[Viva] Fwd: [From: shelly tognazzini] Could Aids drug trial help end the stigma around HIV?

Sat May 14 09:57:38 PDT 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: guardian.co.uk <noreply at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Sat, May 14, 2011 at 9:55 AM
Subject: [From: shelly tognazzini] Could Aids drug trial help end the stigma
around HIV?
To: shetognazzini at gmail.com

shelly tognazzini spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you
should see it.

-------
Note from shelly tognazzini:

found this on line, thought to pass it on..
-------

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/sarah-boseley-global-health/2011/may/13/hiv-infection-aids

Could Aids drug trial help end the stigma around HIV?

If those who test positive can be put on drugs straight away to protect
their own lives and that of their partner's, the stigma and fear associated
with HIV must begin to lift

Drug regime could halt spread of HIV [
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/12/aids-treatment-drugs-hiv-epidemic
]

Sarah Boseley
Friday May 13 2011
guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/sarah-boseley-global-health/2011/may/13/hiv-infection-aids

The global trial that has just resoundingly proved that the partners of
people on Aids drugs are almost completely protected from being infected
with HIV themselves is extraordinarily good news. I wrote a story about it
on Thursday night [
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/12/aids-treatment-drugs-hiv-epidemic
].

And the more you think about it, the better this news seems. On Thursday, I
also wrote of the fears of women in Uganda that they will face violence and
criminalisation as a result of a bill now being debated in parliament that
would force them to tell their partner if they test positive for HIV ? or
oblige the health worker administering the test to tell the man instead. The
article was shortened and incorporated into a general story on Uganda [
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/12/uganda-museveni-police-teargas].
Below is the article in full.

Re-reading this story, it is clear to me how important the findings of the
trial are. If those who test positive can be put on drugs straight away to
protect not only their own lives but also their partner's health, the stigma
and fear associated with HIV must begin to lift. But it will be absolutely
necessary, of course, to step up the drug roll-out across affected
countries. The release of the trial results are perfectly timed for UNGASS [
http://www.ecpp.co.uk/ungass.htm] ? the UN general assembly special session
on Aids in New York in New York, where drugs will now, one assumes, top the
agenda.

Here is the Uganda story in full:

A proposed new law in Uganda, which would oblige those who test positive for
HIV to tell their partner or face jail, would lead to outbreaks of extreme
violence against women, campaigners are warning.

Women are at great risk from such a law because it is usually women who
learn they have HIV before their male partner, they say. Testing is a
routine part of antenatal checks in pregnancy. The Uganda HIV Prevention and
Control bill, which is due to be discussed in parliament on Friday, would
require women to tell their partner of the test result ? or mandate the
health worker who carried out the test to tell him.

According to the International Community of Women living with HIV (ICW)
Eastern Africa, women will be scapegoated and the consequences could be
dire.
"There is going to be more domestic violence," said Lillian Mworeko,
regional coordinator for ICW Eastern Africa based in Uganda. "And there are
going to be women who do not access services as they should. The first
culprit for criminalisation may be women. It is women who know their status
first. It becomes an entry point for men to take women to court."

Mworeko said there is a danger that women could be subjected to violent
assault if they tell their partners and be sued by them if they do not ? for
allegedly deliberately infecting them with the virus.

ICW Eastern Africa says women are already being blamed for HIV transmission.
"We have discovered last year that in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda women
living with HIV are coerced into sterilisation because they are HIV
positive," said Corinne Miele of the organisation.

"Despite wide support and funding for prevention of mother to child
transmission, women are often scared to come back to health facilities
because of the mistreatment they experience. They deliver at home or find
other (sometimes fatal) solutions, which means that babies are born positive
and women are risking their lives when both could be avoided.

"It is also not rare to hear than a mother-to-be commits suicide because of
the lack of support and care at such a vulnerable moment of her life. With
such a bill, what is going to happen to all those women who are more
infected and more at risk of passing on HIV to their children partly because
they cannot safely go through prevention of mother to child transmission
services?"

She says that blaming women ? who are more likely to be infected with HIV
because of their biology but also their subordinate status and poverty ? and
making them subject to criminal justice is a way for governments to
side-step their responsibilities on healthcare but also human rights.

"A bill like this makes human rights violations against women legal. It is
in complete contradiction with the ratification by Uganda of the African
Union Protocol on the Rights of Women in July 2010 during the African Union
Summit. It is a step back for the fight against HIV, for women's human
rights and for maternal and child health."

The bill is being debated alongside that on homosexuality, which has
attracted far more international attention. Yet, says Mworeko, "this one is
going to impact negatively on more Ugandans than the other one is".

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