Attending AIDS 2006

Attending World AIDS Conference

Toronto 13- 18^th August 2006

Well, it was the first time I was attending a conference this large, 26,000 people, 400 sessions, sessions by Bill Gates and Clinton. Imagine a Morning Plenary where there are 6000 people sitting –yes I had to work extra hard than I normally do while attending AIESEC conference as a delegate.

Sunday 13^th August was the opening ceremony in the evening – but I did not attend it as I got a two 2 kg book, which had session details that were happening in the next four days and abstracts, etc—So I decided to bunk the Gala Opening ceremony and go back home (was staying with the Canadian Mc as it was closer to the conference venue , got the opportunity to stay with some sweet AIESEC members who spend time integrating me in whatever little time I had outside of attending the conference as well – Felix, Ayami from York).

So I went back home, made a chart of the sessions I would like to attend—now there were 2 huge buildings ( called north and south building ) with 4 levels in each and huge conference rooms in each level – over all to take 100 sessions an average in a day—So since HIV/AIDS, is a socio-economic and political issue – sessions were categorized under different sectors response

--
( International AIDS Society President and Conference Co-Chair Dr. Helene Gayle and Bill and Melinda Gates respond to the press enquiries at the end of the opening press conference ) ---

And that made it more difficult for me to pick which session I had to pick as most of them were happening parallel to one another

e.g : I was curious to know how many more years will it take to discover a medical cure and thus wanted to attend the medical oriented sessions for it ..at the same time I wanted to know how many countries have a HIV/AIDS policy in place, what are the youth/youth organizations from different parts of the world doing about it, how are positive people fighting for their rights, etc etc

You can check the programme at a Glance at http://www.aids2006.org/PAG/PAG.aspx? To know how intensely people all around the world are trying to share, learn , tackle and find a cure to this issue.

I will probably brief how each day of mine progressed, sharing some of my thoughts, feelings and emotions at that point in subsequent posts :) else this will be too long to read in one go ..

For now I wanna share 2 things

• Stephen Lewis’s Speech ( below )

• Sites where you can watch videos from world AIDS conference (LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD AIDS CONFERENCE 06)

--- Thousands of delegates fill the streets of Toronto to rally for AIDS treatment ---

Why over 25000 People gathered for a week – including Bill gates, Bill Clinton, Stephen Lewis and Richard Gere…. (THE 16th Such Conference happening over past 25 years)

At www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2006/

Use the GUIDE TO WEB CASTE COVERAGE to view videos on any of the Days – 13th – 18th August.

Some Suggestions:

• August 13th – Opening Session at

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=1791

• a 5 minutes “AIDS 2006 Film “

• Key Note Speaker - William Gates and Melinda Gates of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

At www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2006/

Use the GUIDE TO WEB CASTE COVERAGE and click on

• August 15th –click on Global Leaders Speak Out: Mr. William Jefferson Clinton and Stephen Lewis

• August 16th - 25 Years of AIDS – Reflecting Back and Looking Forward / Newsmaker Interview: Kalpana Jain

• August 17th Plenary: Time to Deliver: The Price of Inaction

• August 18th - Closing Session

OR

• Watch the daily Round ups at

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=1852

To just read about the conference check below link

http://www.aids2006.org/

Some of you might have hear of Stephen Lewis

– He was the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa for close to a decade and he very beautifully summarized the key message for us to learn, remember, share and act upon – at the
Closing Plenary of the International AIDS Conference on18 August 2006 Toronto, Canada. He is an amazing guy who voiced many a times his personal opinion despite being from the UN and also generously accepted mistakes made by the UN, Governments in either its lack of response or slow response to various roots of the epidemic.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in the issue of HIV/AIDS and want to positively impact it in your own areas/ways, please make time to read the below brilliant pointers of one of the greatest activist on the issue during our times.

Stephen Lewis’s Speech

” This is the last speech I shall make at any of these international conferences in my role as United Nations Envoy. I'm glad, for obvious Canadian reasons, that it comes in Toronto. But I'm equally pleased because this has been a good conference, covering an extraordinary range of ground, and I therefore feel confident in asking you to join with me in giving force to the oft-repeated mantra: "Time To Deliver."

Of what would that meaning consist? Allow me to set out a number of items.

Number 1: Abstinence-only programmes don't work. Ideological rigidity almost never works when applied to the human condition. Moreover, it's an antiquated throwback to the conditionality of yesteryear to tell any government how to allocate its money for prevention. That approach has a name: it's called neo-colonialism.
Number 2: Harm reduction programmes do work. Needle exchange and methadone treatment save lives. More, it would be positively perverse to close the 'Insite' safe injection facility in Vancouver when it has been positively evaluated in a number of studies; in fact there should be several more such facilities in Canada and around the world. Russia, Central Asia, parts of India are all struggling with transmission through injecting drug use. To
shut 'Insite' down is to invite HIV infection and death. One has to wonder about the minds of those who would so readily punish injecting drug users rather than understanding the problem for what it is: a matter of public health.

