HIV positive people

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is to be challenged in the Pretoria High Court on whether its HIV-testing policies are constitutional, the AIDS Law Project (ALP) said on Monday.

Positive Lives, an international black-and-white photo exhibition currently on at the UMA Conference Hall, profiles HIV positive people in their most vulnerable moments. It is organised by Action Aid Uganda. You see a young South African woman, who is all shoulder blade, rolling over in her hospital bed a Zimbabwean mother carrying her grown son like a baby and a pierced American punk rocker swallowing his pills. But you don't feel as though you can pass judgment on any of them. Instead, it's as though they're judging you, saying, What if you were in my position?

More and more employers in developing countries are welcoming workplace HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment initiatives. While most focus on HIV prevention education and condom promotion, some larger employers have expanded their programmes to include voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), care and treatment. Yet stigma and discrimination often present major challenges to the successful implementation of workplace HIV/AIDS programmes. Employees may experience HIV-related stigma from their colleagues and supervisors, and may be fired due to real or perceived HIV status. A fear of negative reactions may discourage workers from undergoing VCT as an entry point to further HIV/AIDS services. Hence, managers and staff of workplace programmes need a better understanding of workers' perceptions and experiences related to stigma and discrimination to develop appropriate responses.

Bangui, - Fifty radio and television reporters are receiving training on HIV/AIDS and the techniques of educating the population in the Central African Republic (CAR). They are members of a journalists' network - Reseau des Communicateurs de Lutte contre le Sida - which campaigns against the disease. As a network of journalists, we feel it is our duty to take action against HIV/AIDS both in urban and rural areas, Rene Madeka, a reporter for Radio Notre Dame and secretary general of the journalists' network, told PlusNews. Madeka said the seminar aims at informing the journalists about HIV/AIDS so that they can better educate the population using their media. According to a UNAIDS report produced in June 2002, 12 percent of the CAR population are HIV positive, making it the most affected nation in the sub-region and the 10th most affected in the world. (PLUSNEWS 6 September )

As long as people with HIV/AIDS were blamed and shunned, the epidemic would continue to flourish, Dr Peter Piot, head of the Joint UN Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) told the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) yesterday (WED). WCAR delegates have already agreed to a clause in the conference declaration noting deep concern that people infected and affected HIV/AIDS belong to groups vulnerable to discrimination which impedes their access to health care and medication. Piot said he was getting increasingly irritated by the many reports that documented how bad the HIV/AIDS pandemic was but which didn't pose any solutions. Strong leadership from national to community levels, particularly to support people with HIV to be open about their status, was crucial, he added. UNAIDS also launched a report yesterday on HIV/AIDS stigma in India and Uganda. While discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS was high in India, stigma in Uganda was declining as so many families had lost loved ones to AIDS. Ugandan healthcare workers and counsellors were also credited with helping to fight stigma by assisting people to accept their HIV status. (Source: Health-e, 6 September 2001)