in today s New England Journal of Medicine found that men with intact foreskins were three times more likely than circumcised men to
WASHINGTON - British pop singer Elton John, testifying before the U.S. Congress Thursday, said the United States has an obligation to use its vast resources to stop the spread of AIDS around the world. No nation, corporation, foundation or individual has the money you have, Sir Elton told the Senate Health, Education,
BEIJING - The Chinese government on Thursday announced a 17 percent increase in the number of Chinese infected with the AIDS virus and sharply raised its estimate of the disease s spread. There are 30,736 people confirmed to be carrying the virus and 1,594 people with full-blown AIDS, though the true number of cases co
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - American actor Danny Glover and three other prominent pro-Africa activists have urged South African President Thabo Mbeki in a letter to do more to tackle his country s rampant AIDS epidemic, a newspaper reported Thursday. We write to you today because we are alarmed about the unnecessary loss
STELLENBOSCH, South Africa - Former South African President Nelson Mandela reiterated his call Wednesday for treatment to be made available to HIV/AIDS sufferers through the public health system. In an address at a company function at Stellenbosch near Cape Town, Mandela said individuals should be warned that AIDS drug
BUCHAREST, Romania - Shortages of drugs and the poverty of their families have led to the death of dozens of children infected with the HIV virus so far this year, a national union of parents organizations said Wednesday. The National Union for People with AIDS , which comprises 17 parents organizations, said it will
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A South African boy who gave children with AIDS a voice that reached around the world and a Nepalese organization that fights slave trading of girls were honored Wednesday with the World s Children s Prize for the Rights of the Child. Nkosi Johnson, who died last summer at the age of 12 after a publ
GABORONE, Botswana - Botswana had to start distributing medicine to patients with the AIDS virus because it has one of the highest infection rates in the world and its skilled work force is dying off, President Festus Mogae said Tuesday. This diamond-rich southern African nation is the first country on the continent to
In the heart of Kenya , Mary Solio found refuge from a forced marriage but not from female circumcision - two cultural traditions that some women in the Maasai tribe are working to change. Most of the 61 Maasai girls who arrived last week at the V-Day Safe House for Girls came for a short course on the consequences of
GABORONE, Botswana - Botswana President Festus Mogae said Tuesday his country had no choice but to begin a nationwide program to give AIDS medicine to everyone who needs it. We are the most hideously affected country in the world and we had to do something about it, he said during a news conference with foreign journal
WASHINGTON - The United States is getting very good value for our dollar in its foreign aid efforts in Africa, despite frustration over some countries failure to address the HIV/AIDS problem head on, a key lawmaker said Monday. There s a long way to go here, Rep. Jim Kolbe, chairman of the House Appropriations foreign
NEW YORK - Rap and R&B songs and videos often glorify sexy lifestyles without any safe-sex caveats. But on Tuesday, some of the genres biggest stars will perform at UrbanAID2, a benefit concert to raise awareness about AIDS among blacks and Hispanics. Specifically in terms of AIDS, no one has done enough and we all
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The head of a visiting U.S. congressional delegation criticized the South African government s AIDS policy as tragic Monday, but said that America would continue funding programs to fight the pandemic. U.S. Representative Jim Kolbe who heads the Congressional Appropriations foreign aid panel,
NAROK, Kenya - In the heart of Kenya s Maasailand, 16-year-old Mary Solio has found refuge from a forced marriage but not from female circumcision — two cultural traditions that some women of her tribe are working to change. Most of the 61 Maasai girls who arrived last week at the V-Day Safe House for Girls came for a
MADRID, Spain - The soft-spoken, 72-year-old farmer from Thailand kept a straight face as he told the story of how, seven years ago, his son and daughter-in-law became infected with AIDS and died. But when Duangkaew Songkaew recalled how the epidemic struck his granddaughter - how he washed her wounds and blisters and
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Israeli military action against the Palestinians is unacceptable and excessive, delegates from the United Kingdom and more than 20 Caribbean countries said Friday. A statement released at the close of the Caribbean-U.K. Forum said the recent upsurge in Middle East violence will serve no purpose and
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica s Parliament opened for the new legislative year Thursday, with the governor general listing soaring crime and a growing HIV /AIDS epidemic as top priorities. Governor General Sir Howard Cooke, who is considered head of state as Queen Elizabeth s representative to the former British colony,
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Caribbean nations urged Britain to increase aid for development and the fight against the region s HIV /AIDS epidemic during the opening of a three-day Caribbean- United Kingdom Forum in Guyana. British Foreign Minister Jack Straw and representatives from some 20 Caribbean nations and territories w
