AIDSPortal News

The United Nations will fail to meet its target of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010 if older people continue to be excluded from global responses to the pandemic, charities HelpAge International and Help the Aged warn on World AIDS Day 2008. The UN’s most recent estimates show that some 2.8 million people aged 50 and over are living with HIV, equating to 1...

HIV prevention and care efforts must address women’s vulnerability

UNISON and public service unions around the globe are leading the way in the fight against HIV and AIDS under the slogan "lead, empower, deliver". As the world marks the 20th World AIDS Day today, at least 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, an estimated two million people died of AIDS-related illnesses last year, and Africa alone has 11.6 million AIDS orphans. "As public-service tra...

Britain is criticised for deporting HIV patients

Colombo: Existing AIDS prevention and care efforts need to be substantially reoriented and the gender-empowerment efforts intensified to address the increasing vulnerability of women to HIV and reduce its disproportionate impact on them, suggests a new publication from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Launched here on Monday on World AIDS Day, the publication titled “Women and H...

UK: The rape victim living in hope of HIV treatment

The government is today, on World Aids Day, accused of double standards for permitting the deportation of people diagnosed in the UK with HIV to countries where they may not get the drugs they need to stay alive. The UK has strongly supported the G8 pledge to get treatment to all people who need it in poor countries, and yet it is sending back people who have discovered they have HIV and been p...

MAHORO, A 43-year-old Rwandan asylum seeker, finds it hard to sleep these days. Diagnosed with HIV in 2003, she lives in constant fear of immigration officers bursting into her home to hustle her away to a detention centre. After all, the Home Office has turned her application down five times and immigration has come for her twice – once so early in the morning that she was not properly dres...

£6bn HIV plan 'short on detail'

International Development Minister, Ivan Lewis said: “We are rightly proud of the fact that the UK is widely acknowledged as a world leader in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Only this weekend I was in South Africa announcing substantial UK support in a country which faces the most serious aids challenge in the world. Between now and 2015 the UK will invest 6 billion pounds to ensure countries ...

World Vision seeks greater commitment to HIV protection

There is no evidence that a £6 billion UK drive to tackle the Aids epidemic abroad will meet its early targets, according to a committee of MPs. The International Development Committee said the strategy was "strong on rhetoric" but lacked vital details. The government has pledged the cash over seven years and wants to see universal access to HIV prevention and treatment by 2010. The MP...

World AIDS Day: UN celebrates African Red Ribbon Award Winners

Governments, donors and the international community must do more to ensure that every HIV positive pregnant woman has access to high quality Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT) services, says relief and development charity World Vision. At the United Nations in 2001, world leaders made a commitment that 80 per cent of pregnant women with HIV would have access to services to preve...

New York – This World AIDS Day, December 1st, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) family is honoring the 25 winners of the Red Ribbon Award in their respective countries by disbursing the funds to bolster their activities. Since 2006, the Red Ribbon Award has been highlighting community leadership and action on AIDS, distributing grants that range from $5,000-20,000. In the ...