- Elton John addresses Britain’s Parliament, urging lawmakers to do more to fight HIV/AIDS AOL
- Elton John makes urgent Aids plea as he addresses Parliament The Independent
- Government expanding HIV opt-out testing to dozens more sites PinkNews
- Elton John addresses Parliament urging leaders to do more to end Aids epidemic Evening Standard
- Elton John welcomes expansion of opt-out testing for HIV to 46 Accident & Emergency sites across England and calls on all political leaders to do more to end AIDS in a speech at Speaker’s House News-Medical.Net
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Tag Archives: HIVAIDS
On World AIDS Day, Biden administration releases new global strategy to end HIV/AIDS by 2030
CNN
—
On World AIDS Day, the Biden administration renewed its focus on ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030, releasing a new five-year strategy for the United States’ global response.
The administration said Thursday it is accelerating its response to HIV/AIDS with new global goals including reaching key treatment targets across ages, genders and population groups; supporting UNAIDS targets to reduce new HIV infections; and closing equity gaps for certain groups, including adolescent girls, young women and children.
“Our work is not done. HIV remains a serious threat to global health security and economic development,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in the new strategy. “Our progress can be easily derailed if we lose our focus or conviction, or fail to address the inequities, many fueled by stigma and discrimination and punitive laws, that stand in our way.”
Also on Thursday, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, reported it has supported antiretroviral treatment for more than 20 million men, women and children as of September 30. That’s an increase from 18.96 million in the 2021 fiscal year.
About 64.7 million people received HIV testing services supported by the program and 5.5 million babies were prevented from being born with HIV, according to PEPFAR’s latest results.
President Joe Biden requested $850 million for HIV prevention and care programs in his 2023 budget, and proposed the creation of a nearly $10 billion national PrEP program meant to guarantee pre-exposure prophylaxis and services for uninsured and underinsured people.
On World AIDS Day in 2021, President Joe Biden unveiled a new national HIV/AIDS strategy, saying “We are within striking distance of eliminating HIV transmission.” The US strategy goals include preventing new HIV infections, improving health outcomes for people with HIV, reducing health inequity and establishing a more coordinated effort to address the epidemic.
Globally, progress toward ending HIV and AIDS has been uneven. On Thursday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to implement global strategies on HIV, hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections, saying on Twitter, “With bold leadership, we can deliver care for everyone!”
Despite ambitious goals to end HIV, there is still no vaccine or cure, although new have made the diagnosis more manageable and even helped prevent infection.
In the United States, there are wide disparities in access to treatment, and Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV. More than 1.1 million people in the United States had HIV at the end of 2019, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 17 years for man who murdered woman thinking she infected him with HIV/AIDS | Caribbean
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – A High Court judge in St Vincent sentenced a 26-year-old man to more than 17 years in prison after he was found guilty of murdering a woman he thought had infected him with the HIV/AIDS virus.
Justice Brian Cottle sentenced Desron Roberts, who had been on remand for nearly four years awaiting trial, to a further 17 years, five months and 11 days in prison.
On June 27 this year, Robert pleaded not guilty to the charge that between October 24 and 27, 2018 he murdered Rhodesia Rochelle Bailey.
The court heard that Roberts, who was then 22, had a sexual relationship with Bailey, 30, whose house he frequented.
On July 16, 2018, Bailey told Roberts that she was HIV positive and two days later, he went to see a doctor, who advised him to take a post-exposure treatment for HIV and to get tested.
Roberts began the course of medication, but did not adhere to the prescription fully as he felt that some of the side effects of the medication were too harsh.
He had bouts of depression and contemplated suicide but was afraid to speak to anyone about his problem for fear of the reaction that he would face.
Nonetheless, he continued the sexual relationship with Bailey and in October 2018, decided that he would kill her, thinking that she had infected him with HIV.
On October 25, 2018, he took a knife with him to Bailey’s house. As she was lying wearing only her underwear, Roberts told her that he had come to kill her.
Bailey told Roberts that she was not afraid to die and he put the knife down and began to strangle her. Bailey attempted to reach for the knife but was unsuccessful and Roberts continued to try to strangle her.
Unsatisfied with his attempts to end Bailey’s life that way, Roberts took up the knife and began to stab Bailey, who held on to him begging for her life. Roberts stabbed her multiple times before releasing her.
Bailey ran from the house but collapsed nearby.
Roberts went to his home and a passing villager found Bailey’s body early the following morning.
A post mortem found that she died of multiple stab wounds.