Number 3: Circumcision, as a preventive intervention, should not be subject to bureaucratic contemplation forever. We have enough information now to know that it is an intervention worth pursuing. What remains is a single-minded effort to get the word out, respect cultural sensitivities, and then for those who want to proceed, make certain that we have well-trained personnel to do the operating.

The men are lining up for the procedure in Swaziland. And when I was in the Zambian copper belt, just a couple of weeks ago, at an animated meeting with the District Commissioner, he indicated that he was a part of an ethnic group which was circumcised. I then revealed that I was circumcised, and there followed a joyous frenzy of male bonding amongst all the circumciseees. The fact of the matter is that even in the remotest parts of Africa there is now an awareness of the issue; it's important to act on it.
Number 4: The growing excitement around a microbicide is entirely warranted. This is a preventive technology whose time has come. To be sure, there can be no flagging in the dogged quest for a vaccine, but it would appear that where preventive technologies are concerned, the microbicide is first in line. Now is the time to make certain, in advance, that when the discovery is made, it is instantly accessible and acceptable to the women of the
world, wherever they may live.
Number 5: In the hierarchy of preventive measures, the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission is very near the top. It is a bitter indictment that so few HIV-positive pregnant women have access to PMTCT. But that's just the half of it. It is inexcusable that in Africa and other parts of the developing world we continue to use single-dose Nevirapine, rather than full triple therapy during pregnancy, as we do in western countries like Canada. This means that hundreds of thousands of babies continue to be born HIV-positive, rather than reducing the transmission rate virtually to zero. I ask: what kind of a world do we live in where the life of an African child or an Asian child is worth so much less than the life of a Canadian child?
Number 6: It is now accepted as unassailable truth that people in treatment need nutritious food supplements to maintain and tolerate their treatment. And yet, there is a growing clamour from People Living with AIDS that decent nutrition simply isn't available, leaving them in a desperate predicament. The World Food Programme released a study at this conference calculating the
cost of food supplementation at 66 cents a day for an entire family; what madness is it that denies the World Food Programme the necessary money?

Number 7: One of the issues that received an insufficient airing at this conference is sexual violence against women. Just a few months ago, I was visiting the local hospital in Thika, Kenya, which houses the one rape counseling centre in that part of the country. The rise in sexual violence has meant that there are over thirty reported cases every month, with multiples of that number never of course reported.

In April of this year there were forty-six reported cases. Twenty-two were under the age of eighteen; half of those were under the age of twelve. Horrific you say? Without question. But how would you characterize an emerging pattern of the sexual assault of women between the ages of sixty-five and eighty, the rapists confident that they can rape with impunity without fear of transmission?

Sexual violence is everywhere reported, from marital rape to rape as a war crime. The phenomenon is by no means singularly African; we live in a world community where the depravity of sexual violence has run amok. In Africa, however, the violence and the virus go together. And yet, we lack the laws, the jurisprudence, the enforcement that would give to women even a modicum
of protection. If ever there was a cause to mobilize AIDS activists around the world, this is it.
Number 8: We urgently need a resolution of the vexing debate over testing and counseling. We made progress at this conference, but by no means definitive progress. It seems to me that the growing embrace of routine testing and counseling, with an opt-out provision to protect human rights, is the appropriate emerging consensus. Everyone should keep an eye on Lesotho where the Know Your Status campaign will, I believe, become the bench-mark, pro or con, for the continent and beyond.

Number 9: There is an ongoing epidemic of child sexual abuse. The dynamic of abuse of children is often different from that of the sexual abuse of women: what is common to both is the terrifying danger of transmission. Children require different interventions. Alas, we are nowhere near the articulation of a response. In this instance, as in every such instance, children are relegated to the scrapheap of society's priorities, and have been so relegated throughout the twenty-five years of this pandemic.
Number 10: It is impossible to talk about children without talking about orphans. And it is impossible to understand how, in the year 2006, we still continue to fail to implement policies to address the torrent, the deluge of orphan children. Countries have programmes of action; they languish unfunded. One of the most chilling pieces of statistical data is the finding that only three to five per cent of orphans receive any intervention of any kind from the state.

