peripheries

Repent!

“We welcome homosexuals, we don’t want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed”, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester.

Could someone please switch off the light and close the door of the Rochester Cathedral?

India, the world’s largest democracy decriminalised homosexuality

Stonewall Celebrates 40th birthday

Photo (c) peripheries

London Celebrates Pride 2009

Photo (c) peripheries

INTERMEZZO: (not-) Travelling with HIV

“In early 2005, a small but determined group of Korean vigilantes began stalking foreign English teachers (sometimes for months at a time) and feeding the press with sordid stories of their relations with Korean women. Their goal was to influence public opinion and push the government for the means to deport “illegal English teachers” from the country.”

Abandon discriminatory HIV policy
By Ben Wagner
The Korea Herald

There are currently 14 countries which either categorically refuse entry of PLWHA or also require disclosure of HIV infection even for entry for short term stays. These countries are:

Countries which force HIV positive foreigners to leave include (2008-2009 update)

HIV Prevention: Ignoring the evidences, missing the targets

Three major reports have been published recently about HIV prevention and how it is failing those most vulnerable.

The first reports comes from UNAIDS and the World Bank and concerns five sub-Saharan countries: Kenya, Lesotho, Swaziland, Uganda and Mozambique. The survey was conducted to find out how and where most HIV infections were occurring in each country, and whether existing prevention efforts and expenditure matched these findings.

An IRIN report noted that “In Lesotho, where nearly one in four are living with HIV, an analysis of national prevalence and behavioural data found that most new infections were occurring because people had more than one partner at a time, both before and during marriage. But Lesotho has no prevention strategies to address the problem of concurrent partnerships, or target couples who are married or in long-term relationships.

An evaluation of Mozambique’s prevention response found that an estimated 19 percent of new HIV infections resulted from sex work, 3 percent from injecting drug use, and 5 percent from men who have sex with men (MSM), yet there are very few programmes targeting sex workers, and none aimed at drug users and MSM.

The research also found that spending on HIV prevention was often simply too low: Lesotho spent just 13 percent of its national AIDS budget on prevention, whereas Uganda spent 34 percent, despite having an HIV infection rate of only 5.4 percent.”

The second is the latest edition of HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice (HATIP) with two articles, one addressing prevention and care services for men who have sex with men and transgender people in resource-limited setting and the second reporting on the JEMS study a collaborative effort between the Wits University in Johannesburg, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Medical Research Council investigating HIV prevalence among South African MSM which is twice as high as general population.

HATIP’s editor oberved that “addressing the growing epidemics among MSM must start with two things: an acknowledgment that MSM exist and face enormous stigmatisation in almost all resource-limited settings, and that moral and criminal sanctions are counter-productive in addressing the serious epidemics now emerging.”

And finally Frits van Griensven and colleagues surveyed the global epidemic of HIV infection among men who have sex with men in a review article for Current Opinion in HIV and AIDS (article available on request). After surveying epidemics amongst MSM worldwide, van Griensven concluded,

“Our review shows that the trend of increasing HIV diagnoses among MSM in the Western world is continuing. In addition, steep increases in diagnoses of new HIV infections among MSM were seen in the developed economies of East Asia. In countries where traditional surveillance systems are available, MSM contributed the largest number of new HIV cases, and in some countries, they contributed the majority. A large number of epidemiologic studies have recently established the presence of populations of MSM throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as high HIV prevalence among them. Similarly, populations of MSM with high and increasing HIV prevalence have been identified in Russia, China and in other parts of Asia. High MSM HIV prevalence rates were also seen throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Globally, only a handful of HIV incidence studies among MSM could be identified, but where available, showed the spread of HIV among MSM to be continuing. Current HIV prevention efforts have been unable to contain or reduce the spread of HIV infection among MSM. Additional behavioral and biomedical interventions are urgently needed.”

Slowly but surely the world of HIV and hopefully the world at large, is awakening to the facts that not everybody is at the same risk of being infected by HIV and that adequate and relevant programmes are needed if we are to eradicate this epidemic one day. And all may start far away from conventional behavioural prevention, but by ensuring human rights for the most vulnerable.

“In countries without laws to protect sex workers, drug users and men who have sex with men, only a fraction of the population has access to prevention. Conversely, in countries with legal protection and the protection of human rights for these people, many more have access to services. As a result, there are fewer infections, less demand for antiretroviral treatment and fewer deaths. Not only is it unethical not to protect these groups; it makes no sense from a health perspective. It hurts all of us.”

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, World AIDS Conference, Mexico City, 2008.

