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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
With no major breakthroughs in the fight against aids, the just-concluded 10th Annual International Conference on the disease, held at Yokohama, Japan, turned out to be a routine affair. The only new approach was using the tools of genetic engineering to alter the immune systems of newborns to enable them …
Indian industries have begun to step up AIDS-awareness measures for their estimated 60 million strong workforce. A study by the Punjab, Haryana and Delhi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) reveals that only 1 person in 100 among industrial workers are aware of AIDS. Worse, many north Indian workers even …
WHEN is India going to wake up to its AIDS crisis? Michael Marson, chief of the World Health Organisation's AIDS-control programme, says that India should declare an "AIDS emergency". Jacob John, one of India's top virologists, puts the doubling time of HIV incidence in India at 2 years, maintaining that …
THE AIDS drug zidovudine can retard the transmission of the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from a mother to her foetus, a recent study reveals (Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol 271, No 11). Trials carried out by the US-based National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) show …
A RECENT Consumer Court verdict dismissing a compensation claim by a woman who was infected with the HIV virus following blood transfusion at the Wanless hospital in Miraj in Maharashtra may hold grave consequences for patients, fear activists. Subsequently, a child the woman gave birth to also carried the AIDS …
NEWBORN children whose mothers suffer from a severe form of AIDS may develop the disease quicker, a recent French study reveals. The finding by Stephane Blanche and his colleagues at the Paris-based Hospital Necker Enfants Malades, could help prevent the pre-natal transmission of the infection (The New England Journal of …
Police in Bombay are paying a high price for mixing business with pleasure; One of the two policemen who tested HIV positive last December was a constable posted in a red-light area, according to the chief police surgeon of Bombay police, S Uppe. Incidentally, the first policeman in the country …
ALTHOUGH the threat of AIDS haunts Delhi's brothels, neither the government nor any voluntary organisation has determined the prevalence of the disease among the Capital's sex workers. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), HIV infections among sex workers in Bombay increased from 1 per cent in 1986 to 35 …
THE INCREASE in high-risk sexual contacts between homosexual beach boys and tourists in Sri Lanka has worried the government. Though there have been only 22 cases of AIDS to date, the government's chief venereologist, Gamini Jayakuru, estimates as many as 2,500 Sri Lankans are HIV positive, registering a rise of …
