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Combating HIV/AIDS stigma emerges as global challenge
Stigma towards HIV-positive people emerged as challenge to the global efforts to combat the deadly disease of AIDS.

PNG: Waking Up Finally to the HIV and AIDS Threat
When the new government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) set up in August a separate ministry devoted to containing HIV and AIDS in this Pacific Island country, it reflected the enormity of the threat to its six million people.

Iran �s progressive approach to AIDS
In a region where other Muslim governments ignore the AIDS epidemic, quarantine HIV-infected people or preach abstinence as the only solution, Iran 's approach is fairly progressive. Iran 's AIDS program melds up-to-date programs and research with deep-rooted religious values.

UNAIDS 2007 AIDS epidemic update
Just like in India, migrant labour is one of the main causes for the spread of HIV/AIDS in neighbouring Bhutan and Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, it is contracted mainly by child sex workers catering to Western tourists, while in Nepal it is spread largely by trafficked women returning from brothels in India.

Nepal: Awareness to ease PLHIV�s lives
Sharmila (name changed), 28, of Kavre district abandoned her husband's house with her two daughters when she was diagnosed with HIV positive four years ago.

Thailand: Migrant workers unprotected and uninformed
Seven years ago, in her small Myanmar hometown, Tha Zin, 30, a garment factory worker, watched as one of her closest friends - a girl just a few years younger - sickened and finally died of an AIDS-related illness. An IRIN Report.

HIV infection in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has been recognized as one of the five countries in the Asia, where HIV/AIDS infections are increasing Bangladesh has been recognized as one of the five countries in the Asia, where HIV/AIDS infections are increasing.

Pakistan: Male sex workers play Russian roulette with HIV
Shujaat* plies his trade well. As dusk falls on the Pir Wadhai bus station in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, the slender 19-year-old gauges disembarking passengers for that 'look' - a responsive glance or wink suggesting a desire for more than just a quick bus ride home.

Drugs crackdowns spreading HIV/AIDS in Southeast Asia: experts
Heavy-handed police crackdowns on drug users are undermining efforts to curb the regional spread of HIV, with many users resorting to dangerous sharing of needles, say experts.

HIV/AIDS spreads at endemic scale
Low prevalent Bangladesh gradually turning into high prevalent country in HIV/AIDS, like the neighbouring one, as sharing of needle among the Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) increasing alarmingly.

Project HANDLE offers safe place for to talk about AIDS
On a windy Saturday afternoon, three Cambodian women sit in a corner and sew. They attach buttons on a coat, or work on costumes for their children's dance performance.

Sport and HIV prevention: Chinese toolkit for HIV prevention
With the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games less than a year away, sporting fever is gripping China and the surrounding countries. And as athletes prepare to run, jump, kick and throw themselves onto the winners podium, HIV prevention is also emerging as an Olympic champion.

Casual sex among Cambodia's MSMs an HIV timebomb
In the fading daylight they come out by their dozens -- young men in small groups or alone, cruising Phnom Penh's parks for sex, not with female sex workers but with each other.

HIV/AIDS story moves villagers
The personal testimony of a woman living with HIV/AIDS proved to be the highlight of a Pacific Stars Lifeskills three-day workshop in a village in Ra.

Battling many monsters
They have fought for their dignity; they have fought against the dreaded word 'stigma'. In a sense they really represent the modern Indian woman, says L Subramani.

Cricket chief Malcolm Speed promotes �the power of sport� to fight HIV and AIDS
International Cricket Council (ICC) chief Malcolm Speed went to bat against HIV and AIDS at the weekend and challenged South African children to take up cricket.

How The Pleasure Project brought pleasure and sex to an AIDS conference � ICAAP 8
As I attended one session after another at the recently concluded International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP8) in Colombo, Sri Lanka last week, I was beginning to wonder if HIV was actually an airborne disease rather than a sexually transmitted one.

Women and HIV/AIDS
The link between women's rights abuses and the spread of HIV/AIDS is slowly gaining recognition, but not before millions of women lost their lives to the disease. Evidence indicates that women especially at risk are those in a heterosexual marriage or long-term union in a society where men commonly engage in sex outside the union and women confront abuse if they demand condom use.

Asia must deal bravely with HIV/AIDS: U.N. official
A top U.N. official urged countries in Asia on Thursday to deal squarely and bravely with HIV/AIDS, which he said was being driven dangerously underground because of stigma and conservative attitudes.

Wealthy men, not poverty, fuelling AIDS in Asia: study
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Asia is being fuelled by the sexual behaviour of wealthy men and not by poverty as is widely believed, says a new study by UNAIDS and the Asian Development Bank.

Indonesia: Female condom programme falters
Ningsih [not her real name], 22, was taken aback when she was handed a pack of two female condoms in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, but was even more surprised when she opened one. Measuring 17cm long and 7cm in diameter with a sponge attached inside, the female condom is indeed large compared to a male condom. An IRIN Report.

HIV+ and orphaned: Children no one wants
It's a ray of hope in an area of gloom. Recently, a 15-day-old baby, Chhoti, was found abandoned. Though rumoured to be HIV positive, many couples on hearing about her through the media, volunteered to adopt her.

Legislative and Judicial steps required to protect inheritance and property rights of women: Eminent Jury
Depriving women of their rightful access to inheritance and property deepens their vulnerabilities to HIV and hence urgent steps should be initiated by legislative and judicial systems to protect them, said members of an �Eminent Jury� here on Saturday.

UN warns of Thai housewife HIV/AIDS crisis
International Aids campaigners have raised concern over a sharp increase in infections among Thai housewives, fearing the rise of new cases in this formerly low-risk group reflected the country's complacency in tackling the epidemic.

�Everlasting flower� group of 10-year PLHIV
Your baby has HIV!� Hanh couldn�t believe the news from the doctor. She thought she would collapse at the hospital.

