'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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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

H1N1 vaccine can cause false positive HIV test

May 21, 2010 •

Vacina contra H1N1 pode gerar falso positivo em teste de HIV

The Department of sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and Viral Hepatitis of the Ministry of Health released a technical note on the possibility of false-positive results in enzyme immunoassays for HIV among people who received the vaccine against swine influenza virus. 

As the department was due to accelerated industrial production of vaccine against the H1N1 virus, there is currently no available data on all the side effects, but it was observed that people who took the vaccine to be tested for HIV-1 showed false positive, ie, the results indicated that the AIDS virus is present when, in fact, is not. 

According to the Ministry of Health, this is because, in taking the vaccine, the body begins to produce antibodies Immunoglobulin M (IgM), the body's first defense against infection. In this process, the presence of antibodies directed to other infectious agents that may be similar to HIV, produce false positive results in examinations. 

Under the guidance of the Department of STDs, if tested positive, it is recommended to perform a verification result. The second examination should not be reactive in case of cross-reactivity with antibodies produced in response to the vaccine against swine influenza virus. Still, the negative result in these tests does not rule out HIV infection, since the patient may be in the state of seroconversion, or other disease that interferes with the results. 

The Ministry of Health recommended that the professionals responsible for diagnosing HIV-1 should inform patients who received the swine flu vaccine on the possibility of false positive results in tests. If necessary, patients should also call for the creation of a new collection after 30 days, until the diagnosis is definitive. more...