The start of this month marked the launch of Accelerating Children’s HIV/AIDS Treatment (ACT), an ambitious new program that will double the amount of children with access to lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy (ART) across ten strategic African countries over the next two years. A joint investment from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), ACT will increase the number of children living with HIV who have access to treatment by over 300,000 children....
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When the world gets together every two years to consider the global realities of HIV&AIDS, participants at the International Conference on AIDS often author a highly contextualized statement regarding the pandemic and their vision for the present and future of people living with HIV&AIDS. This year is no exception, and the Melbourne Declaration for 20th International Conference on AIDS, July 20th-25th, 2014, entitled “Nobody Left Behind,”...
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Many of us erroneously believe that certain, unique people groups or people who live on other continents, in other countries and from other cultures have to worry about HIV/AIDS. The truth is, anyone can become infected with HIV, because it’s what you and I DO that puts us at risk, not who are or where we live....
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Saddleback PEACE teams travel to Rwanda to work with the local churches and train volunteers who become community PEACE servants and lay social workers, making a lasting impact long after PEACE teams return. This is Tim’s experience on a PEACE trip, when he visited the home of Anatas, a man who is living with HIV and serving in his local church as a community PEACE servant by providing testing and treatment for his church family and community....
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HIV antiretrovirals have given most people with HIV a reprieve from the devastation of AIDS. Those diagnosed in the U.S. in the 21st century were spared if their doctor was knowledgeable and up to date. The ‘get your affairs in order’ speeches and the reality of ‘you are going to die with HIV’ were quickly setting in. The few of us who were sick or had friends with AIDS will ever forget the Lazarus effect of HAART literally raising people from their deathbeds....
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Approximately 9.7 million people in low and middle-income countries are currently receiving ARVs in an attempt to treat HIV and prevent new infections. Access to ARVs has dramatically decreased the incidence of AIDS related deaths in many African countries. However, despite this advance, one in four people die during the first few months of treatment. Malnutrition plays a large part in these deaths....
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In as little as two weeks to as long as three months, signs can occur in your body, which are reactions to an HIV infection. Many, but not all people who are infected, experience flu-like symptoms, sometimes described as the “worse flu ever.” There are between nine and sixteen different symptoms experienced by people living with HIV and AIDS. Here are some of the most common, indicating early-stage HIV infection....
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Being very public about my HIV diagnosis and writing for several HIV publications, I’m constantly receiving emails from people living with HIV, telling me their stories and asking questions. One issue that comes up a lot in these communications is pregnancy....
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What he learned, and I was reminded, over the next few minutes is that Cryptosporidium – Crypto, for short - is often a waterborne, microscopic, hard to kill parasite that anyone can get. It lodges in the small intestine and, in most healthy humans, causes diarrhea and other symptoms (like those mentioned in the previous paragraph) for a few days. Then, it is relatively quickly cleared with only a slight possibility of recurrence. However, cryptosporidium can be extremely dangerous to people in special circumstances....
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