New face of hope for HIV/AIDS
This man of God found life and love despite a dreaded malady. South African Reverend Christo Greyling was a hopeful 23-year-old seminarian who was to marry his girlfriend in six months when he tested positive for HIV, a retrovirus that can lead to the deadly acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

The dark side of sex in the city
Most sex workers have a story of woe to tell about why they entered the oldest profession in the world. Many are unable to leave due to the stigma of the �job� with some forced to stay after being infected with HIV.

AIDS women fight fear and stigma as well as disease
When Papua New Guinea's Maura Elaripe was diagnosed with HIV she thought it was a death sentence, but 10 years later she is still fighting the disease and the fear and stigma associated with it in her homeland.

Unreasonable fear of HIV
Twenty years after the outbreak of AIDS in humans panicked the world, and 10 years after experts confidently predicted a vaccine, science has produced neither an immunization nor a cure. There have been important advances, based on medical knowledge. Many people who contract the Aids-causing HIV, today have a good chance of being able to co-exist with the disease and live a somewhat normal lifespan.

'World is losing' the AIDS battle
The worldwide battle against AIDS is being lost as HIV infections increase six times faster than the drugs which help slow the disease, a leading expert has said.

Breaking the silence on HIV/AIDS
Where were you in 1981? That was the first time the symptoms of what would later be considered diagnostic of AIDS were discovered in the cities of New York and Los Angeles in the United States. I had just entered college then but I still vividly remember how the world reacted with revulsion and panic as the first pictures of people with a rare type of pneumonia (pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) and skin tumors called Kaposis� sarcoma were shown on media.

No Dignity in life and in death too
In Nepal, a misplaced belief has robbed HIV-positive people dignity even in death. There are newspaper reports that people dying of AIDS related illnesses here are being buried in polythene bags. Rumour has it that this is done to prevent the virus from leaving the corpse in search of a healthy body. This is really humiliating.

AIDS fund up five-fold, yet it's raw deal for India's HIV-infected
Shakil's parents threw him out of his house three years ago. Dev has had three doctors refusing him basic treatment. Both are living with HIV for years now. The Government of India has upped funding to its AIDS control programme five fold to Rs 11,000 crore this year. But the government plans to spend most of this money on prevention measures and seems to have turned its back on those who are already living with the virus?

Workers in mining companies are coming down with AIDS
From Africa to Russia, from Peru to China, mining companies face a problem: The workers who haul up the earth's riches are coming down with AIDS, and it is hampering operations at a time of booming demand for minerals.

Thai children unmask the stigma of living with HIV/AIDS
On a stage inside Chiang Mai University �s Art Museum, children donned masks in order to enact a play entitled, �Who am I? Why am I here?� The drama, which was performed before a standing room-only audience, gave voice to the pain, fears and hopes the young actors have as children living with HIV/AIDS in Thailand . A feature from UNICEF.

HIV-positive convicts: Prisoners of prejudice
Fan Zongyu still remembers how nervous he felt when he first faced a row of HIV-positive convicts held in Qingliu Prison, in East China's Fujian Province. For the last two years, Fan, who has been a prison warden for 18 years, and six of his colleagues have been running a special correctional division for HIV-infected male criminals in the Qingliu Prison.

Prevention key in HIV/AIDS fight
Government complacency over past successes has left a generation of youths in the dark about the fatal scourge. Thailand did everything right to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids in the 1990s - combining massive preventive measures with the treatment of people already infected with the deadly virus.

Drug-resistant AIDS: The next tsunami
The United Nations target is to put 10 million people on HIV/AIDS antiretroviral treatment by 2010. Aid commitments from G8 countries will no doubt prolong many lives.

SRI LANKA: Low AIDS figures despite years of conflict
Asia's longest-running conflict has created the perfect environment for an AIDS epidemic to flourish in Sri Lanka, but surprisingly, decades of war have brought only a slow spread of the disease in vulnerable groups.

India looking for "Mr. Condom"
India, struggling to promote greater condom use among its population, is looking to hire its own "condom man" to follow the example of a former Thai cabinet minister who successfully pushed for safer sex.

PNG: Forgetting people living with HIV
There is a strong emphasis on the prevention of HIV infection in the community. That is of course admirable � provided it is not at the expense of those who already have the virus. Sadly, it still appears that people living with the virus come second in the priorities of the authorities.

HIV and India�s drug users
HIV is no longer an urban monopoly; it�s spreading its wings in the rural areas too. India�s injecting drug problem may be worse than thought, a new survey of the country�s breadbasket region shows, worrying health experts and activists who say it could fuel the spread of HIV and AIDS.

ASIA: Opening eyes of migrants to dangers of big cities' embrace
With ever greater numbers of people on the move in search of jobs and opportunities in the Mekong River region, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has unveiled a series animated videos to inform and warn migrant workers about the risk of HIV/AIDS. An IRIN Report.

Marriage bureau specializes in India's HIV widows
Indian women often lose social standing and ties when their husbands die. But if widows are HIV-positive the stigma and isolation can be extreme. For the past few years, however, a marriage bureau in Gujarat helps some find new spouses.

Drug-users raise risk of HIV in India's heartland
India's injecting drug problem may be worse than thought, a new survey of the country's breadbasket region shows, worrying health experts and activists who say it could fuel the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Buddhist monks trained to support Cambodian families affected by HIV/AIDS
Throughout Cambodia, Buddhist monks are held in high regard, not only as religious leaders but for their traditional role of helping those most in need. For many Cambodians living with or affected by HIV and AIDS, Buddhist monks provide a vital link to treatment and counselling.