Following his arrest, Roberts confessed to murdering Bailey and taking them to the house.
In sentencing Roberts, Justice Cottle said he had no need to depart from the guidelines regarding the aims of criminal punishment, namely retribution, deterrence, prevention, rehabilitation and that the court must follow the sentencing guidelines, unless they lead to injustice in a particular case.
Justice Cottle said further that the court can impose on an adult convicted of murder, a sentence of death, a whole life sentence or a determinate sentence.
He said there was a significant degree of premeditation involved in the killing, noting that Roberts took the knife with him to the scene and told the victim that he had come to kill her.
The judge said the social inquiry report stated that Roberts grew up without the guidance of his parents and was abused by a guardian. He dropped out of school in Form 3.
Justice Cottle said that he found that Roberts did not have the coping skills or social support network to help him to deal with the consequences of having contracted HIV and the associated social stigma.
He said it was unfortunate that when confronted with the crises, Roberts could only see a resort to violence. He, however, said he did not see Roberts as likely to reoffend.
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Fauci warns against monkeypox outbreak assumptions; compares situation to HIV/AIDS epidemic
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, warned against making assumptions regarding the global monkeypox outbreak, citing choices made during the early days of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.
In a piece written in the New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane wrote that the emerging epidemiologic pattern of the cases bears a “striking resemblance” to early cases of HIV/AIDS – including that most monkeypox cases in this outbreak have been detected among men who have sex with men.
The virus typically spreads from direct lesion-to-skin contact, and the researchers noted that evidence suggests transmission requires prolonged or repeated exposure.
People can also become infected through contact with infected clothing or bedsheets.
BRITISH SCIENTISTS BEHIND CRUCIAL COVID TRIAL PIVOT TO MONKEYPOX TREATMENT RESEARCH
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, takes his seat for a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Notably, health officials have stressed that the virus is not considered to be a sexually transmitted infection, although men considered at high risk of the disease are recommended to reduce their number of sexual partners and refrain from group or anonymous sex.
During the HIV-AIDS pandemic, the pair noted that the microorganism causing the disease was unknown and, unlike today, no countermeasures like vaccines were available.
“Given how little we know about the epidemiologic characteristics of the current outbreak, it is prudent to heed an observation made during the first year of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: ‘… any assumption that it will remain restricted to a particular segment of our society is truly an assumption without a scientific basis.’ Thus, additional detailed epidemiologic and observational cohort studies, serosurveys and ongoing surveillance for new cases are of critical importance,” Fauci and Lane, who serves as the NIAID Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects, urged. Fauci is leaving his position as White House chief medical adviser and NIAID director in December.
This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak.
(Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC via AP)
WILL MONKEYPOX BECOME AN ‘ESTABLISHED STD’? WHY ONE INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT THINKS SO
They said that the challenge going forward is to ensure efficient and equitable availability and distribution of countermeasures, as well as to conduct rigorous studies needed to define what the clinical efficacy may be, identify any potential safety concerns and guide proper utilization.
“Lessons learned during the responses to AIDS and COVID-19 should help us to marshal a more efficient and effective response to monkeypox, and the response to monkeypox should, in turn, help to inform our response to the inevitable next emerging or reemerging infectious disease of pandemic potential,” the pair concluded.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, wears a face mask during the White House COVID-19 Response Team’s regular call with the National Governors Association in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus, Monday, Dec. 27, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are nearly 17,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox and orthopoxvirus in the U.S. and 46,724 cases worldwide.
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The number of cases reported globally dropped 21% in the last week, according to the World Health Organization.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Biden marks World AIDS Day with new national HIV/AIDS strategy
During a speech at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, the President said the new strategy “centers around the kind of innovative community-driven solutions that we know will work.”
“It’s a plan to make sure that the latest advances in HIV prevention, diagnosis and treatment are available to everyone regardless of race, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or other factors. It shouldn’t matter where you live in the country or how much you make,” the President said.
He also noted that the strategy “takes on racial and gender disparities in our health system that for much too long affected HIV outcomes in our country, to ensure that our national responses are truly equitable.”
Biden told advocates and allies at the White House event that because of their efforts, “We are within striking distance of eliminating HIV transmission.”
“It’s because of all of you, and the dedication of scientists and activists around the world, that we’ve been able to dramatically reduce new HIV transmissions and make individuals with HIV today lead long and healthy lives,” Biden said. “And you know, it’s because of the persistence and resilience of the HIV community that we’ve changed so much about where we approach health care research and equitable access to services, and even the relationship between patients and health care providers.”