The monumental numbers of orphans, so many of them now adults because the pandemic has gone on for so long, pose a bracing, almost insuperable challenge for the countries which they inhabit. I appeal to everyone to recognize that we're walking on the knife's edge of an unsolvable human catastrophe. Inevitably we're preoccupied with the here and now, but the cumulative impact of these orphan kids, their levels of trauma, their overwhelming personal needs, their intense collective vulnerability strikes at the heart of the human dynamic, creating a sociological rearrangement of human relationships. And we're doing so little about it; our response is
microscopic. We are inviting the whirlwind, and we will not be able to cope.
Number 11: It is impossible to talk about orphans without talking about grandmothers. Who would ever have imagined it would come to this? In Africa, the grandmothers are the unsung heroes of the continent: these extraordinary, resilient, courageous women, fighting through the inconsolable grief of the loss of their own adult children, becoming parents again in their fifties and sixties and seventies and eighties. I attended a grandmother' s gathering last weekend on the eve of the conference: the grandmothers were magnificent, but they're all struggling with the same
anguished nightmare: what happens to my grandchildren when I die?

We need major social welfare programmes that will recognize these essential caregivers' contributions to society as legitimate and difficult labour, and offer the guarantee of sustainable incomes to the grandmothers of Africa: from food to school fees to income generation, the answers must be found. It's another test for the delegates to this conference.
Number 12: In the midst of everything else, we must continue to roll out treatment. I am worried by the new figures. There were one million, three hundred thousand people in treatment at the end of 2005. Six months later, there are one million, six hundred and fifty thousand in treatment. The additional three hundred and fifty thousand seems a very modest increment. Treatment is keeping people alive; treatment is bringing hope; treatment is stimulating prevention; treatment is meshing more and more frequently with
community-based care; we cannot let the process slow.

Number 13: And while I'm on the issue of treatment, I am bound to raise South Africa. South Africa is the unkindest cut of all. It is the only country in Africa, amongst all the countries I have traversed in the last five years, whose government is still obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment. It is the only country in Africa whose government continues to propound theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state. Between six and eight hundred people a
day die of AIDS in South Africa. The government has a lot to atone for. I'm of the opinion that they can never achieve redemption.

There are those who will say I have no right, as a United Nations official, to say such things of a member state. I was appointed as Envoy on AIDS in Africa. I see my job as advocating for those who are living with the virus, those who are dying of the virus . all of those, in and out of civil society, who are fighting the good fight to achieve social justice. It is not my job to be silenced by a government when I know that what it is doing is wrong, immoral, indefensible.

Number 14: Unbeknownst to many, we are on the cusp of a huge financial crisis in response to the pandemic. I think we have been lulled into a damaging false security by the fact that we jumped from roughly $300 million a year from all sources in the late 1990's, to $8.3 billion in 2005. And indeed it sounds impressive. But we need $15 billion this year, and $18 billion next year, and $22 billion in 2008. Any straight line projection will take us to $30 billion in 2010 . the moment of universal access to
treatment, prevention and care.

We're billions and billions short of those targets. If these circumstances continue, universal access is doomed. All governments, as they continue to expand their treatment and prevention initiatives, are spooked by worries of financial sustainability. They're right to be spooked.

The financial promises made at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles one year ago, are already unraveling. We will never accumulate the extra $25 billion for Africa by 2010 as was committed.

PEPFAR has not yet announced its extension beyond 2008; when it does (as it surely will), the annual contribution, given the other demands on the US Treasury, will probably remain at $3 billion a year. That large amount was a very significant percentage of the total expenditure on AIDS back in 2003/2004. But as a percentage of what is needed for global AIDS programmes in 2008 --- $22 billion --- $3 billion seems pretty paltry from the world's superpower.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is still half a billion short this year and more than a billion short next year. At the moment, there is no obvious way to close the shortfall. It is almost inconceivable that the extravagant promises of Gleneagles are revealed as so fatuous that the Global Fund is now compromised. No one is asking for any more than that which was promised. But the Pavlovian betrayal of the South
has already begun.

Everything in the battle against AIDS is put at risk by the behaviour of the G8. Yesterday, Dr. Julio Montaner characterized that behaviour as genocide. I remember back in 2001, in an op-ed for the Globe and Mail, I used the phrase mass murder. It's hard, in the face of the annihilating human toll, not to be driven to linguistic extremes. This issue of resources makes or breaks the response to the pandemic. It is imperative that the delegates here assembled never let the G8 countries off the hook.

Number 15: I want to say a strong word about human capacity.