Bangladesh: Non-marital sex helps spread HIV/AIDS
Despite a still low HIV prevalence, various risk factors including non-marital sex are posing increasing threat of HIV/AIDS in the country for lack of proper communication strategy. Since the HIV/AIDS was first detected in Bangladesh in 1989, a total of 874 cases of HIV positive and 240 cases of AIDS were reported and confirmed in 1996.

�Friends Helping Friends� living with HIV/AIDS in Cambodia
Having a network of understanding friends to share the problems of living with HIV/AIDS is difficult in remote rural areas, particularly for young children.

Sex education creates storm in AIDS-stricken India
Moves to bring sex out of the closet in largely conservative India have kicked up a morality debate between educators who say sex education will reduce HIV rates, and critics who fear it will corrupt young minds. It's an emotive issue pitting modernists against conservatives in a country with the world's highest number of HIV cases at about 5.7 million, a figure that experts say may balloon to over 20 million by 2010.

Street Sex Workers Are Vulnerable to HIV/AIDS In Bangladesh
Bangladesh is still a low prevalence country (HIV-infection rate is less than 1%), but there is a potential for expanding HIV/AIDS epidemic in the future, because the country is very receptive to HIV infection. Sex work exists at significant levels in Bangladesh, and condom use is low. In Bangladesh, sex workers in brothels as well as on the streets reported rather high client turnover, by Asian standards. Women working in brothels nationwide averaged 19 clients a week, and street workers reported between 12 and 16 in different cities. Consistent condom use is among the lowest in the region.

Lao photo contest encourages �Caring Dads� to protect their children from HIV
The setting sun behind Vientiane�s Victory Monument usually illuminates a throng of determined exercisers power-walking or jogging around this Laotian version of the Arc de Triumph, as the last straggling tourists climb back on their buses.

China and HIV � A Window of Opportunity
Last December in Wuhan, China, two middle-aged rural women who had become infected with HIV in the 1990s struggled to describe to foreign visitors how China's new HIV-treatment program had changed their lives. Suddenly, one woman's 12-year-old daughter spoke up. Her mother, she said, had been too sick to get out of bed, and the girl had left school to help at home and on the farm. But when the woman began taking antiretroviral drugs, she improved quickly, returned to work in the fields, and sent her daughter back to the classroom.

Combating the AIDS epidemic in PNG
A 1.3 percent drop in GDP, a 12.5 percent reduction in the workforce and a cost to the economy of A$1.5 billion: these are the projected worst-case macroeconomic effects of HIV/AIDS on PNG.

The doctor, golfer who is a haven to HIV people
Many awareness programs carried out over the years have helped many people in the general acceptance of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. A few years ago, people living with HIV would have been shunned and rejected from their families and society but that has since changed.

ART for PLHA in rural areas: Situation of universal access in Nepal
At present All the NGO's, donors and Government bodies alike , who are working in the field of HIV and AIDS here in Nepal, have a serious issue at hand weather they realize it or not. As we are told by the statistics, there are more than 9000 people living with the stage of AIDS here in Nepal. The feature is taken from AHRN.

HIV awareness amongst MSM still low
As dusk falls in Ratna Park, a popular cruising area for men who have sex with men (MSM) in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, so too do inhibitions. "I can always find someone here," bragged Pradip, 23, while his friends prompt him to tell more. He has been married for four years and has two children, but his wife knows little of his evening activities, nor would she dare ask. "She knows her place," he said.

Thailand sets the standard in the fight against HIV
Patin, a 40-year-old woman living in the village of Promanee, about 150 kilometers west of Bangkok, took an AIDS test five years ago after she lost her husband to the disease. The test came back positive.

Helping the kids
The next time you walk into a hair salon, you’ll probably step out looking good and feeling great as well. L’Oreal Professional’s Colour for Life campaign is raising funds for the Malaysian AIDS Foundation’s Paediatric AIDS Fund. When you colour your hair from April 1 to June 30, you will be helping children with AIDS.

Pakistan battles HIV/AIDS taboo
Nearly 4,000 people with HIV/Aids have reported at treatment centres around Pakistan, government and World Health Organisation (WHO) officials say. The figure is a fraction of the total number of Pakistanis with the virus.

Thailand’s condom chain World Record
Guinness World Records™ have confirmed that Thailand has officially set the world record for the longest chain of condoms: 2,715 metres. On World AIDS Day 2006, Thailand captured international attention with an attempt to create the world’s longest chain of condoms. A total of 1,436 participants tied together a total of 24,516 condoms, measured at 2,715 metres, setting a new Guinness World Record™.

Radio Dramas Help in HIV/AIDS Fight
In small ethnic communities scattered around the uplands of the Mekong region, groups of women come together during afternoons to listen to a rare form of entertainment - radio dramas that teach them about HIV/AIDS, trafficking and drug use.

Shunned by society
Decades of HIV/AIDS education programmes seem to have achieved little as people living with HIV still face discrimination and isolation. Kumar (not his real name), 36, fainted at his workplace one day. He was admitted to hospital and was diagnosed as HIV-positive.

HIV/AIDS creep into Afghanistan
Cloistered by two decades of war and then the strict Islamic rule of the Taliban, Afghanistan was long shielded from the ravages of the AIDS pandemic. Not anymore.

Tainted blood and poverty fuel AIDS in rural China
An AIDS epidemic in rural China has gained fresh attention after a documentary about it won an Oscar this year, and after a doctor who helped expose the epidemic was put under house arrest to stop her receiving an award in the United States.

Wrong initiative to contain AIDS?
Sarita knew nothing about HIV/AIDS until her husband tested positive. A few months later, she and her elder daughter also tested positive. This was four years ago. Her husband died in 2002. Life has taught her many bitter lessons: It has taught her that women cannot negotiate safe sex due to their disadvantaged position in society as well as due to lack of personal power.

