HIV Epidemic In Eastern Europe And Central Asia

Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the only parts of the world where the HIV epidemic remains clearly on the rise, a new UNICEF report states.

AFRICA: Hospital-Acquired HIV Underestimated

The role of blood-borne HIV infections from unsanitary healthcare procedures has been underestimated in sub-Saharan Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, according to several researchers and epidemiologists.

Afghanistan Opium Production Reaches 6,900 Tons

Opium production rate has soared to 6,900 tons in Afghanistan in the past 10 years despite the presence of 100,000 foreign troops in the country for nearly eight years.

A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Wednesday that Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world’s opium that has devastating global consequences.

The UN report also noted that Afghanistan’s illegal opium production is worth 65 billion dollars. The heroin and opium market feeds 15 million addicts, with Europe, Russia and Iran consuming half the supply, UNODC reported.

The UN office estimated some 15 million people take the drug each year, out of which 100,000 people die annually, warning that opium use contributes to the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Murder & AIDS – Threats To 2010 World Cup

  With the 2010 World Cup less than a year away, South Africa has two major problems to resolve before 500,000 foreign football fans descend on the country: the rising murder rate, which   makes it second only to Colombia in the world ranking, and the risk of a spread of Aids through football fans visiting HIV-infected prostitutes.

On the crime front, President Jacob Zuma has ordered police to shoot first when confronted with guns. “Once a criminal takes out the gun the intention is clear,” he said after a 39-year-old white police officer, Charl Scheepers, died in a shootout with a robber in a Pretoria shopping centre.

But Zuma was also reacting to new figures which show that 50 people on average are murdered every day in South Africa – a total of more than 18,000 a year.

Leaky Condoms Angers Kenyans

 Kenyan AIDS authorities are struggling to restore public confidence in condoms after an alarming news report recently showed locally stocked brands to be defective.

KTN, a local TV station, showed the condoms, purchased from vendors in the capital, Nairobi, being tested by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). Subjected to an electronic “freedom from holes” test, which involves filling them with water, the condoms sprung leaks.

“This will seriously affect the confidence of those who have always been consistent in using them – how do members of the public know what brand is safe and which is not?” asked Hilary Okoth, a 30-year-old Nairobi resident.