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- New HIV infections are on the rise in the San Francisco Bay area, in part, because a small proportion of gay men who are having unprotected sex, a new study shows. The study said despite years promoting condom use to prevent HIV infection, some gay men are actively seeking out partners who will ha
BANGKOK (AP)--An international group urged greater international aid for military-ruled Myanmar , saying Thursday that the country faces a humanitarian crisis due to poverty, illness and the rapid spread of AIDS. Myanmar is under international economic sanctions aimed at compelling the government to democratize. But th
PRETORIA (AP)--U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson pledged Thursday to support South Africa s fight against AIDS, despite differences with President Thabo Mbeki s government over the best way to combat the epidemic. There are going to be some differences ... but the positives of our partnership are so much more than t
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - South Africa s AIDS program suffered another legal defeat Thursday when the Constitutional Court upheld a ruling forcing the government to immediately begin distributing a key drug to HIV -infected pregnant women. The government, which has come under criticism for its often confusing a
TULSA, Okla. - Tommy Morrison was sentenced Tuesday to one year in jail for violating his probation in a drunken-driving case, but he won t serve any time. Tulsa County Special Judge Millie Otey gave Morrison, 33, credit for the time he previously served in Arkansas on other offenses. The former heavyweight boxing cham
SAN ANTONIO - An HIV -positive nurse accused of injecting herself with stolen hospital drugs and then using the syringe to refill the vials with saline has voluntarily surrendered her nursing license. Jacqueline Fillingim surrendered her license Monday to the State Board of Nurse Examiners, admitting that she issued De
BANGKOK, Thailand - A Thai pop group composed of AIDS patients, which performed for eight years by replacing dying members with other sufferers, has disbanded after most of its latest members died, the group leader said Tuesday. HIV -Band was set up in 1994 in a Buddhist temple in Lopburi province by seven AIDS patient
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - A federal court on Monday ordered the Honduran government to pay dlrs 800,000 in damages to a woman who contracted the HIV virus from blood transfusions she received at a public hospital. Maria Versery Juarez, 31, contracted the virus in March 1998, after family members rushed her to Tegucigalpa
SAN ANTONIO - An HIV -positive nurse allegedly injected herself with a drug she stole from her hospital, then refilled the vials with saline solution using the same syringe, officials said. Those vials of saline, containing a small amount of nurse Jacqueline Fillingim s blood, may have been inadvertently given to patie
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is expected to be the key speaker at a U.S.-Caribbean AIDS conference next month in Guyana, a Caribbean Community official said. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell may also participate in the conference that begins April 20. We have bee
NEW YORK - Two years after the United Nations began trying to improve access to AIDS drugs in Africa and a year after three pharmaceutical companies agreed to offer medicines at no profit, only a tiny fraction of sufferers are receiving treatment. Drug makers point out that the increase in the number of HIV-infected Af
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A hospital is urging hundreds of patients to get a blood test because of concerns an HIV -positive nurse may have contaminated drug vials. Officials at South Texas Regional Medical Center said the nurse admitted taking drugs from the hospital s dispensary, and may have hid the thefts by refilling via
Two years after the United Nations began trying to improve access to AIDS drugs in Africa and a year after three pharmaceutical companies agreed to offer medicines at no profit, only a tiny fraction of sufferers are receiving treatment. Drug makers point out that the increase in the number of HIV -infected Africans rec
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will lead a high-level delegation to Guyana for talks with with Caribbean leaders on topics ranging from trade to international terrorism. The three-day meeting starting Sunday comes as Caribbean countries — many former British colonies — are seeking to redefine
DAYTON, Tenn. -- The La-Z-Boy has gone haute couture. Designers including Tommy Hilfiger, Nicole Miller, Todd Oldham and MoMo FaLana accepted an invitation by La-Z-Boy to give the staid recliner a fashion makeover to help raise money for charity. Workers at the company factory here turned the visions into furniture - o
GENEVA - The United Nations health agency said Tuesday it continues to support the use of a drug to prevent transmission of HIV infection from mothers to their newborn babies despite doubts raised in the United States . Concerns raised by the U.S. National Institutes of Health last Friday do not warrant any change in
LUSAKA, Zambia - Former President Kenneth Kaunda called on all Zambians Tuesday to take AIDS tests, saying it would make the fight against the disease much easier. After taking an AIDS test himself at the launch of a voluntary AIDS testing and counseling center, Kaunda said people need to learn their HIV status so thos
GENEVA (AP)--The U.N. health agency said Tuesday it continues to support the use of a drug to prevent transmission of HIV infection from mothers to their newborn babies despite doubts raised in the U.S. Concerns raised by the U.S. National Institutes of Health last Friday do not warrant any change in the recommendation