Cricket World Cup to Bat for UN War on HIV/AIDS
When the top cricketers from across the planet come out to bat and bowl in the Cricket World Cup opening in the West Indies on Sunday, they will also be taking aim at HIV/AIDS in a United Nations campaign focusing on issues facing children and young people affected by the disease and the resources and actions needed to address them.

Vietnam Expands Protection for People with HIV
Vietnam is embarking on a campaign to end discrimination against people with AIDS and HIV. A new law will give new rights and protections to people with HIV, and the country is expanding the number of people getting treatment for AIDS.

The Trafficking Trap Persists in Border Towns
A Burmese woman sits on the wooden floor of a small room in Ranong, a Thai town bordering southern-most Burma. Over the sound of a whirring fan, the 18-year-old who is just over four feet tall recounts her past.

Nearly half of Indian women have not heard of AIDS
More than 40 percent of women in India have not heard of AIDS, according to a government survey that has alarmed activists. India has 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, according to the United Nations, which is the world's highest caseload. But the prevalence rate, in the country of 1.1 billion people, is much lower than in most of Africa.

HIV/AIDS situation in Bangladesh
But many risk factors like, high prevalence of HIV in the neighboring countries, increased population movement both internal and external, lack of awareness of HIV infection, existence of commercial sex and MSM with multiple clients, high prevalence of STIs amongst the commercial sex workers, spread of HIV through bridging population (transport workers, drug users),the trend of rise of HIV among (lDUs) injecting drug users (7% in central Bangladesh- BSS-7), low condom use and lack of voluntary blood donation make Bangladesh vulnerable to HIV infection. The feature is taken from AHRN.

Cambodia: Stalked by hunger, HIV
As the month began the fate of an already vulnerable community in Cambodia grew bleaker. An estimated 740,000 people faced with acute food shortages could see no relief in sight.

'Lazarus Drug': ARVs in the treatment era
As a result of falling antiretroviral (ARV) prices, new sources of international funding and growing political commitment, providing treatment to HIV-positive people in the developing world is, for the first time, becoming an achievable goal. An IRIN Report.

India sex museum makes HIV lessons fun
A rare sex museum in Mumbai, the country's teeming financial capital, is drawing hundreds of prostitutes and their regular clients who say they learn more about HIV/AIDS from its graphic exhibits than staid lectures on safe sex.

Pakistan: Commercial sex workers face HIV threat
Beena, 50, runs an 'establishment' in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, where her two daughters and a niece sell their bodies. "Most of us here know all about this AIDS thing. Some NGO people keep coming and talk to the girls about it – but just knowing about it is not always of much use," she mused, chewing on a wodge of tobacco. An IRIN Report.

Cambodia: Wives at risk of HIV infection
"I don't know how my husband contracted HIV - he just did," said Phary, 27, staring blankly out the window of the two-room apartment she shares with her parents and two children in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. Answering that question has never been easy. An IRIN Report.

Burma’s Uphill Struggle to Contain HIV/AIDS
Isolated Burma is grappling with one of the worst HIV/AIDS epidemics in Asia—a struggle made all the harder by the tiny amounts of international aid received by the military government.

Cambodia: Focus on MSM and the spread of HIV/AIDS
As dusk falls along the banks of the Tonle Sap River, opposite the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Noun, 35, a married engineer, stops at his favourite vantage point on his route home each evening, a popular cruising site for Cambodian gays, where last month alone he met seven different partners.

Regional Buddhist HIV outreach programme making an impact in Laos
A unique outreach programme based on the teachings of Buddhism is playing a significant role in supporting those living with HIV/AIDS in Laos and other countries of the Mekong region - the Yunnan Province of southern China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. An IRIN Report.

Stigma and Discrimination fuel spread of AIDS in China
In recent years China has made bold strides in its response to HIV/AIDS. But until it owns up to past mistakes, encourages and supports civil society involvement, and proactively deals with the serious challenges of stigma and misinformation, cases of HIV and AIDS will continue to rise, giving truth to predictions that by 2010, China could be home to over 10 million infected with the disease.

Learning from experience
There are literally thousands of AIDS-related programmes around the world. With such a wide variety of approaches and methodologies, sharing information about initiatives that have been successful is crucial to the ongoing development and improvement of AIDS programming.

HIV/AIDS and Human Rights
IHIV/AIDS has generated a global pandemic that far exceeds what was predicted even a decade ago, threatening the security of humans. Since the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS has claimed 25 million lives, and 40 million people across the world are living with HIV/AIDS. Fanning out from a few African countries, it has now become a global threat and is particularly spreading rapidly in Asia and the Pacific.

AIDS stigma, the stumbling block
IN the 25 years since the first case was reported, AIDS has changed the world. The disease has killed 25 million people and infected 40 million more. In Papua New Guinea, as the number of infections continues unabated, stigma and discrimination remains a formidable challenge to prevention, care and treatment initiatives.

ASEAN Summit special session on AIDS
AIDS is not a passing storm but a long-run threat to development and national security in Asia,” UNAIDS reported at the ‘Special Session on HIV/AIDS’, held as part of the 12 th Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit on Saturday 13 January.

HIV-positive man is now beacon of life
For Kailash Bhagat in his 30s, HIV positive does not mean the end of life. His eyes have sunk. Hairs on the head has become scarce and skin has turned black. But even then Bhagat ,who has been suffering from AIDS since 1996, has emerged as an icon by working relentlessly for people suffering from HIV/AIDS in Bihar, India under the banner of the Bihar People Network Living with HIV/AIDS.

Indonesia: On a Razor's Edge — HIV Vulnerability in Aceh
Ratnawati Zulkifli, 32, will always remember the morning of the tsunami, a day still etched in her mind nearly two years after this century's greatest natural disaster to date.

Words are not neutral against HIV
Words such as “HIV positive” and “People living with HIV” are gradually replacing other terms, such as “AIDS sufferers” and “victims of the disease”, which used to flourish in the literature about HIV. Why are we witnessing such a transformation? How does it come about? And most important, what does it mean?