What has clearly emerged as the most difficult of issues, almost everywhere, certainly in Africa, is the loss of human capacity. In country after country, the response to the pandemic is sabotaged by the paucity of doctors, nurses, clinicians and community health workers . the shortages are overwhelming. Everyone is struggling. Most of the shortage stems from death and illness; some stems from brain-drain and poaching. But whatever the source, we have a problem of staggering dimensions.

The capacity crisis illumines, more than anything else, what is needed. There are solutions: investment in the public sector and in extensive ongoing training can begin to fill the gap. But again it needs the donor community to uphold its responsibilities. And most important, the key to recovery lies at country level. The key to subduing the entire pandemic lies at country level.

What has to happen, I think, is that we place a temporary moratorium on the endless, self-indulgent proliferation of meetings, seminars, roundtables, discussion groups, task forces ad nauseam, plus the production of reports, documents, monographs, statistical data ad repetition, and concentrate every energy at country level.

At the opening of this conference, Peter Piot talked of the next twenty-five years. He's right to do so. He indicated it would be a long and difficult haul; he's right again. But if the next twenty-five years are to take advantage of the guarded optimism of this conference; if the next twenty-five years are to overcome the lethargy and inertia of the last twenty-five years; if the next twenty-five years are to link, inseparably, poverty and disease and the Millennium Development Goals, then it has to happen, in-country, on the ground, organized and orchestrated by the countries themselves.

And the agencies on the ground, whether multilateral, bilateral or civil society, must be held accountable. That's what's been missing. That's the job of the delegates to this conference: holding people and organizations accountable. And that includes everything from the pharmaceutical companies that have been so intractable about prices of second-line drugs to bilateral trade agreements designed to deny access to generic drugs.
Number 16: This 16th International AIDS Conference, beyond any preceding conference, has given voice to youth. But it's still a limited and marginalized voice, reflecting the hostile ambiguity of the adult world. The figures are brutal and stark: fully fifty per cent of new infections between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. And yet who can deny the appalling absence of programmes for, and engagement of, young people in the fight against the pandemic. The situation cries out for redress . and it must be redressed well beyond smarmy tokenism.

Finally, in my view, as delegates doubtless know, the most vexing and
intolerable dimension of the pandemic is what is happening to women. It's the one area of HIV/AIDS which leaves me feeling most helpless and most enraged. Gender inequality is driving the pandemic, and we will never subdue the gruesome force of AIDS until the rights of women become paramount in the struggle.

Last Monday morning, at the women's march, the signs read "Women's Rights are Human Rights". That was the slogan that captured the Vienna International Conference on Human Rights in 1993. It was the slogan repeated at the Cairo Conference on Population in 1994, and yet again at Beijing in 1995. It's never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power, it never will be real.

Whether it's the apparatus of the United Nations, including the agencies, or the endless numbers of High-Level panels, or auspicious studies of human development like the Blair Commission on Africa, the demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident. And those examples are but proxies for the wider world, particularly the developing world, where freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are
barely approximated.

It's a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.

My closest colleagues and I have come to the conclusion that one of the ways to diminish the impact of the AIDS virus is by creating a powerful international agency for women, funded and staffed to the teeth. There must be voice and advocacy and operational capacity on the ground for fifty-two per cent of the world's population. There is a UN reform panel at the moment, contemplating the creation of a new entity, provided they have the courage to confront the warped and abysmal gender architecture of the United Nations. If they find the courage, I deeply believe that we could begin to
still the carnage.

And what works for AIDS can work everywhere.

I challenge you, my fellow delegates, to enter the fray against gender inequality. There is no more honourable and productive calling. There is nothing of greater import in this world. All roads lead from women to social change, and that includes subduing the pandemic.

For my own part, when I leave my post of Envoy at the end of the year, I have asked that my successor be an African, but most important, an African woman. “”

_______________________________________________________________

Regards,

Lavanya Vasupal
Head - Initiative Group [HIV/AIDS]
AIESEC in India
Email : lavanya.vasupal@aiesec.net
www.aiesec.org/india/Initiatives/HIV-AIDSGenesis/

Test

Hildiko!

Thoughts on Myths About HIV/AIDS From India

Dear All,

I wanted to Share with you some view points of AIESEC Members from India on Myths about HIV/AIDS in India..