PRETORIA, South Africa - A High Court judge ruled again Monday that the government must provide a key AIDS drugs to HIV-positive pregnant women even as it waits to appeal the decision to the country s highest court. Reaffirming an earlier ruling, High Court Judge Chris Botha said the government still had to make the dr
WASHINGTON - Two Senate Republicans pledged Sunday to seek $500 million more in federal money to fight AIDS overseas. Sens. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said they want to add the money to the Bush administration s emergency spending request to pay for the war on terrorism. The $500 million increase wou
MONTERREY, Mexico -- Standing side by side with Mexican President Vicente Fox, President Bush sought Friday to strengthen ties with a neighbor that has felt neglected in the United States post-Sept. 11 focus on terrorism. Bush saluted Mexico s battle against drug kingpins and said he is determined to work out an immigr
GENEVA -- The World Health Organization has produced a list of companies making safe AIDS drugs, a move that could bring down the price of treatment in poor countries. But the organization representing major drug companies said Thursday that the move could reduce the quality of treatment and lead to widespread drug res
WASHINGTON -- Problems which federal officials said were potentially quite serious prompted the withdrawal of an application for approval to allow pregnant women and newborn babies to take an existing AIDS drug. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Ridgefield, Conn., announced Friday that it was withdrawing the
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - The ruling African National Congress has given its top officials a document that questions the existence of AIDS , condemns AIDS drugs as poisonous and describes Western attitudes to the pandemic in Africa as blatant racism. The document, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, was a
NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey - Johnson & Johnson announced Friday that it was acquiring Tibotec-Virco NV, a European biopharmaceutical company, for dlrs 320 million in cash and debt. Belgium-based Tibotec-Virco focuses on developing anti-viral treatments, with several promising compounds in development for the treatme
RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. -- Surrounded by oceanfront high-rises, $250 hotel rooms and ritzy mansions, Larry Merana goes hungry and sleeps on a scrap of beach. He s been homeless for a month in Palm Beach County, known for its pockets of millionaires and fancy resorts but a place without enough shelters for its estimated 4,0
ATLANTA -- Tuberculosis cases fell to an all-time low in the United States last year, but the decline appears to be leveling off, federal health officials said Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 15,991 cases of the respiratory disease in 2001, a 2 percent decline from 2000. It was the nin
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- The Indian drug industry hailed the U.N. approval this week of a list of AIDS drug makers, saying the inclusion of an Indian generic manufacturer will help make accepted AIDS treatments cheaper and help poor countries fight the lethal disease. There is now hope for the millions of AIDS victims
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Thailand said Thursday it has started producing a single-pill anti-HIV cocktail drug to be sold in government hospitals beginning next month. Thailand is only the second country after India to make the cocktail, a combination of three generic drugs produced by three Western pharmaceutical comp
GENEVA (AP) -- The World Health Organization has produced a list of companies making safe AIDS drugs, a move that could bring down the price of treatment in poor countries. But the organization representing big international drug companies said Thursday the move could reduce the quality of treatment and lead to widespr
JOHANNESBURG (AP)--South Africa s ruling party praised the government s controversial AIDS program Wednesday as among the best ways to handle the pandemic. The government has been harshly criticized for its refusal to provide AIDS medicine to those infected and its resistance to expanding a program to prevent transmiss
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - In the presence of three Nobel Peace Prize winners, a new blood bank was established Monday to help thousands of children in underdeveloped countries with extra U.S. blood. The Children s World Blood Bank will send extra blood donated in the United States to sick children overseas, starting in
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- New field surveys of Hispanic men in Tijuana and San Diego show an increase in HIV infection rates in gay and bisexual men who journey back and forth across the border with Mexico . The rates of infection are as much as four times as high as those in other California cities, said George F. Lemp, d
WASHINGTON -- Important unanswered questions remain in the development of a broadly effective AIDS vaccine, which could be a decade or more away, a top AIDS researcher said Friday. Do I think in five years we are going to have a vaccine that is going to prevent AIDS? Probably not, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the President s
ATLANTA - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suspended a drug trial for patients who have both tuberculosis and advanced HIV after five patients developed resistance to the drug. The study gave 159 patients twice-weekly doses of rifabutin, a TB drug that is considered safe to use in combination with