HIV/AIDS and Gender Discrimination
HIV/AIDS is no longer striking primarily men. Today, more than 20 years into the epidemic, women account for nearly half the 40 million-plus people living with HIV worldwide. HIV/AIDS has been thought of in the past as a disease mainly affecting gay men or drug users. In fact, in 2005, most HIV infections came from heterosexual sex. And in heterosexual sex, women are more likely to become infected than men.

Thais battle for affordable HIV drugs
Apiwat Kwangkaew can still remember the day, nearly five years ago, when Thailand began producing nevirapine, a generic anti-retroviral drug. Within an hour of the announcement, hospital wards across the country were backed up with patients.

"Project Outreach" on HIV/AIDS to cover IT student community across India
Project Outreach, a unique Delhi-based public-private partnership initiative of NIS Sparta, NIIT and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for creating awareness among the student community and youth on HIV and AIDS, is set to be expanded to all NIIT centres across India covering over six lakh students.

Pimjai a source of strength for the marginalized
Pimjai Intamoon refuses to let HIV incapacitate her further. Instead, she carries on with her life to prove that her vulnerability can be a source of strength and blessing not only to herself but others.

HIV/AIDS Prevention Is Better As There Is No Cure
It is time to take a reality check on the spiralling AIDS figures in Nepal. HIV/AIDS may have gained an almost epidemic status in sub-Saharan Africa, but Nepal still evades from its grip and has in it the potential to keep the virus at bay. Even among the highly vulnerable population such as the rickshaw pullers, migrant labourers and cart pullers, where the figures remain 6-7 %, combating the disease does not seems like a distant dream.

Gender equality key to development, says UNICEF report
The State of the World’s Children 2007 report published on 11th December by UNAIDS Cosponsor UNICEF underlines that empwoering women is pivotal to the health and development of families,communities and nations.

Myanmese people living with AIDS find hope in India
When 24-year-old Myanmese Mary Lun was carried across the border and into the AIDS hospice of Churachandpur in northeast India in March, she weighed a mere 24kg and was all but dead.

Lost Generation: The price of blood in China- HIV and AIDS
In the e990s, many poor farmers in China sold their blood for cash. Without knowing it, they were exposing themselves to a terrible risk – HIV and AIDS. Henan Province in Central China was hit hardest, reports Henry H.

Shunned, they live in deathly silence
Parsanni Devi (name changed) is like hundreds of women in Haryana who have been widowed, with their husbands succumbing to HIV/ AIDS. Yet she is more fortunate than most who remain untreated due to ignorance of their HIV-positive status or are forced to suffer in silence. This is especially true of women in rural areas, where a widow has no social acceptance.

Finnair and UNICEF help AIDS children in Vietnam
Finnair’s and UNICEF’s traditional Change for Good Christmas campaign has a new objective starting this year. Funds are being collected for Vietnamese children affected by HIV-AIDS. The campaign will begin on Finnair flights on Monday 27 November and continue until 7 January 2007.

Continued action critical in battle against HIV/AIDS
In conjunction with the World AIDS Day which falls on Dec. 1, the South-East Asian Regional Office (SEARO) of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned about an alarming rise in the number of people affected with AIDS/HIV in the region. The regional office has disseminated a message, made available to The Jakarta Post, about the need for continued action from society, governments and other parties to curb the spread of this lethal disease.

Health care a right and a responsibility
In this time of suspended normality in public affairs, deliberately aimed at taking stock of erroneous practises and launching viable policies, Thailand has a window of opportunity to take a good hard look at the fundamentals in health protection. To do so in purely technical, scientific and financial terms would entail missing the opportunity. Health is an encompassing cultural category, whereas technology, science and finance are only parts of a culture.

Buddhist Monks raise AIDS awareness in Laos
Every morning Buddhist Monk Maytryjit gets up at 3:45 am to meditate for an hour. Afterwards, he walks through the streets of Vientane in the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic to collect his food alms.This feature is taken from: www.unaids.org

China’s Muslims awake to nexus of needles and AIDS
China, November 12, 2006: The story of Almijan, a gaunt 31-year-old former silk trader with nervous eyes, has all the markings of a public health nightmare.

Curing the AIDS stigma
In a public service message aired on some local radio stations, five-year-old Aiman says he does not pay too much heed to the fact that his friend Arif is much smaller than he is, although they are of the same age.

Positively neglected
Women in commercial sex work are seen as agents of HIV and their clients’ unwitting victims. But in the absence of any economic rehabilitation or community based services, the HIV positive trafficked victim, the marginalized section of the society, continues to be commercially sexually exploited. Preetu Nair goes behind the obvious and discovers that if HIV/AIDS is an epidemic of bad choices then it is also an epidemic of the choice less and voiceless.

HIV-positive children victims of discrimination
When Sarimah (not her real name) and her husband adopted a baby girl, they knew she was the child of a sex worker and a drug addict.

Malaysia fights looming AIDS epidemic
Ex-convict Jonah Chan is a casualty of Malaysia's losing battle against AIDS. In 1984, he was jailed for three years for robbery. He came out a drug addict and is now infected with the AIDS virus.

Community education raises AIDS awareness in Papua
Like many young people, 19 year- old Rifal* never used to worry about AIDS. He saw it as a problem that only affected high-risk groups, such as intravenous drug users.

Joana tells of fight against HIV stigma
People living with HIV continue to face discriminatory treatment while using some public facilities and services, says Joana Cagivinaka.

The Life of A HIV Convict
Fourteen years ago, Man (not his real name) was told that he had contracted the HIV infection (human immunodeficiency virus). It has been a long time and since then many of those infected with HIV had died, but Man is still holding on.