Hope it gives you all a perspective ! :)

1: Myths about HIV/AIDS
"The five great myths about HIV/AIDS" The writer, Ashok Alexander, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.though the whole thing wud be too big to post, the basic gist of the article wasMyth 1: Its just another problemMyth 2: It cant possibly affect meMyth 3: Our cultural values will protect us There is a moral condom that will protect India from HIVMyth 4: Its only about creating awarenessMyth 5: There is nothing I can do personallyAnd he went on to tell the truth about each of the above, and it was really so thought provoking.
Wat do u think about it ??
Waiting for your comments and replies

Neha Pareek
Team Leader
AIESEC Jaipur, India

2: Re: Myths about HIV/AIDS (response to 1)
hey guysin the article this line really made alot of sense to me!! its so true.."There is a moral condom that will protect India from HIV"
i think it really explains alot what is going on in India at the moment..i mean we can really never openly talk about AIDS even with our own parents...i mean alteast i cant..it just feels weird..which is probably a really big problem in itself..i think the whole indian social system needs to change in order to actually be open about talking with ppl about AIDS...this is a big MYTH the so called moral well.."condom" shall protect us!!rite...
Mallika Bhargava
VP DT
AIESEC Delhi IIT

3: Re: Re: Myths about HIV/AIDS (response to 2)
Hey guys,
I was really taken aback by the statement "there is nothing i can do about it personally"
I believe in the fact that YOU can make a difference if you want to.. If today i make an effort to talk to my family and friends about this issue or educate a bunch of people regarding this issue or talk to an HIV+ person and make him feel happy and wanted .... i can in my own way make a difference.
So lets not have this mentallity that HIV is a medical problem and the doctors need to come up with a cure for it.... And lets be the change that we want to see....
Shubhangi Singhal
OCP-Genesis
AIESEC Delhi IIT


5: Re: Re: Myths about HIV/AIDS (response to 2)
hey mallika !!
well, that kinda hit me hard too.and i so agree with you that no matter how educated, how advanced we become in life, we always hesitate while talking to our parents about anything related to sex.Talk about Generation Gap !Though, the whole Indian Social System can not be blamed for it.we should realise, that WE constitute the society.So charity, and CHANGE, both starts at home
Cheers !!
Neha
Team Leader
AIESEC Jaipur, India

4: Re: Myths about HIV/AIDS (response to 1)
Hey!
I think I agree with just about everything said so far on this thread!
But I think what's worse than being unable to talk openly about AIDS to elders, parents and such is the way in which we pretend that the only way AIDS spreads through sex in our country is through prostitution.
In India too pre-marital sex and extra marital affairs are not precisely non existent. They just happens behind closed doors - the "moral condom" preventing them from bursting out into the open. Everyone knows about it, or atleast has an inkling, but we still pretend like it never happens.Not in India, because it's against our traditions, values and culture.
And, thats entirely true. Even when you're just educating someone about AIDS, you're helping the issue. You're making one person less susceptible to the disease.
Shilpa
OCP Genesis
AIESEC CHENNAI

6: Re: Re: Myths about HIV/AIDS (response to 4)
hey !
thats very well said Shilpa !!i remember watching this amazing flick, "My Brother, Nikhil"it dealt with the topic so well, th portrayal of how an HIV patient is ill-treated and how uneducated and backward some people are about HIV/AIDS.
We tend to ignore a lot of things which we know are going on in the society.Even in our own peer circle, we know things are going on, people are indulging in things not very safe, but we turn a blind eye.kind of doublefaced isnt it ?i think this comes from the fact, or the thought that, we should not interfere, its his/her life etc.but it really isnt.you never know, when life comes a full circle, and it affects you too.
wat do u think ??
Neha Pareek
Team Leader
AIESEC Jaipur, India

HIV - How did it start?

Hey AIESEC
During the learning Event of AIESEC Delhi University a lot of Questions came up, as to how did the virus actually start and there was no definate answer to it.Also please do let me know if there is anything apart from these theories that you may know of!!!
Hope you guys can also come up with certain inputs to spread awareness about the same!

there are a lot of theories on how it actually came about. It was orginally known as SIV which is Simian Immunodeficiency Virus which is found in chimpanzees and collared Mangabeys( pre-dominantly).

So how did humans get it?
through my research i got this information:

It is now generally accepted that HIV is a descendant of a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus because certain strains of SIVs bear a very close resemblance to HIV-1 and HIV-2, the two types of HIV.HIV-2 for example corresponds to SIVsm, a strain of the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus found in the sooty mangabey (also known as the green monkey), which is indigenous to western Africa.The more virulent, pandemic strain of HIV, namely HIV-1, was until recently more difficult to place. Until 1999, the closest counterpart that had been identified was SIVcpz, the SIV found in chimpanzees. However, this virus still had certain significant differences from HIV.