Highlighting $670 million in budget requests for ending the HIV epidemic, Biden told those gathered in the East Room he was “confident” Congress would approve the request, pointing to the fight against HIV/AIDS as “an issue that has a long history of bipartisan support.”
“God willing, I want to make sure that everyone in the United States knows their HIV status, and everyone with HIV receives high quality care and treatment that they deserve, and that we end the harmful stigma around HIV and AIDS,” Biden said.
The President also took the opportunity to call on states to repeal “HIV criminalization laws that do not reflect an accurate understanding of HIV,” asking them to “eliminat[e] laws that perpetuate discrimination, exacerbate disparities, discourage HIV testing and take us further away from our goal.”
This World AIDS Day comes 40 years after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially reported the first cases.
The White House’s new strategy — something Biden had promised on the campaign trail — provides a “framework and direction for the administration’s policies, research, the programs and planning through the year 2025 to lead us toward ending the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030,” a White House official said.
The goals outlined in the strategy include preventing new HIV infections, improving health outcomes for people with HIV, reducing health inequity and establishing a more coordinated effort to address the epidemic. The strategy identifies a number of “priority populations,” including Black women, trans women, people ages 13 to 24, people who inject drugs and Black, Latino and American Indian/Alaska Native men.
The official said this plan, which is the nation’s third national HIV strategy, is different because of its “whole of government approach,” adding that the administration recognizes “racism as a serious public health threat.”
“There are several updates in this and some of those new features or new areas of focus have come about from both community input as well as sitting down with our federal partners and thinking about also the priorities of this administration where there is a focus on equity,” the senior official said.
Despite the US setting a goal in 1997 to find an HIV vaccine within 10 years, four decades later there is still no vaccine or cure. While new treatments have made the diagnosis more manageable and even helped prevent infection, public health challenges remain.
There are disparities in access to treatment, and Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV. Resistance to HIV/AIDS medications also has become increasingly common.
About 1.1 million people in the US were living with HIV at the end of 2019, according to the CDC.
CNN’s Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
Over the last four decades, HIV/AIDS has killed at least 700,000 Americans. COVID-19 has killed more in two years.
-
In the US, more than 700,000 people have died from HIV-related illness since 1981.
-
Antiretroviral therapies have significantly reduced HIV-related infections and deaths.
-
Both COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS have disproportionately impacted minority communities.
COVID-19 has killed approximately 750,000 Americans over the last two years, officially surpassing the number of lives lost to HIV/AIDS over the last four decades to become the country’s deadliest pandemic.
Recent data from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found more than 700,000 people have died from HIV-related illness since its emergence in the US in 1981. Highly effective antiretroviral therapies were developed during the 1990s, turning HIV/AIDS from the leading cause of death in young adults into a “chronic manageable condition,” according to peer-reviewed scientific journal “AIDS.”
Today, antiretroviral therapies like Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) are widely accepted due to their substantial reduction of HIV-related infections and deaths.
“The rapid and progressive development of antiretroviral therapy has not only proven to be life-saving for many millions but has been instrumental in unveiling the inequities in access to health between rich and poor countries of the world,” researchers wrote for the AIDS scientific journal.
Despite their differing rates of transmission and mortality, the negative outcomes of both COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS have been disproportionately borne by minority communities.
Black and Latinx individuals still account for large percentages of new HIV infections while representing small portions of the total population. Gay men, bisexual men, and transgender individuals of all races and ethnicities remain severely and disproportionately affected by the epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Similarly, CDC data shows that Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native Americans are at higher risk for COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death.
Projections for COVID-19-related deaths, however, are far more grim than those for HIV/AIDS.
The number of annual HIV infections has steadily declined over the last several years, with a reduction by more than two-thirds since the height of the epidemic in the mid-1980s, according to HIV.gov. A 2019 CDC report found that approximately one million Americans over the age of 13 have HIV, and more than half are virally suppressed or undetectable.
This means that, with daily medication, individuals living with HIV can stay healthy and have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to partners, ultimately reducing the number of deaths.
In 2019, there were a total of 15,815 deaths among adults and adolescents with diagnosed HIV in the United States, according to HIV.gov.
By contrast, tens of thousands of new COVID-19 infections are still being recorded every day in the US. Daily average deaths remain over 1,000 as of October 29, according to New York Times data.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Over the last four decades, HIV/AIDS has killed at least 700,000 Americans. COVID-19 has killed more in two years.