Cambodia’s HIV Hotline – advice and counselling just a phone call away
When young housewife and mother Kiri* learned she and her young son had tested positive for HIV, she didn’t know where to turn. “I had so many problems hidden in my heart. I didn’t dare tell my problems to anyone. Keeping this secret from people made me so distressed that sometimes I wanted to kill myself to escape from this suffering,” she said.

The challenges of HIV/AIDS awareness
HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea is an issue that should not be treated lightly, says Thomas Keleyia from Tambul Nebilyer, electorate in Western Highlands province. And he should know. He has been living with the AIDS for the past 10 years.

A man dedicated to caring for AIDS orphans in Central China
A man can earn fame and fortune in many ways but dedicating oneself to the cause of humanity is the noblest way to do so.This feature has been taken from China Daily.

Pakistan: Drug injecting refugees vulnerable to HIV infection
In an alley close to the historic Qissa Kahani Bazaar in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Najeeb Khan, 22, crouches on his haunches beneath a flimsy shop awning. An IRIN report.

Taking the fight against HIV/AIDS into Islamic schools in Indonesia
A call to prayer, instead of a school bell, signals the end of the morning session of classes at Zainul Hasan Islamic school in East Java. It appears to be a typical scene for one of Indonesia’s 5,000 Islamic boarding schools. This year, however, a subject seeming anything but typical has appeared in the classroom at Zainul Hasan, a subject that would have once been considered taboo: HIV/AIDS. The feature has been taken from www.unicef.org.

‘Butterfly Brigade’ takes flight to promote HIV prevention in the Philippines
In an unusual partnership with provincial authorities, a group of gay activists calling themselves the ‘Butterfly Brigade’ are leading an innovative community awareness campaign on sexual health and HIV prevention in Philippines. Their work combines wide-reaching public education with social marketing of condoms and care of people living with HIV. The feature has been taken from www.unaids.org

HIV/AIDS: what are you going to do?
Anna, our office cleaner worked so well, so efficiently that she had been almost unknown to me in the time that I had worked in my new office in Brazil, several years ago. She was a petite, middle-aged woman upon whom the years weighed heavily. The feature is taken from The National Online, PNG.

A wife decides to face the challenge of HIV destitution
This is the touching story of the wife of a HIV positive drug user husband who has decided to fight overwhelming odds and raise her three children. The feature has been taken from http://www.kanglaonline.com.

AIDS in Asia and Bangladesh
THE impact of AIDS in Asia is staggering. Although Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV, South and South-East Asia is the region where HIV is spreading fastest.

Summer camp serves AIDS-affected children and fights stigma in China
Seventy children from eight Chinese provinces gathered last week at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to celebrate the annual opening ceremony of ‘Growing up Together under the Sunshine’, a summer camp programme for children affected by AIDS. The feature has been taken from http://www.unicef.org.

HIV and Indonesia: Nation sits on a volcano
They are in many ways a throwback to their parents' era, often either saving themselves until marriage or having few sexual partners. But whereas Indonesia's teenagers may be shunning their Western peers' interest in sex, they are taking up drug use with an increasing passion, from Jakarta rich kids to those in the poorer outlying areas across Java, Kalimantan and South Sulawesi.

HIV positive bemoan lack of drugs in China
Meng Lin, who is HIV positive and an AIDS activist in Beijing, relies on friends to send him drugs from overseas every month -- medicine he needs to stay alive. There are days when he despairs as he watches his cache of drugs dwindle with no replenishment in sight.

'They deceived me. My life is spoiled'
For a thousand years, India's temple girls have lived a lie. Today, a used woman named Nagamma steps forward and, even while afraid, bares an awful truth. That an ancient, religious form of sexual slavery -- long outlawed -- is still as much a part of this country's bedrock as the open pits of their southern mines.

Access denied
"Over and over again, I see my friends dying because they have no access to treatment." That's how HIV-positive Frika Iskandar, of Indonesia, informed attendees of a UN-sponsored speaking tour on women and AIDS early last year that she considered herself lucky to be receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs at all. Since then, the UN and other international agencies have ramped up efforts to get medicine to people around the world who need it.

India: Making the case against AIDS with care
MUMBAI: Raju barely remembers the parents he lost to a “strange sickness” when he was very young. The seven-year-old lives in a small room on the terrace, hardly ever meeting the aunt and uncle in whose care he is now. His meals and medicines are passed to him from a distance.

When families unleash HIV/AIDS into community
A tragic reality. Just within these last few weeks we, Yakita, have witnessed three different families, mothers and fathers, take their sons and daughters, who were in drug treatment and recovery programs, and are also HIV/AIDS positive, out from recovery centers and facilities. The feature is taken from http://www.thejakartapost.com.

HIV in Jaffna, Sri Lanka
Jaffna, situated in the Northern part of Sri Lanka has been completely destroyed during the two decades of civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Although the community is supposedly in peace, the possibilities of violent conflict remains an ongoing possibility. A journey to this island reveals that the population is highly vulnerable to HIV, yet civic infrastructure is almost non existent. The feature is taken from www.thetamilweek.com

HEALTH-INDIA-HIV
Jitendra Shekhawat has never been to a condom party before, but he has a great idea for an ice-breaker -- he blows up a condom until it explodes. The party, in a wooden shack festooned with condom balloons in the middle of a sprawling truck parking lot, is one of many approaches increasingly used by Indian businesses as they try to work out their role in a country that recently became the world's HIV capital.

AIDS: The PNG time-bomb
Major national events such as elections tend to turn public attention away from some of the constant negatives that plague our society. HIV/AIDS is one of those negatives. The feature is taken from The National Online.

INDIA: HIV- infected children present their case
In a conference hall inside a heritage resort in Manesar on the outskirts of Delhi, the pleading voice of a young boy cuts through the silence. The scene is from a skit, scripted and staged by children infected and affected by HIV in India - a country of 5.7 million people living with HIV and AIDS. An IRIN report.