In February 1999 a group of researchers from the University of Alabama1 announced that they had found a type of SIVcpz that was almost identical to HIV-1. This particular strain was identified in a frozen sample taken from a captive member of the sub-group of chimpanzees known as Pan troglodytes troglodytes (P. t. troglodytes), which were once common in west-central Africa.The researchers (led by Paul Sharp of Nottingham University and Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama) made the discovery during the course of a 10-year long study into the origins of the virus. They claimed that this sample proved that chimpanzees were the source of HIV-1, and that the virus had at some point crossed species from chimps to humans.Their final findings were published two years later in Nature magazine2. In this article, they concluded that wild chimps had been infected simultaneously with two different simian immunodeficiency viruses which had "viral sex" to form a third virus that could be passed on to other chimps and, more significantly, was capable of infecting humans and causing AIDS.These two different viruses were traced back to a SIV that infected red-capped mangabeys and one found in greater spot-nosed monkeys. They believe that the hybridisation took place inside chimps that had become infected with both strains of SIV after they hunted and killed the two smaller species of monkey.

Which raises the question- How did the crossover form animal to Human take place??

It has been known for a long time that certain viruses can pass between species. Indeed, the very fact that chimpanzees obtained SIV from two other species of ape shows just how easily this crossover can occur. As animals ourselves, we are just as susceptible. When a viral transfer between animals and humans takes place, it is known as zoonosis.Below are the most common theories about how this 'zoonosis' took place, and how SIV became HIV in humans:



The Hunter Theory:
The most commonly accepted theory is that of the 'hunter'. In this scenario, SIVcpz was transferred to humans as a result of chimps being killed and eaten or their blood getting into cuts or wounds on the hunter. Normally the hunter's body would have fought off SIV, but on a few occasions it adapted itself within its new human host and become HIV-1. The fact that there were several different early strains of HIV, each with a slightly different genetic make-up (the most common of which was HIV-1 group M), would support this theory: every time it passed from a chimpanzee to a man, it would have developed in a slightly different way within his body, and thus produced a slightly different strain.
An article published in The Lancet in 20043, also shows how retroviral transfer from primates to hunters is still occurring even today. In a sample of 1099 individuals in Cameroon , they discovered to ten (1%) were infected with SFV (Simian Foamy Virus), an illness which, like SIV, was previously thought only to infect primates. All these infections were believed to have been acquired through the butchering and consumption of monkey and ape meat. Discoveries such as this have led to calls for an outright ban on bushmeat hunting to prevent simian viruses being passed to humans.

The Colonialism Theory:
The colonialism or 'Heart of Darkness' theory, is one of the more recent theories to have entered into the debate. It is again based on the basic 'hunter' premise, but more thoroughly explains how this original infection could have led to an epidemic. It was first proposed in 2000 by Jim Moore, an American specialist in primate behaviour, who published his findings in the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.6
During the late 19th and early 20th century, much of Africa was ruled by colonial forces. In areas such as French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo, colonial rule was particularly harsh and many Africans were forced into labour camps where sanitation was poor, food was scare and physical demands were extreme. These factors alone would have been sufficient to create poor health in anyone, so SIV could easily have infiltrated the labour force and taken advantage of their weakened immune systems to become HIV. A stray and perhaps sick chimpanzee with SIV would have made a welcome extra source of food for the workers.
Moore also believes that many of the labourers would have been inoculated with unsterile needles against diseases such as smallpox (to keep them alive and working), and that many of the camps actively employed prostitutes to keep the workers happy, creating numerous possibilities for onward transmission. A large number of labourers would have died before they even developed the first symptoms of AIDS, and those that did get sick would not have stood out as any different in an already disease-ridden population. Even if they had been identified, all evidence (including medical records) that the camps existed was destroyed to cover up the fact that a staggering 50% of the local population were wiped out there.
One final factor Moore uses to support his theory, is the fact that the labour camps were set up around the time that HIV was first believed to have passed into humans - the early part of the 20th century.

Hope this info helped...in case of any more questions , please feel free to discuss it!

Hugs
Anica
VP DT ICX @ Delhi University India

Early days of HIV/AIDS

I read a book this week that made me wonder how it was in the early days when HIV was discovered: a new ailment whose cause, mode of transimission and how to prevent it could not be understood. It is a fictional account that runs for a decade from the late 70s. It relates the life of a young doctor whose vision is to provide for the city and country good and cheap access to STD/STI care, and he specialises as a venerologist. It covers the time when such treatable STDs as Gonorhea were the bane of the amorous, to social lifes and the impact of economic of peoples sexuality and the advent of HIV/AIDS. I will dedicate an entire posting to this so that I can give excerpts from the book.

I took some time to try found out a bit of information on what is published concerning 'The Early Days of HIV/AIDS' and I will share a few and give links (in blue) to where you can get greater details:

In their own words

NIH Researchers Recall the Early Years of AIDS

Site has stories and video clips on: First encounters, Tip of the iceberg ,Mobilizing ,Discovery of HIV and Search of treatments. It makes very interesting and informative reading.

