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

Master Class: HIV Transmission

Several factors are important in determining if the HIV virus can be passed from an infected person to another person. These include biological and social factors and they relate to both the exposed and the “infector” individuals.

This conceptual framework summarises only the biological factors that influence HIV transmission. When assessing the risk of infection, each of them should be considered in turn and as a whole.

Exposure alone is not enough to predict a risk of infection, viral load maters and though there is no direct correlation between viral load and infectiousness, a high viral load has been associated with higher infectiousness. However, a low viral load may not be underrated if exposure is direct through blood, like with IDUs.

When it comes to sex with an HIV-infected person or a person of unknown status, different levels of risk have been attributed to different sexual practices. But this does not mean that the risk is always the same for the same practice. Oral sex may be overall much safer than unprotected anal sex, but oral sex with bleeding teeth and rotten gum isn’t certainly safe!

By and large, there is no clear cut or definitive risk factor and often risk is what we estimate it to be and how we relativise it. The risk of HIV infection is dynamic and depends on many factors who weight differently in the scale. Though there is an agreement that some factors weight more than other this cartoon does not give a weight to each factor identified as this is open to debate and only add to the existing confusion around risk.

Knowing and understanding what these factors are and how they interact one with another to determine the overall level of risk of HIV infection when exposed to the virus, particularly during sexual intercourse, will help individual to assess the risk of being infected.

Thinking inside the Box: You Are the Man!

The expression “thinking outside the box” is one of the most ridiculous fad (common amongst idealist) I have ever heard and I uncontrollably cringe each time I hear it. Thinking outside the box is leading nowhere. Imagine you are lost in the middle of the Sahara with no water and no food, no amount of thinking outside the box if going to help you…

Great discovery and progress were made because people were thinking within the box. They knew the box very well and that’s why they could come up with something innovative. Think about the bankers behind the credit crunch, think about Bill Gates who revolutionised the personal computer. As much as bankers are despised or Bil Gates is despised, they knew the box very well and that’s why they found ways out of it and in the case of Bill, we are nowadays all enjoying the pleasure of endless digression and online nonsense.

Back to business, Orange Cambodia is showing how well they know the “box”, and in this case the TV box. Indeed Orange partnered with USAID to promote HIV awareness through a TV programme they sponsor and called You Are The Man.

Over a two-month period, six Cambodian men between the ages of 18 and 35 will undergo numerous challenges to compete for the title of “real man”.

“This program is very important for men in our country because it will challenge the perception that Cambodian men usually look down on women and go out to drink alcohol,” said Ben L Cheav, brand consultant and media manager of the Orange Brand Elements production company, adding that the program will also educate contestants and viewers about the issue of HIV/AIDS.

The six competitors will be given mark and the winner of the show will receive a grand prize of, hold your breath, US$3,000 and a “cool” motorbike!

How cool, and clever, is that! So, how cool it would be if HIV prevention would start “thinking inside the box” and come up witth some innovative campaign?

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)

Reaching out to hidden MSM in Thailand

These animations have been produced by Mplus+ a grass roots community-based organisation formed to improve the sexual health of men that have sex with men (MSM), including transgenders, Thai male sex workers (MSW) and migrant male sex workers.

“These four animations aimed at increasing understandings of safe sex practices and addressing low perceptions of personal risk to HIV/AIDS. The project, an international collaboration, was undertaken because MSM and MSW were not adequately reached through HIV prevention programmes in Thailand because little was known about their particular situations, contexts and practices.”