Spotlight: Young and blur about HIV/AIDS
Despite years of public education on HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), a third of teenagers still do not know the consequences of unprotected sex. More than a quarter don’t know that unprotected sex can lead to unwanted pregnancy, and 32.7 per cent are unaware that they can contract STIs. Some had never even heard of STIs, while the common myths about HIV and how it is spread are still widely believed.

Fighting HIV/AIDS in Nepal
THE AIDS epidemic is fast spreading in Nepal presenting a horrifying picture. Reports estimate that Nepal already has over 60,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS. In a small country like Nepal with 23-plus million population, this number is not negligible.

Mobile games join fight against AIDS
Casino and snakes are common games found on mobile phones. They entertain us and help pass the time. One wouldn't expect much more out of them. However, an Indian software company has created four games that raise awareness of HIV/AIDS.

India: Clubbing to Combat HIV
'Do you have AIDS? Why are you so concerned about this otherwise? Do you get any money for doing this?' It's disgusting – these are the kind of questions we have to face from our own villagers," says Vishnu, 20. Vishnu is an undergraduate student and an active member of the Village AIDS Awareness Club (VAAC) in his village, Banigandlapadu, in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. He is alternately dismayed and inspired by his work. This feature is written by Usha Revelli and republished with the permission of Women’s Feature Service.

AIDS snaps up families, innocent or not
In the latest instance of ostracism of an HIV positive person in the most abominable manner, a 32-year-old Dalit widow is forced to lead the life of seclusion with her young daughters at a remote village in this coastal region. The feature has been taken from the Statesman News Service.

Philippines uneasy that small number of HIV/AIDS cases may hide bigger problem
The Philippines is rife with the ingredients for an AIDS disaster: an active sex industry that draws foreign tourists, with the dominant Roman Catholic church's stance against contraceptives contributing to relatively low condom use. The feature has been taken from www.ohmynews.com.

A Tale of Two Indias
Thirty-five-year-old Rama Devi is not exactly an icon of good fortune. She and her five children live in a dusty, thatched-hut village called Kashiou, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. She once had a husband, a man who spent most of the year selling fruit on the streets of Mumbai, but he contracted HIV during his travels and came home a few years ago to die. Devi is now HIV-positive herself.

The forgotten face
LAXMI*, a maternal orphan, was 12 years old when her father remarried and sent her to live with her grandmother in Pondicherry. When her grandmother sold her into sex work for Rs.35,000, she worked the Chennai beat for a year until she was caught in a police raid. She was framed by the owner of the brothel she was working for, taken into custody for running a sex racket and sent to a remand home. At 14, after seeing over 1,500 clients, she learned she was human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive. The feature has been taken from http://www.hinduonnet.com.

Treating drug addiction – a GP’s perspective
When I was a young child, I was fascinated with people who were addicted to opium. During those early days in Penang, we did not hear of morphine, pethidine, heroin or ganja addicts, only opium or “ah pian”. It was not unusual to see an opium addict using the opium pipe to smoke opium then. Today, we need to ask why it is so important to treat and rehabilitate these drug users. One reason – 75% of those infected with HIV in Malaysia are drug userxs. They share dirty and contaminated needles and so transmit HIV/AIDS.

DANCE OF DEATH - as AIDS ravages India
Archena is 13 years old. Her mother is dead, her father is long gone.She lives with her grandmother and aunt in a mud-grey house set apart from the rest of her village and yearns to be a teacher. But her relatives won't hear of it. They are Kolati and the Kolati tribe don't teach. They dance. Their women don't marry - but they have sex. Anton Antonowicz in Maharashtra, India talks to those who live and die in the shadow of HIV and AIDS. The feature has been taken from www.mirror.co.uk.

My classmate has AIDS!
This is the dreaded shriek which Marcus (real name withheld) hopes would never echo along the halls of his campus. Every day, the senior college student lugs a dark secret to school, one that threatens to destroy him way before the disease that is slowly eating him alive -- AIDS. The feature has been taken from Journal Group of Publications, Philippines (www.journal.com.ph).

The HIV risk to women in South Asia
Lack of respect for women's sexual and reproductive rights is a big problem in South Asia. And all represent clear violations of women's rights. On the other hand, poverty, lack of employment opportunities, social discrimination between son and daughter, prevailing about trafficking in humans control, lack of political commitment for seeking problem solution are the root causes for the continuation and increasement of trafficking and HIV/AIDS in South Asia. A feature by Kamala Sarup.

NEPAL: Focus on the plight of rural people living with HIV/AIDS
With deep sunk eyes and parched lips, 30-year old Maya Rumba stares feebly from her broken bed. "Help me," is all she has the strength to utter. Her skeletal body weakened by severe malnourishment, Rumba is living all alone with full blown AIDS in her small hut at Sai Foot, a remote village in Makwanpur district in eastern Nepal, 128 km south of the capital city Kathmandu. An IRIN Report.

Thailand: Increased HIV/AIDS awareness needed
An overwhelming majority - 85 percent - of Thai youth do not consider HIV an issue they need to be personally concerned with, after nearly a decade without any mass public awareness campaigns on HIV/AIDS, according to a UN official. An IRIN Report

Thai AIDS patients spend final days in temple of death
If you look deep enough, you can see how beautiful Patcharee once was. Her high cheek bones, small nose and deep brown eyes are all still there, but they've become lost in a face rotted by AIDS.

Shunned and dying: HIV positive people in Vietnam
The neighbors know what is going on when they hear peals of laughter coming from the house of Pham Thi Hue. The dying women have gotten together again. Crammed onto a couch and little chairs, they shout and clap as they talk about the city's shortage of shrouds or about the dying man with the bloated stomach who slept under a bridge. The feature is taken from www.ahrn.net.

