Bareback sex is a serious matter when it comes to HIV prevention. It is an issue difficult to address and which often triggers heated debates. Beyond the differences in  opinions surrounding bareback sex, it is obvious that sex with and without condom is not the same and bareback practitioners often emphasise the difference in sensation between protected sex and bareback sex. Real or not, this difference made some people thinking and got them to understand that not everybody is prepared to sacrifice safety to pleasure, and that if it …

… but did not have the time to…
I would like to have blogged about this thought provoking excerpt from Russell Banks’ The Darling on the difference between empathy and sympathy.
“What was ethically and even practically wrong with having empathy towards the other? For a long time, I answered, Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s good politics. I see a blind man about to cross a street and think, He can’t see the whizzing traffic, he needs me to see it for him, to take his arm and escort him over to …

The results of the CAPRISA trial which tested the safety and effectiveness of a 1% Tenofovir Gel for the prevention of HIV acquisition in women created quite a stir at the XVIII International AIDS conference in Vienna. For the first time, and after years of unsuccessful research, a randomised trial involving 889 women in South Africa showed that it was possible to prevent HIV acquisition with a gel containing an antiretroviral (ARV).
Overall the results are clear and unequivocal, after 30 months of gel use, the group of women who …

A response to IRIN/PlusNews list of six potholes in the road to significantly increasing HIV treatment coverage in Africa.
1. Cost:
The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has estimated that US$ 28 billion to US$ 50 billion would be needed globally every year from 2010 to 2015 in order to progressively reach universal access targets for HIV/AIDS by 2015. One-third of this will contribute towards the cost of the drugs.
The figure may sound “staggering” but it needs to be put in perspective with a few other figures such as:

The cost of …

Can we, and should we, pay people to change their behaviour to stop the spread of the HIV virus which causes AIDS? When it comes to HIV prevention, there is nowadays no limit to the “we need more options” motto and that’s what two World Bank studies conducted in Malawi and Tanzania showed.
In an experiment conducted in Malawi, girls aged 13 to 22 and their parents received as much as $15 each month if the girls attended school regularly, HIV Prevalence was 60% lower among girls receiving cash payments.Though this …