Friday, December 31, 2010

'HIV test a crime, AIDS 'cure' killed a whole generation'

South Korea: Should Foreign Teachers Be Tested for HIV?

This year, tensions over mandatory HIV/AIDS tests for foreign teachers have re-surfaced, sparking a heated national debate. In 2007, a series of sensational press reports fueled rumors that foreign English teachers were molesting students and spreading HIV/AIDS. Though the reports were never substantiated, the government began to require that all foreign teachers get tested for HIV, including those who were already in the country. Those who tested positive could have their contracts canceled and faced deportation.
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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Where does public funding for HIV prevention go to? The case of condoms versus microbicides and vaccines.

Published:30 December 2010
This study analyses the priorities of public donors in funding HIV prevention by either integrated condom programming or HIV preventive microbicides and vaccines in the period between 2000 and 2008. It further compares the public funding investments of the USA government and EU governments, including the EU, as we expect the two groups to invest differently in HIV prevention options, because their policies on sexual and reproductive health and rights are different.

We use two existing officially UN endorsed databases to compare the public donor funding streams for HIV prevention of these two distinct contributors. In the period 2000-2008, the relative share of public funding for integrated condom programming dropped significantly, while that for research on vaccines and microbicides increased.

The European public donors gave a larger share to condom programming than the United States, but exhibited a similar downward trend in favour of funding research on vaccines and microbicides. Both public donor parties invested progressively more in research on vaccines and microbicides rather than addressing the shortage of condoms and improving access to integrated condom programming in developing countries.

Author: Anny Peters, Maja Micevska-Scharf, Francien Van,  DrielWilly Jansen

Credits/Source: Globalization and Health 2010, 6:23