Readers remember the early years of AIDS

Those touched by the virus share memories of the struggle and the stigma

MSNBC
Updated: 3:02 p.m. ET June 5, 2006

Behind every AIDS death is a story. Behind each statistic is a person who is loved, who was someone's brother, mother, father, sister, aunt, uncle, friend, grandparent or lover.

On the 25th anniversary of AIDS, readers share their memories. Some have survived being HIV positive for decades and recall the fear born of ignorance by those around them.

Others are left to remember those who died, from young men taken by a disease then called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) to a 58-year-old grandmother who died following heart surgery, to a daughter wondering what life might have been like if her father had lived to see her into adulthood.

To read more visit here.

The early days of AIDS: A congressman remembers

What is your first memory of the AIDS epidemic?

In 1981 we were battling the Reagan budget, which called for deep cuts in public health programs, medical services, a lot of domestic programs. And then we started hearing from the Centers for Disease Control about a rare form of cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma. And that it seemed to be affecting gay men in a couple of cities. But the alarming part of it was that it seemed to be spreading very, very fast. I was quite shocked at it, because it looked like it was going to multiply geometrically. This was before we even knew the word "AIDS." It was very perplexing.

25 years with AIDS

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP)—It began quietly, when a statistical anomaly pointed to a mysterious syndrome that attacked the immune systems of gay men in California. No one imagined 25 years ago that AIDS would become the deadliest epidemic in history. Since June 5, 1981 (ironically this is my birthday!), HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has killed more than 25 million people, infected 40 million others and left a legacy of unspeakable loss, hardship, fear and despair.

Its spread was hastened by ignorance, prejudice, denial and the freedoms of the sexual revolution. Along the way from oddity to pandemic, AIDS changed they way people live and love.

Slowed but unchecked, the epidemic's relentless march has established footholds in the world's most populous countries. Advances in medicine and prevention that have made the disease manageable in the developed world haven't reach the rest.

The power of positive living

There is no doubt that the HIV/AIDS scourge has devastating effect on the people infected, their families and the society at large.

However, being infected does not signal the end of life; or the end to living; or the end of ones existence. Even when positive, one can live an extremely productive life. Here I will highlight two such individuals:

Ron -

November 3, 2006 will mark seven years since being diagnosed – four days before my forty-first birthday – some gift, huh?

When I was told I had AIDS then about PML (Progressive Multi-focal Leucoencephalopathy), my T-cells were ten (yep 1-0) and my viral load was 500,000+ and given the bleak prognosis of dying in three to six months.

Obviously, I didn’t, but as my strength improved, my T-cells rose nearing 200 and VL dropped to maybe 15,000 by May 2000, I was removed from hospice because I was no longer considered a terminal case. BUT, I was reminded that 200 was the highest level I would maintain and my viral load (VL) 5,000 to 10,000 during the two (yep 2) years I could expect to live by all these “experts” that I traveled to or my sister e-mailed.

Well, I have surpassed my so-called expects to mark my seventh year with my T-cells at an all time high of 653 and my VL remains undetectable (has been undetectable since July 2001! Five years!)

I gave up on myself at the very beginning – my sister made me promise to fight in February 2000, and over time, I just did it all for myself. Exercise, therapies and diet – all probably helped me and the fact I never had any horrible side effects from the medications is key for me. I have been on Trizivir and Viramune for four years and with no ill-effects thankfully. I am very, very grateful.

I have now had seven more years and have learned so much more and think I have grown as a human being. I have accomplished things that I was told were impossible and re-discovered many hidden talents out of necessity, not a “re-birth.” I just had to re-prioritize my life and use imagination to accomplish things again.

Hell, here I am!

To read more of Ron's blog, visit here.

Asunta -

Asunpta shares her life through a weekly letter in one of the leading national newspapers in Kenya where she talks about bringing up her son as a single parent, the challenges of being HIV positive and on stigma and discrimination. She was diagnosed in 1989 at the age of 22 years. She is a founder of KENWA- Kenya Network of Women with AIDS which has given hope to a lot of disadvataged women who due to their status and/or gennder are discriminated.

You can read her story here.

Below is her sharing in her diary in November 2006:

To hire and fire

(The workplace is a crazy place at the best of times, more so for someone with HIV.)

I once read somewhere that a boss is like a nappy; he's always on your bottom! I recently shared this remark with my colleagues during an office meeting. The remark may be a tongue-in-cheek expression, but it sure captured the moos of the moment. Well, some of the junior staff members had raised the complaints about how they were too many bosses in the office and hardly a leader in sight. And even as I threw that boss remark, it somehow boomeranged.