Ex-addicts club together to beat drugs
Yu Hongfang's soft voice lowers to a whisper as she recalls how much she lost to drugs: her youth, her self-esteem and her first husband. As a teenager, Yu accepted cigarettes from a woman she barely knew -- a mistake she always regrets. "She was a drug trafficker, but I didn't realize that until I became addicted. I'd rather have killed myself than wait a minute for another fix," says Yu, 37.

HIV widower finds new life, love in Iloilo
It has been eight years but Don still keeps the memory. It was International AIDS Candlelight Memorial Day and he lit a candle for his wife. He lit other candles, too, for his friends. That was on the night of Sunday, the day the world honored the memory of those who died of AIDS. Don, 59, lost his wife to AIDS in 1998. That same year, an HIV antibody test he took showed that he, too, had the virus that caused the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

China’s first AIDS Youth Ambassadors make history at the Great Wall
In the shadow of China’s historic Great Wall, UNICEF and the China National Committee for the Care of Children made some more history in April with the launch of a network of 100 AIDS Youth Ambassadors.

INDIA: Human trafficking in the northeast fuelling HIV/AIDS
Images of guns, drugs and rebels have long defined India's troubled northeast. Now, a study across eight states in this resource-rich, infrastructure-poor, conflict-scarred region seeks to highlight a new worry: the rising tide of human trafficking - mostly women and girls - and its potential for hastening the spread of HIV/AIDS. An IRIN Report.

HIV Hospice for Gay and Transgender Men Offers Hope
There’s no signboard outside the simple white-washed building at the end of the road – and neighbours have little idea of who its occupants are. But in this traditional Hindu society, where open discussion about HIV/AIDS remains largely taboo, that’s not surprising. An IRIN Report.

China: Drugs, AIDS and Orphans
In the barren courtyard stands an evergreen tree, full of life. Its grower is gone, leaving the boy alone to grow with the tree. "Papa died four years ago," says Xiao Mao, who lives with a farming family of the Dai, an ethnic group in the south western province of Yunnan. "People say he lost his life to AIDS." The feature has been written by Wen Chihua and republished with the permission of Women’s Feature Service.

Diffusing the HIV/AIDS time bomb
A time bomb is ticketing beneath India's future.India's remarkable growth and its ability to address its monumental social problems will all be compromised if the country does not quickly and aggressively address its growing HIV/AIDS crisis, and if the global community does not do more to help.

Nepal: Aid for drug users
When Rita arrived in Kathmandu from her home in Kalimpong (India) to work in a casino, she dreamt of a secure future. The casino job gave her good money. At work, she met a Nepali man from a well-to-do family and they got married. But her in-laws did not accept her, and soon she discovered that her husband could not hold down a job as he was a drug user. In fact, he even asked Rita to try brown sugar and she eventually did. The feature has been written by Sushmita Malaviya and republished with the permission of Women’s Feature Service.

India: changing lives through TV programming
Nothing can be more devastating for a father than not being able to touch his own chidlren. And that is exactly what happened to Panchu Bhol, a villager in the south-eastern state of Orissa, India. Many men from this poverty-striken hinterland of Puri district migrate seasonally to Gujarat in search of livelihood. Panchu had also embarked on this migration route, regularly sending money to his family, until he contracted HIV in Surat, the port city of Gujarat. The feature is taken from the UNAIDS website.

NEPAL: The growing threat of HIV/AIDS
Four years ago, Nareshlal Shrestha took the bold step of publicly declaring that he was HIV-positive in a society that still condemns and ostracises people living with the virus. He was one of the first people in Nepal to do so. Since then, others have followed his example, believing that the only way to fight HIV/AIDS in Nepal is to take matters into their own hands. An IRIN Report.

Myanmar's Hidden AIDS Epidemic
The doctor shows me snapshots of AIDS patients he has treated in Myanmar [formerly known as Burma]. Many are in advanced stages of the disease. Their bodies are covered in fungal infections and untreatable sores. They quickly succumb to TB, hepatitis and diarrhea infections, he explains, because they don't have anti-retroviral drugs or even basic antiseptic drugs.

China slow to awake to need for sex education
When Lao Li was a boy, sex was never discussed at home or school. Little wonder, then, a visit to Shanghai's Sex Culture Museum with its exhibits of 1,000-year-old dildos and Ming dynasty pornographic porcelain stunned him.

Positive Kids Fear Negative Effect of Ignorant Good Samaritans
Thailand is a country with perhaps the most experience in Asia in dealing with HIV/AIDS. It's national AIDS programme is regularly cited as an example of successful intervention. This feature is written by Sutthida Malikaew and taken from www.aidsasiafrica.net

PAKISTAN: Hijras caught in no man's land between two genders
Looking carefully at her reflection in a shop window, Azra combs out her dark, somewhat stringy hair. She then coyly flicks the lock back over her shoulder, adjusts her red 'duppatta' (scarf), and approaches two women shopping in Pakistan's western city of Lahore.

Kaki jab' signs up for needle exchange
Mat (not his real name) has been dropping in at a drug rehabilitation centre in Penang for the past month to pick up free needles and enjoy a hot meal. The feature has been taken from the Drug Use and HIV/AIDS News Digest published by the Asian Harm Reduction Network.

Thailand: Crisis point?
For gays, HIV/AIDS prevention efforts fall short in the capital. The [Thai] gay community is very fragmented, commercially oriented and has little awareness of broader social and political issues such as HIV/AIDS.

Positive partnerships’ break down AIDS-discrimination in Thailand
Heralded by UNAIDS as an example of ‘best practice’, a project that offers small loans to enable people living with HIV set up businesses is helping break down stigma and discrimination in Thailand. The feature is taken from the UNAIDS website (