SAN FRANCISCO - They draped a 35-foot condom over Republican Sen. Jesse Helms (news) house, scattered the ashes of AIDS victims on the White House lawn and tossed a coffin in front of a San Francisco hospital after an AIDS patient was denied a liver transplant. Forcing powerful institutions to address the AIDS crisis w
BOSTON (AP) - An HIV -infected woman who raised money for a new liver for herself after her insurance company refused to pay for the procedure died Tuesday following two unsuccessful transplants. Belynda Dunn, a 51-year-old AIDS activist, died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dunn underwent a transplant
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Saying almost 11 million children die each year of preventable causes, leading health experts sought ways Tuesday to extend resources to the poorest and the youngest at an international conference. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, which organized the two days of meetings, said pneumoni
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The ruling African National Congress accused former President Jimmy Carter on Sunday of being arrogant and contemptuous for criticizing the government s AIDS policies, and said he was trying to foist unsafe drugs on South African AIDS sufferers. Carter, who visited South Africa on Friday be
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- They draped a 35-foot condom over Republican Sen. Jesse Helms house, scattered the ashes of AIDS victims on the White House lawn and tossed a coffin in front of a San Francisco hospital after an AIDS patient was denied a liver transplant. Forcing powerful institutions to address the AIDS crisis wa
KINGSTON, Jamaica - AIDS has become the leading cause of death for Jamaicans aged 30 to 34, due in part to the fact that so many cases go undetected, the prime minister said. In 2001, an average of 11 people a week died of the disease, Jamaica s National HIV /SID Prevention and Control Program said Thursday. AIDS h
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela joined former President Carter and Bill Gates Sr., the father of Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, Thursday in the battle against Africa s AIDS epidemic. At a function staged at the Zola clinic in Soweto, a vast sprawling township on Johann
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Sen. Jesse Helms says a comment he made last month that he was ashamed about his inaction on the AIDS epidemic didn t mean he had altered his views on homosexuality or his belief that government spending on AIDS research is excessive compared to spending on other illnesses. During a Christian conferenc
ATLANTA - Gonorrhea has leveled off in the United States but rates are still rising in many cities hit hardest by the infection, a finding health officials say is unacceptable. The national gonorrhea rate stabilized in 2000 after rising 9 percent from 1997 to 1999, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
COOLUM, Australia - Commonwealth leaders Tuesday wrapped up a four-day summit overshadowed by deep divisions over election violence in Zimbabwe with a statement reaffirming their commitment to good governance and democracy. But a compromise deal to delay taking action over escalating violence in Zimbabwe failed to heal
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a doctor convicted of injecting his mistress with the AIDS virus. Justices had been asked to use Dr. Richard Schmidt s case to write new rules for the use of scientific evidence like DNA analysis in criminal trials. They refused to review his case, without
COOLUM, Australia (AP) -- After accepting a Commonwealth award for his government s successful campaign against HIV/AIDS, Uganda s President Yoweri Museveni declared Sunday that his country has no homosexuals, one of the groups most threatened by the global epidemic. But a recent report by a human rights group put Ugan
SEATTLE -- New research raises the possibility that lifesaving AIDS drugs may also increase the risk of heart trouble, though experts say the medicines benefits still far outweigh any hazard. Researchers are at odds over whether the drug combinations are bad for the heart. Conflicting studies of the question were relea
WASHINGTON - The government approved sophisticated genetic fingerprinting tests Thursday for blood banks to use to further reduce the risk of dangerous viruses slipping into transfusions. The vast majority of transfusions already are infection-free. But blood banks have been performing this nucleic acid testing, called
LONDON -- Refugee children in West Africa have accused dozens of aid workers of sexually abusing them, in some cases offering food rations in return for favors, say investigators from the United Nations and a major children s charity. The allegations of widespread abuse name more than 40 agencies and non-governmental o
SEATTLE -- A new vaccine that is perhaps the most closely watched experiment in all of AIDS research is showing promise in early human testing, but researchers caution they are still years away from proving it works. The approach, called prime-boost, is highly effective in monkeys. Until now, scientists were unsure whe
SEATTLE -- Genetic testing can reveal whether a widely used AIDS drug is likely to trigger a life-threatening reaction that occurs in about 5 percent of all people who take it. The drug, known generically as abacavir, was approved in 1998 and is a mainstay of AIDS treatment, typically used in combination with other med
