HIV-AIDS

World leaders must do everything in their power to end the AIDS pandemic by 2020, the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said at the U.N. Summit on AIDS in New York.

“Today, we gather to end AIDS,” Ban said as the United Nations General Assembly opened on Wednesday.

The three-day summit is being held as the world marks the 30th anniversary since HIV was first discovered. Ban told delegates gathered from across the world that AIDS must end: “That is our goal - zero new infections, zero stigma and zero AIDS-related deaths.” more >>

Timothy Ray Brown is being called the first patient ever to essentially be cured of AIDS.

For more than a decade Brown, now known as "The Berlin Patient" for being treated in the city, was infected with HIV. But afer an experimental bone marrow transplant, containing cells that were known to be immune and resistant to HIV, doctors did not detect any HIV in his blood.

The patient also stopped taking antiretroviral medications, taken by HIV positive patients to control the immunosystem crippling virus. And as of December 2010, almost three years after the experimental surgery, Brown's blood stream still remained HIV-free. more >>

The United Nations HIV/AIDS program has called for an increase in funding to help treat those with HIV, saying that a new study has revealed it could reduce the risk of HIV transmission by up to 96 percent.

UNAIDS head, Michael Sidibe, has explained the two greatest challenges currently were to expand access to drug treatments, and to combat the social factors that stigmatize the disease.

Earlier this week the U.N. released a report revealing that there had been almost a 25 percent reduction in new HIV infections, as well as a decline in AIDS-related deaths between 2001 and 2009. more >>

Nearly 1 million African youths have made a True Love Waits commitment, pledging purity until marriage.

Since launching its first initiative in Uganda in 1994, True Love Waits – a ministry of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention – testifies to the remarkable decline of the HIV/AIDS infection rate in Africa.

More than 1.6 million African youths have heard the TLW message promoting sexual abstinence until marriage. Additionally, nearly 46,000 married adults have committed to faithfulness, and more than 41,600 decisions to follow Jesus Christ have been recorded. more >>

The magnitude of the HIV/AIDS pandemic weighs heavily on her daily and threatens to take her down, said Kay Warren in a special World AIDS Day webcast Wednesday.

She has not been the same since that fateful day seven years ago when she read that 12 million children were orphaned in Africa due to AIDS. At first she was paralyzed by the figure, but became mobilized when she realized that one day she will have to face God and give an answer as to what she did after learning about the pandemic.

“I just knew that Kay Warren, Christian, had to say yes to God,” said Warren, executive director of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church in Southern California, during the church’s special webcast. “From there I began to learn and study. God just broke my heart. He just wiped me out. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t cry over what I’ve learned and what I’ve seen.” more >>

Carolyn Twietmeyer, a suburban mother of 13 children – including six from Africa – has a message she wants to say on World AIDS Day: adopt HIV-positive kids.

The Twietmeyers of the Chicago suburb Joliet have adopted two sets of three siblings from Ethiopia, each set having an HIV-positive child. Unlike popular public opinion, Twietmeyer says children with HIV and AIDS can have normal and healthy lives with anti-retroviral drugs and do not pose a danger in transmitting the virus to other family members.

HIV cannot be transmitted in a normal family, school, or church environment, she explains. The virus can only be transmitted in a few ways: intravenous drug use, sexual contact, through birth and breast feeding. Although she did not mention it, HIV can also be transmitted through blood transfusion. It is not transmitted, she emphasizes, through hugs and kisses, sharing drinks, or even if siblings share baths. more >>