Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 24/02/2025. The Supreme Court (SC), February 24, 2025 has directed all states to file their affidavits addressing concerns raised about antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs …
Indonesia's National Family Planning Board has opened a 24-hour AIDS telephone information line -- the AIDS/HIV Information and Consultancy Service -- for Jakarta residents. According to the daily Jakarta Post, the line will provide expert advice and a recorded message giving information on the dangers of the dreaded disease and …
Many of the Caribbean's hiv positive patients are choosing to keep their status secret from their sexual partners; they continue to have unprotected sex. aids awareness programmes in the region have yet to wipe out the curious belief that if people look healthy, they cannot possibly be infected. The ostracisation …
The dreaded AIDS virus could sooner or later affect the organised industrial labour force in India, leading to an alarming increase in absenteeism by 50 per cent, states a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) sponsored study. Conducted by the Deepam Educational Society for Health (DESH), a Madras-based NGO, the findings …
CUBA's plans to rehabilitate its hiv patients within the community rather than locking them up in hospitals has not met with much success. "Uptill now, only 170 people have joined the out-patients scheme, and I have already received several letters requesting readmission," says Jorge Perez Avila, director of the Santiago …
THE scientific community is deeply troubled. The 1st ever reported case of aids was not aids at all! That ends the certainty with which they so long had regarded the origin of the disease. David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Centre, New York, claims that the original …
Pressure mounts in the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) for an HIV law. At a United Nations Development Programmeis HIV and Development Regionat Project Workshop held in Colombo in mid-February, the need for more, proactive legal responses to the increasing number of AIDS cases was stressed upon. Among …
That AIDS is a growing concern in Africa was apparent at the Ouagadauga, which hosted Africa's biennial film festival, Fespaco. In addition to its cultural theme, much of cinema there was preoccupied with the problems of urbanisation and, in particular, AIDS.
American scientists say that they now know why HIV does not spread through saliva: a protein called SLPI in human saliva acts as a "guard", binding to white blood cells and stopping them from becoming infected (New Scientist, Vol 145, No 1964). Researchers led by Sharon Wahl and Tessie McNeely …
TWO things that can make humanity break out in a cold sweat: things too small to see and things too big to comprehend. In that sense, viruses are on the same footing as God: unseeable, capricious, feral and almost omnipotent. When the AIDS virus began its slow burn from Central …
In a serious bid to tackle AIDS, the Union government has launched a Rs 222.6 crore World Bank-assisted plan for the prevention and control of the disease. Part of the funding for the multisectoral programme has come from a $84 million (about Rs 252 crore) soft loan from the WB, …
ALTHOUGH the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was convicted of AIDS more than a decade ago, a small bunch of scientists continues to challenge the verdict. But even as the heretics grab headlines by their controversial statements, a recent 3-month-long investigation by the US journal Science (Vol 266, No 5191) has …
Toxic waste is wreaking environmental havoc in Karachi. A technical survey by the Scope Environmental Management Research and Information Centre reports that Karachi's 1,900 industrial units and 200 hospitals churn out nearly 75 tonnes of solid hazardous industrial waste a day. The absence of environmental regulations, proper waste treatment facilities, …
First classified as a disease in 1981, aids still threatens the mankind, as World AIDS Day was being observed on December 1, 1994. Despite colossal funds being diverted to aids research, till now there is no cure for it. Moreover, scientists too, are not hopeful of developing a vaccine till …
Only a few animals develop symptoms of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), similar to that seen in human beings. As a result, scientists are unable to test new drugs and vaccines against the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) on animal models before trying them on human volunteers. But now scientists …
There has been a new twist to global efforts for combating aids. Brazil, Thailand and Uganda plan to begin large-scale trials of 2 hiv vaccines although the us had called a halt to its experimental vaccine trials earlier this year. The present controversial decision was taken at a World Health …
THE world's health authorities and epidemiologists predict that India is heading pellmell for a major AIDS epidemic if preventive action is not taken urgently. But AIDS doesn't feature on the priority list of the Indian authorities. One official goes to the extent of saying that "AIDS is not yet a …
IN SEPTEMBER 1993, a new strain of cholera got a grip on India. Within a few weeks, the epidemic floated to the shores of Latin America, the bacteria believed to have been smuggled in via the tainted water of large ballast tanks (which are filled with water to give the …
ABOUT 3 million people worldwide were infected with HIV in the past 12 months, bringing the total to 17 million. Against this background, the 10th Annual International AIDS Conference in Yokohama, Japan, which concluded on August 11, turned out to be money and energy badly spent. There were no reports …
The deficiency of vitamin A -- the cause of nictalopia, or night-blindness -- has now been linked to the transmission of the AIDS virus from pregnant women to their babies (Science, Vol 265 No 5170). The study could spur foetal protection. Conducted by Richard Semba and his colleagues at the …