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - For years, more than a dozen women have intrigued AIDS scientists: They have remained HIV free despite having frequent, unprotected sex with an infected partner. Now researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey think they can help explain why. The women, they say, have immu
LONDON -- The United Nations and a major children s charity said Tuesday an investigation had uncovered allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children by relief agency workers sent to West Africa to help young people buffeted by years of war. The investigative findings were in an interim report by the U.N. High Com
SEATTLE - After a decade of holding steady, the number of Americans infected with HIV has begun to increase. But the news is better than it sounds. Experts say the total is growing because fewer people are dying of AIDS. Doctors spectacular success in treating the disease over the past six years is paying off in an une
SEATTLE -- Medicines are in development to attack the AIDS virus in entirely new ways, including several designed to keep HIV from ever gaining entry to the cells it kills. The goal: Find alternatives to the drugs already on the market, which lose their punch over time as the virus develops mutant forms that are oblivi
SEATTLE (AP) -- Doctors have been so successful in saving the lives of people with AIDS that the number of Americans with HIV is actually increasing again after holding steady for years and is now approaching 1 million, according to government estimates. Experts say the total number of Americans living with HIV is prob
SEOUL, South Korea - VaxGen Inc., a U.S. biotech company, signed an agreement Monday to set up a joint venture with South Korean firms to manufacture an AIDS vaccine currently in clinical trials. The new company, Celltrion, will be established by the end of next year with two Korean compan
NEW YORK (AP) - Rock star Bono says he s tired of just dreaming about helping the world s poor and sick. I m into doing at the moment, the U2 singer tells Time magazine in its Feb. 24 issue, on newsstands Monday. I know how absurd it is to have a rock star talk about the World Health Organization or debt relief or HIV/
WASHINGTON - Sen. Jesse Helms said Wednesday he was ashamed he had not done more to fight the worldwide AIDS epidemic and promised to keep it on his agenda until he leaves office next year. I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant about AIDS, Helms told hundreds of Christian AIDS activists gat
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - South Africa allocated an extra 4.1 billion rand (dlrs 357 million) Wednesday toward fighting AIDS over the next three years, the government s first major concession that its previous efforts to combat the epidemic were inadequate. A study released late last year by the Medical Research Counci
WASHINGTON -- The killing of gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates for food is threatening AIDS research and may cause diseases to spread, scientists said Tuesday. There is no doubt humans are exposed to different infections through the spilled blood of chimpanzees and other animals killed in west and central Africa
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The Health Ministry denounced on Tuesday a decision by South Africa s wealthiest province to make a key AIDS drug available, saying it was at odds with the national policy to combat the disease. The ministry criticism comes a day after Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa decided to provide th
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Ruling party militants set up at least 22 militia bases across Zimbabwe to launch violent government-backed forays into surrounding voter districts, an alliance of independent human rights groups said Tuesday. The Human Rights Forum said organized political violence continued without decline througho
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - In a challenge to the government s AIDS policy, South Africa s wealthiest province has decided to make available a key drug which could drastically reduce the number of babies born with HIV , a top official said Monday. All public hospitals in the province of Gauteng will soon provide
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - A court for national security cases ended its trial of six Bulgarian medics accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with AIDS , throwing out charges of sabotage and cooperation with foreign parties and sending the case back to prosecutors Sunday. The Bulgarians, five nurses and a doctor,
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Former President Nelson Mandela criticized the government s lackluster response to the AIDS crisis, saying the debates should end and action should be taken, according to an interview published Sunday. This is a war. It has killed more people than has been the case in all previous wars and
WASHINGTON -- Taking heat from some of President Bush s supporters on the political right, Secretary of State Colin Powell is standing his ground in counseling the sexually active to use condoms as a health measure. First, though, Powell advocates abstinence, as he and his wife, Alma, have advised young people for year
WASHINGTON (AP) - Abortion politics and questions about job scope are blocking the appointment of a world-class AIDS researcher to the top job at the National Institutes of Health, a position that has been vacant for more than two years, Bush administration officials say. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thomp
LOS ANGELES - Cocaine speeds up the rate at which the AIDS virus spreads through the bodies of mice, scientists reported Thursday. Dr. Gayle Baldwin, a co-author of the UCLA study, said the same phenomenon probably occurs in humans. But proving it would be difficult; she and others said such a study in humans would be