My position as the executive director demands that I take stern action and at times such action is misunderstood as being high-handed and cruel although it is usually in our best interests.

"I lose sleep whenever I have to tell somebody that he or she can no longer work with us,” I told my staff members, but I could see that some of them didn't swallow what I was saying. “That’s why after some time you find that I have recalled that person," I added.

It was after that meeting that we agreed to have staff retreats, during which we could loosen our button, forget our job descriptions and do some bonding. In many organisations, a good percentage of employees are people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs). You’re not wrong to call me biased, but my bias is for those who’ve been prejudiced against and are finding the going hard in the job market. So, in a sense, my bias is for a good cause.

I know now that the only way to understand my employees and for them to know where I'm coming from is through retreats. Then, I want then to see me simply as Asuh, not Asunta Wagura, ED. I want them to see me as a friend they can trust with their issues.

Sometimes it gets crazy in the office. Imagine there quarters of the people at work going through those HIV-related stresses and still having to handle clients who come in with their own issues. To say the least, it requires the balancing skills of a trapeze artist. We smile even though we are seething inside.

I think the best thing for us is that we can work in an environment that’s devoid of prejudice against PLWHAs. And so when someone’s in the firing line, it's not because of his or her HIV status.

I know there are many PLWHAs heading institutions but, for reasons best known to themselves, they prefer to live in the closet. With all due respect, it's my theory that an HIV-positive leader is in a much better position to understand the challenges of an HIV-positive employee. And at such a time as this, when jobs are hard to find, it's crazy for anyone to live with Damocles’ sword hanging over their head just because they're HIV-positive and a routine test is more than enough to render on jobless.

On any given day, I receive countless application letters form PLWHAs, but I can handle only so much. I'm not saying that PLWHAs deserve special attention. Far from it. What that frightened PLWHA up for promotion or on redundancy row deserves is fairness because, as someone once remarked, fairness is what justice is all about.

(This is the diary of Asunta Wagura, a single mother one who tested HIV-positive 19 years ago. She is also the Executive Director of the Kenya Network of Women with AIDS (KENWA)

Introducing myself and the HIV/AIDS Drive Team

Dear all, My name is Ildi, the Global HIV/AIDS Learning Network IG leader! This year I have the honour to coordinate all HIV/AIDS related activities in the global network of AIESEC and also to work with a brilliant Drive Team - Alex, Jasmine and Riza.

In my first posting I would like to share my experience at the National Conference of AIESEC in the Netherlands. I got to be invited to be the chair of the HIV/AIDS track in Utrecht and it was a lot of fun, and a real success. When I arrived at the Central Station of Utrecht, a very nice guy was waiting for me from the National Support Team of the Dutch AIESEC. When we arrived at the venue, a special atmosphere was waiting for us. All people in business suits, networking in the hall, video recording in the plenary room – everything was extremely professional. Before we started the session, we were dancing on some AIESEC dances though :) (of course) and then people were allocated to different rooms. In our room there were around 40 delegates plus the 4 guests and Eliene (the main organiser) and me. We started with an introduction about the state of HIV/AIDS now and what the global AIESEC network currently does about it, followed by workshops run by the four guests. The topics (statements) were extremely fascinating and all the delegates enjoyed the discussions as well: Development and poverty reduction programs are essential to combating HIV/AIDS in the long run; The industrial world has failed to deliver leadership and moreover has failed to save the lives of millions of people; Save lives of today, or save lives of tomorrow? After the workshops we had a very interesting panel discussion as well. As a moderator I was leading the discussion of the 4 guests and I think they challenged each other tremendously. What I enjoyed very much as well was the lunch that I spent among the delegates. Suddenly I got to see Vija, trainee of ABN Amro who was MC in AIESEC in Belgium and whom I wanted to motivate to become my successor in AIESEC in South Africa. :) I also met up with Ali, Egyptian trainee and Jennifer from Canada who was a CEEDer in South Africa and whom I lived with for 3 weeks, in the AIESEC House in Johannesburg. Also, I finally met the Hungarian trainee of Rotterdam (Szilvasi Orsi – Solyi) who was an EB member in AIESEC in Hungary when I was on the MC and we used to work together very closely. :) We were so happy to see each other again. And also, I got the chance to talk to some of the Ebs of the Dutch AIESEC and it was really cool! They said they didn’t know how an AI person looked like because they hadn’t seen any before, but they were happy to find out through interactions with me that AI members are very nice and friendly people, not weird ones somewhere up in the clouds. :)

Stay tuned until the next posting!