What’s New?
In a critical declaration on HIV/AIDS signed last week, UN member states made laudatory pledges toward a host of ambitious goals, most notably aiming to get 15 million people on antiretrovirals by 2015.
The declaration won enthusiastic approval from major AIDS organizations, as well as from mainstream media outlets like the New York Times.
What member states “forgot” to do in that document, however, is include access to medically appropriate housing as a key structural tool in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS.
The omission reflects continued failure by AIDS activists and governments to recognize the crucial role that safe housing will play in ending AIDS. It also demonstrates a flawed emphasis on individual approaches to stopping the virus, rather than a recognition that we need to address larger environmental issues—like homelessness and poverty—to end this crisis.
TORONTO - One in four new HIV infections in Ontario are among women, a new survey shows.
Even though there have been significant advances in HIV care, 25% of new HIV infections from 2006 to 2008 were in women, according to a health study by researchers from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and St. Michael's Hospital.
Marvelous Muchenje is one of the 4,700 women in Ontario living with HIV, most of whom contracted the disease through sexual contact.
"For women in some communities, it can be difficult to negotiate safe sex," said Muchenje, 38, who is originally from Zimbabwe.
Women who emigrated from a country plagued by HIV make up more than half of the new infections in Ontario. "HIV still has a stigma and some people don't disclose to their sexual partner," Muchenje said...