(AP) -- Just after 7 a.m. one Sunday, as the smell of frying bacon wafted through the air, about 35 guests filed into the church basement under the gaze of church women in white satin dresses and tulle-trimmed hats. As the visitors settled into folding chairs arranged around long tables, recovering addicts -- some of t
NAIROBI, Kenya - The top U.S. trade official began a three-country visit to Africa Thursday, pledging that President George W. Bush s administration is committed to strengthening economic and political bonds with the world s poorest continent. Robert Zoellick, the first U.S. trade representative to visit Africa in more
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration defended its budget for fighting AIDS across the globe Wednesday in the face of critics who say the United States is not doing enough. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that it will take sustained political will and much more money to get the job done. He estimates t
ROODEPORT, South Africa (AP) - A village to house and care for people living with AIDS officially opened Thursday in a ceremony attended by 300 politicians and local celebrities. The Sparrow Rainbow Village plans to eventually care for 450 people, including 100 children. Many will live in igloo-like structures in the v
WASHINGTON -- Fertility specialists shouldn t dismiss the idea of helping some HIV-infected parents have children, new ethics guidelines say. The standards issued Wednesday by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine say therapies now exist that can greatly reduce the risk of passing HIV, the virus that causes AI
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - Maya Angelou will lend her name and celebrity to a new minority health research center at Wake Forest University, where she s a professor. Officials at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center hope to raise a $20 million endowment for the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Heal
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The health minister maintained Tuesday that South Africa needs more research on internationally accepted drugs to combat AIDS before distributing them in public hospitals, defying mounting pressure to make the drugs more widely available. Several prominent doctors organizations have joined AI
GABORONE, Botswana - Botswana s primary export - the finance minister said Monday the country would face a 1.6 billion pula (dlrs 200 million) budget deficit in the 2002-2003 financial year. Revenues were budgeted at 15.4 billion pula (dlrs 2.3 billion) and expenditure at 17 billion pula (dlrs 2.5 billion). Diamond
WASHINGTON - Treating HIV -positive women early in their pregnancy can dramatically reduce the chances of transmitting the virus to their babies, the government s top AIDS expert said Saturday. There s very little reason for an HIV baby to be born in this country, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Ins
SAN ANTONIO - A Texas ranch hand undergoing surgery was infected with the AIDS virus in what is believed to be the first U.S. case of the virus being transmitted through donated blood since rigorous new HIV-screening technology was implemented three years ago. A spokeswoman for the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center s
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - President Thabo Mbeki committed his government Friday to an intensified fight against South Africa s rampant AIDS epidemic, but said the government would not give in to pressure to make AIDS drugs available nationwide in state hospitals. In an upbeat state-of-the-nation address to Parliam
WASHINGTON (AP) - David Satcher doesn t mind telling Americans what they might not want to hear. As surgeon general, he s praised programs that give drug addicts clean needles to shoot up. He s said there s no evidence that teaching teens sexual abstinence by itself is effective. He s said Americans should learn to acc
WASHINGTON - African countries will get an additional $500 million to combat AIDS under a World Bank loan approved Thursday. The decision by the 183-nation lending institution s board of directors brings lending to Africa under the Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program for Africa to $1 billion in the current financial year.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - A prominent South African medical organization sharply criticized the government s handling of the AIDS crisis Tuesday, urging it to make a key AIDS drug available to HIV-positive pregnant women. The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa, which represents 7,000 specialists and 2,000 family prac
SCHOFIELD, Wis. - A grocery store will pay $90,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a teen-ager with HIV who was fired when the manager found out she has the virus. Korrin Krause, 16, worked one day last March at Quality Foods IGA in the Wausau suburb of Schofield before the manager fired her after calling her mother to
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is planning to provide $98 million the Colombian military to help that country s armed forces protect an oil pipeline that has been a frequent target of guerrilla attacks, officials said Monday. The attacks put the pipeline out of service for 266 days last year and caused significan
WASHINGTON - The presidents of Angola , Mozambique and Botswana will meet with President Bush at the White House on Feb. 26. These three leaders are critically important to the future of southern Africa, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Monday.