-
In the US, more than 700,000 people have died from HIV-related illness since 1981.
-
Antiretroviral therapies have significantly reduced HIV-related infections and deaths.
-
Both COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS have disproportionately impacted minority communities.
COVID-19 has killed approximately 750,000 Americans over the last two years, officially surpassing the number of lives lost to HIV/AIDS over the last four decades to become the country’s deadliest pandemic.
Recent data from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found more than 700,000 people have died from HIV-related illness since its emergence in the US in 1981. Highly effective antiretroviral therapies were developed during the 1990s, turning HIV/AIDS from the leading cause of death in young adults into a “chronic manageable condition,” according to peer-reviewed scientific journal “AIDS.”
Today, antiretroviral therapies like Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) are widely accepted due to their substantial reduction of HIV-related infections and deaths.
“The rapid and progressive development of antiretroviral therapy has not only proven to be life-saving for many millions but has been instrumental in unveiling the inequities in access to health between rich and poor countries of the world,” researchers wrote for the AIDS scientific journal.
Despite their differing rates of transmission and mortality, the negative outcomes of both COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS have been disproportionately borne by minority communities.
Black and Latinx individuals still account for large percentages of new HIV infections while representing small portions of the total population. Gay men, bisexual men, and transgender individuals of all races and ethnicities remain severely and disproportionately affected by the epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Similarly, CDC data shows that Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native Americans are at higher risk for COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death.
Projections for COVID-19-related deaths, however, are far more grim than those for HIV/AIDS.
The number of annual HIV infections has steadily declined over the last several years, with a reduction by more than two-thirds since the height of the epidemic in the mid-1980s, according to HIV.gov. A 2019 CDC report found that approximately one million Americans over the age of 13 have HIV, and more than half are virally suppressed or undetectable.
This means that, with daily medication, individuals living with HIV can stay healthy and have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to partners, ultimately reducing the number of deaths.
In 2019, there were a total of 15,815 deaths among adults and adolescents with diagnosed HIV in the United States, according to HIV.gov.
By contrast, tens of thousands of new COVID-19 infections are still being recorded every day in the US. Daily average deaths remain over 1,000 as of October 29, according to New York Times data.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Over the last four decades, HIV/AIDS has killed at least 700,000 Americans. COVID-19 has killed more in two years.
-
In the US, more than 700,000 people have died from HIV-related illness since 1981.
-
Antiretroviral therapies have significantly reduced HIV-related infections and deaths.
-
Both COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS have disproportionately impacted minority communities.
COVID-19 has killed approximately 750,000 Americans over the last two years, officially surpassing the number of lives lost to HIV/AIDS over the last four decades to become the country’s deadliest pandemic.
Recent data from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found more than 700,000 people have died from HIV-related illness since its emergence in the US in 1981. Highly effective antiretroviral therapies were developed during the 1990s, turning HIV/AIDS from the leading cause of death in young adults into a “chronic manageable condition,” according to peer-reviewed scientific journal “AIDS.”
Today, antiretroviral therapies like Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) are widely accepted due to their substantial reduction of HIV-related infections and deaths.
“The rapid and progressive development of antiretroviral therapy has not only proven to be life-saving for many millions but has been instrumental in unveiling the inequities in access to health between rich and poor countries of the world,” researchers wrote for the AIDS scientific journal.
Despite their differing rates of transmission and mortality, the negative outcomes of both COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS have been disproportionately borne by minority communities.
Black and Latinx individuals still account for large percentages of new HIV infections while representing small portions of the total population. Gay men, bisexual men, and transgender individuals of all races and ethnicities remain severely and disproportionately affected by the epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Similarly, CDC data shows that Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native Americans are at higher risk for COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death.
Projections for COVID-19-related deaths, however, are far more grim than those for HIV/AIDS.
The number of annual HIV infections has steadily declined over the last several years, with a reduction by more than two-thirds since the height of the epidemic in the mid-1980s, according to HIV.gov. A 2019 CDC report found that approximately one million Americans over the age of 13 have HIV, and more than half are virally suppressed or undetectable.
This means that, with daily medication, individuals living with HIV can stay healthy and have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to partners, ultimately reducing the number of deaths.
In 2019, there were a total of 15,815 deaths among adults and adolescents with diagnosed HIV in the United States, according to HIV.gov.
By contrast, tens of thousands of new COVID-19 infections are still being recorded every day in the US. Daily average deaths remain over 1,000 as of October 29, according to New York Times data.
Read the original article on Business Insider