HIV on the rise in the Philippines: Will condoms do any good?

Since the papal comment about condoms and the HIV epidemic, there has been a flurry of articles written in support of the pontifical nonsense. These often call upon a comparison between “sinful” Thailand, awash with HIV and condoms, and the “holly” Philippines where there is not such thing as HIV or condoms (a bit like in Iran).

Does this sound slightly over the top? Not really. Kathleen Gilbert writing for the LifesSiteNews website quotes Yolly Eileen Gamutam, head of the Asia’s Catholic Association of Doctors, Nurses and Health Professionals (ACIM-Asia) saying that “Condoms are highly dangerous.” Gilbert added that “by the end of 2003, Thailand, with a population of 63 million, registered 570,000 HIV-positive adults and children. Gamutam compared the statistic to the Philippines, where only 9,000 Filipinos were HIV-positive out of a population of 80 million. 500 died of AIDS in the Philippines that year, while 58,000 perished in Thailand.”

peripheries has already addressed this misleading and inappropriate comparison but it is necessary to add that comparing two countries at one time point is rather meaningless. That the head of an association of doctors allows herself to be so unscientific is rather disappointing, if not telling that religion and science are definitively two nonoverlapping magisteria.

But let’s look at the figures available from UNAIDS and let’s compare the number of People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) at two time points:

In 2001 there was 660,000 adults and children living with HIV and AIDS and this figure dropped to 610,000 in 2007. In the Philippines, the number of PLWHA rose from less than 1,000 to 8300 and has been continuously on the rise since 2006.

Without fear or shame and against all evidences, Yolly Eileen Gamutam concluded that “the condom use program in Thailand is not effective.” Mechai Viravaidya, politician and leading Thai AIDS activist who introduced a 100% condoms policy in brothel where HIV was raging and henceforth contributed to a reduction of the number of PLWHA from 2% to 1.4% in 10 years (1997-2007) and the successful containment of the epidemic, will appreciate how his work and continuous efforts are being so promptly dismissed.

The rise in the number of HIV infections in the Philippines may not seem dramatic now but it may have some serious consequences later if not controlled. Conscious of the consequences of inaction, the Filipino government, who in the past adopted an approach to the epidemic that limited its progression in the general population, was considering a controversial bill on reproductive health at the end of 2008.

Another worrying concern about the rising HIV epidemic in the Philippines is that it is so far mostly observed amongst Men who have Sex with Men. The health departmental HIV/AIDS registry recorded 210 new infections among MSM in 2005, 309 in 2006 and 342 in 2007 and from January to September 2008, there were already 395 cases, up 96 percent since 2005.

And as we all know, before or next to condom, homosexuality is the next “abomination” that the Catholic church condemns with wrathful vehemence.

“The Catholic Church’s centuries-old doctrine, created by a bunch of celibate priests, on sex only for procreation leaves many people ignorant about sexual health. This is the sad reality.

Taking away people’s right to protect themselves, and their right to education and to responsibly manage their sex lives is certainly taking away some of their humanity.” write William Sparrow for the Asia Times.

But not all Catholics are dogmatic or blinded by credo and for example, Catholics for Choice an organisation initially founded to support women’s moral and legal right in a world led by Bishops, started an unprecedented worldwide public education effort to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the bishops’ ban on condoms. In a recent press release the organisation wrote:

“According to a recent poll commissioned by Catholics for Choice, which interviewed Catholics in Ghana, Ireland, Mexico, the Philippines and the United States, support for condom use among Catholics is overwhelming. When asked if “using condoms is pro-life because it helps save lives by preventing the spread of AIDS,” 90% of Catholics in Mexico, 86% in Ireland, 79% in the US, 77% in the Philippines and 59% in Ghana agreed. Unfortunately, the Catholic hierarchy’s position holds the most sway in the countries least able to deal economically and medically with the disease.”

A sway leading to death. And as for the role of condoms, they certainly won’t do any harm.

MSM: ignored, victimised, stigmatised, criminalised and HIV-infected

To assess the extent of global progress on HIV/AIDS among Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), amfAR reviewed 5 HIV indicators relevant to MSM for 128 UNGASS country progress reports for Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.

HIV prevalence amongst MSM	Countries reporting on MSM
Percentage of MSM living with HIV	Percentage of MSM who have used a condom the last time they had sex
Percentage of MSM who have taken an HIV test during the last year	Percentage of MSM who know how to prevent HIV
Percentage of MSM being reached by prevention programme

Sunday 17 May: International Day Against HOmophobia

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