NEW YORK (AP)--At a World Economic Forum conference Saturday, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) chairman Bill Gates and Bono, the lead singer of the rock group U2, planned to call on governments and corporations to substantially increase their contributions for global health programs. Expert consensus is developing that increasin
HANOI (AP)-- Vietnam plans to produce cheap copies of internationally patented drugs for treatment of its growing number of AIDS patients, a government official said Friday. The official of the Anti-AIDS Permanent Office said the decision is part of a plan developed by his agency to treat AIDS patients. The plan also i
JOHANNESBURG (AP)--AIDS activists have asked a South African court to order the government to immediately provide medicine to HIV-infected pregnant women that could prevent the disease from being passed to their babies. The Treatment Action Campaign filed an application with the Pretoria High Court Tuesday asking that
LONDON (AP)--The number of people infected with HIV in Britain will rise by almost 50% by 2005, health chiefs said Thursday. The latest projections suggest the number living with the human immunodeficiency virus, which leads to AIDS, will rise from 23,000 in 2000 to 34,000 by 2005, an increase of 47%. The figures publi
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)--The Brazilian government denied Wednesday exporting generic versions of patented AIDS drugs to South Africa through an international humanitarian organization. On Tuesday, Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it began buying generic versions of three AIDS medicines from Brazil in December to distrib
WASHINGTON -- Sexual abstinence programs that bar any discussion of birth control or condoms to prevent pregnancy or AIDS are in line for a 33 percent increase in the budget President Bush is to submit to Congress. Spending on abstinence-only education has been climbing over the last five years, as conservatives argue
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Frustrated at South Africa s refusal to legalize cheap copies of patented AIDS drugs, an international humanitarian aid organization announced yesterday that it was importing the medicine anyway. Doctors Without Borders began buying generic versions of three AIDS medicines from Brazilian co
JOHANNESBURG -- Frustrated at South Africa s refusal to legalize cheap copies of patented AIDS drugs, an international humanitarian aid organization announced Tuesday that it is importing the medicine anyway. Medecins Sans Frontieres began buying generic versions of three AIDS medicines from Brazilian companies in Dece
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - Abdul Karim s a tailor by training, but his fellow heroin addicts call him The Doctor for his skill at finding their veins. One by one, they come to him with their drugs - low-grade heroin, homemade cocktails of morphine and other pharmaceuticals. They roll down their trousers, throw back their
WASHINGTON - President Bush will include a $200 million contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in his new budget proposal, the administration announced Sunday. The money would be available in the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The United States donated $200 million in the current budget
WASHINGTON -- The American Red Cross recalled thousands of pints of blood products shipped to hospitals in 2000, federal documents show, and some possibly hazardous blood was transfused into patients before word reached doctors not to use it. The total recalls were up 18-fold from 12 years earlier. Consumer advocates c
WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General John Ashcroft approved new rules Thursday creating special immigration visas for people smuggled into the United States and forced into prostitution, domestic service or farm labor. These T-visas, created under a federal law passed in 2000, will allow victims to remain in the United S
DURBAN (AP) - South Africa s most AIDS-stricken province will not be able immediately to distribute a key AIDS drug that reduces the chances of HIV-positive pregnant mothers transmitting the virus to their children at birth, officials said Wednesday. Adequate back-up systems were not yet in place to administer the drug
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is poised to name as head of its AIDS advisory council a former congressman who regularly challenged the effectiveness of condoms as the government s central strategy for fighting AIDS. We have a prevention strategy that s failed, former Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said in an int
The Bush administration plans to name the following people to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, according to a list obtained by The Associated Press: Co-chairmen: Dr. Tom Coburn, Muskogee, Okla. Louis Sullivan, Atlanta New members: James P. Driscoll, Portland, Ore. Mary Fisher, Palm Beach, Fla. Charles
DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - A key AIDS drug, which reduces the chances of HIV-positive pregnant mothers transmitting the virus to their children at birth, is to be made available in South Africa s most AIDS stricken province, an official said Monday. The decision to make the drug
BA VI, Vietnam -- It s the second time Dang Thuy Quynh has been sent to this government rehabilitation camp for prostitutes and drug users. This time she says she will ask to stay longer when her one-year term ends. I was a drug addict, and I m afraid if I go back to the city it will be very easy to become addicted aga
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pursuing the hunt for the origin of AIDS, researchers have found an HIV-like virus in a single chimpanzee in the wild for the first time - and in a different part of Africa than they d suspected. This particular type of chimp in Tanzania could not be the source for human AIDS, because the viral strain
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A jury awarded nearly $1.4 million to a man who was incorrectly told by a clinic that he was infected with the AIDS virus. Anthony Northcutt, 40, was told in 1993 that an HIV test done at a clinic operated by the Oklahoma City-County Health Department was positive. He discovered the mistake in 1997
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pursuing the hunt for the origin of AIDS, researchers have found an HIV-like virus in a single chimpanzee in the wild for the first time - and in a different part of Africa than they d suspected. This particular type of chimp in Tanzania could not be the source for human AIDS, because the viral strain
In a study that illustrates how cunning a foe AIDS is, a monkey that was given an experimental AIDS vaccine died after the virus changed just one of its genes. HIV, which causes AIDS, already is known to mutate and grow impervious to standard AIDS drugs in at least half of all Americans being treated for the infection.
