HIV ATLAS

CAPE TOWN, 3 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - South Africa's Department of Health has failed to channel US$3.9 million in donor money to 13 HIV/AIDS organisations, leaving them underfunded.

OLONGAPO, 3 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - The bustling northern Philippine city of Olongapo has defied the politically influential Roman Catholic Church by passing its own reproductive health code advocating sex education for high school students and the mass distribution of condoms, among other things.

MANZINI, 3 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - The release of revised projections indicating that twice as many HIV-positive Swazis are in need of life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs than was previously thought has highlighted the urgent need for government to iron out problems in its treatment programme.

IRINGA, 2 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - For two months of the year, James Lusago can count on a steady income from working in the rice fields of Pawaga, in the southwestern Tanzanian region of Iringa. But there's a dangerous side effect to this temporary economic freedom: lonely and far from family and friends, he spends part of his salary on sex.

JOHANNESBURG, 2 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - As the global financial crisis raises the spectre of cutbacks in AIDS funding, countries need to start being more strategic about how they spend their AIDS budgets.

GUJRAT, 2 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - An ongoing investigation into the large number of HIV cases in the small town of Jalalpur Jattan in Pakistan's northern Gujrat district, in Punjab Province, is expected to shed light on patterns of infection in the region and influence the future direction of the country's HIV policy.

JOHANNESBURG, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - West Africa has the dubious distinction of having the most HIV legislation in sub-Saharan Africa: over 10 countries in the region have developed HIV laws, often with provisions that have sometimes been described as "terrifying", and a danger to HIV-positive people.

JOHANNESBURG, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are looking at a new way of preventing HIV infections: criminal charges. But experts argue that applying criminal law to HIV transmission will achieve neither criminal justice nor curb the spread of the virus; rather, it will increase discrimination against people living with HIV, and undermine public health and human rights.

MAPUTO, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, people living with HIV in Mozambique are still experiencing frequent human rights abuses.

HARARE, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - The story of Samuel and Stella Malunga* is one of love and forgiveness in a time of HIV and AIDS. They met and fell in love while studying law at a university in neighbouring South Africa. Samuel graduated two years before Stella and returned to Zimbabwe but kept their relationship going until she was able to join him in 2000.

MANZINI, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Vincent Mdluli, 24, lives in Manzini, Swaziland, and works as a carpenter's assistant. He told IRIN/PlusNews what happened when he found out his girlfriend was HIV positive, and how the discovery changed his life.

NAIROBI, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - The party at a popular restaurant in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, looks ordinary, but the people attending it - all of whom are HIV-positive - are enjoying a rare opportunity to socialise without feeling like an outsider.

MANDERA, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Recent fighting and an increased security presence along the Kenya-Somalia border have brought HIV/AIDS campaigns to a virtual standstill in Kenya's northeastern region, according to local health workers.

JOHANNESBURG, 1 December 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - A woman in Malawi left her husband after years of abuse. He found her and raped her, an act not criminalised in Malawi when it occurs within marriage. The woman later tested positive for HIV and discovered that her husband had known his HIV-positive status for some time.

JOHANNESBURG, 28 November 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - In 2002, illicit arms dealer Aleksic Jovan flew more than 200 tons of weapons in war-torn Liberia, contributing to a conflict estimated to have killed about 250,000 people. Years ago, Linda Kisuna's husband contracted a sexually transmitted disease. What do they have in common? Both Jovan and Kisuna's husband have been denied entry to countries across the world.

NAIROBI, 27 November 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Universal HIV testing and immediate antiretroviral (ARV) drugs could reduce new infections in high-prevalence countries by as much as 95 percent within ten years, according to a new study by scientists from the UN World Health Organisation (WHO).

KAMPALA, 27 November 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - More than 1,000 people were recently tested for HIV at a busy marketplace in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, kicking off a nationwide drive that aims to help at least 20,000 people across the country know their status.

JOHANNESBURG, 26 November 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Thousands of people living with HIV in Myanmar (Burma) are dying because the government and international donors are not funding life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, says international humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

BOGOTA, 26 November 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Edinson Aranguren is a gay AIDS activist who works for the Colombian League for the Fight Against AIDS (Liga Colombiana de Lucha Contra el SIDA) in Bogota, Colombia's capital. He talked to IRIN/PlusNews about how HIV/AIDS has affected his life.

YAOUNDÉ, 26 November 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - When newspapers in Cameroon carried the story of a local businessman who allegedly had infected young girls with the HI virus, the calls to criminalise HIV transmission grew louder and the debate became more heated.