HIV

As nurse manager for the HIV clinic at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital in Lae, Julie Kitoneka conducts HIV testing and counselling, treatment and management of patients with HIV.

One of her significant roles is preventing infants from being infected by HIV at birth and with the support of her team, Julie has facilitated safe delivery of more than thirty babies in 2022.

As nurse manager for the HIV clinic at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital in Lae, Julie Kitoneka conducts HIV testing and counselling, treatment and management of patients with HIV.

One of her significant roles is preventing infants from being infected by HIV at birth and with the support of her team, Julie has facilitated safe delivery of more than thirty babies in 2022.

Dispela bai inap kamapim dai long wanem i no gat inap mani long bringim skul bilong home caregivers o trening bilong ol famili bilong ol lain husat i gat hevi long sik HIV/AIDS.

Joe Yalopa bilong Goroka nau i stap na wok long Is Sepik, em wanpela HIV kaunsela wantaim Katolik Daiosis long Wewak aninit long VCCT senta bilong ol.

Insait long 12-pela yia wok bilong em, Yalopa i bin lukim planti gutpela taim we ol toksave bilong HIV/AIDS i go aut gut na nau em i lukim ol taim nogut we i no gat gutpela awenes o toksave program i go aut.

This comment was made by the Catholic HIV Coordinator, Sr Stella Morokana, during a HIV/AIDS awareness in the Peit Constituency of Buka Island last Tuesday (August 21).

Sr Morokana said there was a huge increase in the number of people infected with the deadly virus since 2012.

“The HIV figures from the Catholic AIDS Office show an increase from just 23 in 2012 and to 77 in 2018. This is a sharp climb - a bad trend especially for a region coming out of a conflict.

He was one of 18 people in a small trial testing injections of "broadly neutralising antibodies" - the natural weapons of the immune system.

They delayed the resurgence of the virus in other participants by around two weeks.

The findings are being presented at the ninth International Aids Society Conference on HIV Science in Paris.

The human body is inefficient at making antibodies that neutralise HIV.

Only one in five people infected with the virus develops them - and even then it takes many years and high levels of uncontrolled virus.

This is the first reported case of a child controlling their HIV infection without drugs in Africa and the third known case globally.

Soon after diagnosis, the child was placed on antiretroviral treatment, or ART, for 40 weeks, at which point treatment was stopped and the child's health was monitored.

Blood tests in late 2015 revealed the child is in HIV remission, meaning levels of the virus in the blood are undetectable using standard tests. Subsequent testing of samples dating back to the child's infancy confirm remission was achieved soon after treatment was stopped.

"We cannot ignore the many signs that the Trump Administration does not take the on-going epidemic, or the needs of people living with HIV, seriously," wrote Scott Schoettes, the HIV project director for Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization focused on the LGBT community and people living with HIV. Schoettes was appointed to the advisory council during the Obama administration.

Even so, there's the undeniable fact - it saves lives.

New research suggests as many as 2,000 women are saved every year in England as a result.

But, experts say it could be many, many more if all women aged 25-64 in the UK took the test when invited - which is normally every three years.

"Sometimes women feel a bit embarrassed or awkward about the whole thing," says Jess Kirby from Cancer Research UK.

The study aims to enrol 5,400 sexually active young men and women.

About seven million people in South Africa are living with the virus, which is one reason why the trial is taking place there.

Experts hope the vaccine will be "the final nail in the coffin" for HIV.

The vaccine regime being tested is based on one used in a trial in Thailand in 2009, which had a protection rate of about 30%. Results from South Africa are expected in four years.

Since the HIV virus was identified in 1983, efforts to develop an effective vaccine have proved unsuccessful.

But some Malawians are asking why only one man is on trial for a practice involving whole communities.

Eric Aniva was arrested in July on presidential orders after he admitted having unprotected sex with girls as young as 12 - and keeping quiet about his HIV-positive status.

Aniva says he was hired by the girls' relatives to take part in a sexual initiation ceremony which they believe "shakes off" the girl's childhood "dust" so that she can enter adulthood.