In a study that illustrates how cunning a foe AIDS is, a monkey that was given an experimental AIDS vaccine died after the virus changed just one of its genes. HIV, which causes AIDS, already is known to mutate and grow impervious to standard AIDS drugs in at least half of all Americans being treated for the infection.
LOS ANGELES -- The California AIDS Ride, a fund-raising event that has become a state institution, can expect competition for bicyclists this year, a judge ruled Monday. Superior Court Judge David Yaffe refused to issue an injunction against the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, which h
LOS ANGELES -- The California AIDS Ride, a fund-raising event that has become a state institution, can expect competition for bicyclists this year, a judge ruled Monday. Superior Court Judge David Yaffe refused to issue an injunction against the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, which h
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) - Southern African leaders met Monday to seek ways to end war in Congo and turmoil in Zimbabwe , where President Robert Mugabe who has cracked down on the opposition ahead of elections. Opening the one-day summit, Malawi s President Bakili Muluzi said he hoped Zimbabwe s presidential elections, sc
NEW YORK (AP) - At least 20 patients of the same doctor have been infected with hepatitis B, prompting city health officials to urge hundreds of others to get tested. Those infected have recovered, and the source of their exposure is not clear, officials said. It s possible the outbreak is related to the improper admin
BLANTYRE, Malawi -- Rock star Bono of the Irish group U2 will address next week s summit of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, the charity organization Oxfam-International said. Bono has used his fame to advocate debt relief for the world s poorest countries and improved trade relations between Afric
WASHINGTON -- During the 1990s, deaths from AIDS increased from half a million to more than three million, global emissions of carbon dioxide climbed more than 9 percent and damage to the world s coral reefs grew, a private research group said Thursday. In its annual report, the Worldwatch Institute said problems such
LONDON (AP) - Honored for his efforts to help those living with AIDS and HIV, Elton John said he was fortunate not to have contracted the disease. As a gay man I m very lucky not to be infected, he told ITV News Wednesday. My concern nowadays is that young people think they are invulnerable, but they re not. John was
BA VI, Vietnam (AP)--It s the second time Dang Thuy Quynh has been sent to this government rehabilitation camp for prostitutes and drug users. This time she says she will ask to stay longer when her one-year term ends. I was a drug addict, and I m afraid if I go back to the city it will be very easy to become addicted
CHICAGO -- Vitamin A supplements could help improve growth in children in developing countries with HIV, malaria and persistent diarrhea, a study in Tanzania found. Delayed growth and vitamin A deficiency in infants and young children are major public health problems in developing countries, where infectious diseases l
WASHINGTON (AP) - As science moves closer to using pig organs for human transplants, some experts caution that the technique could transfer deadly swine viruses. Ethicists question the whole idea of using animals to make spare parts for people. Two research teams announced this week that they have cloned piglets that l
PITTSBURGH (AP) - AIDS activist and author Larry Kramer has been discharged from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, two weeks after the HIV-positive patient underwent a liver transplant. Kramer, 66, will remain in Pittsburgh for a few more weeks so doctors can monitor his condition until he s well enough to r
SAN FRANCISCO -- Like all good sisters, San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh City are sharing solutions to a shared problem -- in this case, the spread of HIV. While San Francisco has struggled to control AIDS for 20 years, the disease is only just beginning to explode in the south Vietnamese metropolis once known as Saigon.
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.