SUMMARY:The tourist mecca of Miami is also a hotbed of HIV transmission. While city and state officials have launched an ambitious plan to tackle the crisis, William Brangham and Jason Kane join Jon Cohen of Science Magazine to look at how and why it’s gotten so bad. This report is part of the NewsHour’s ongoing series “The End of AIDS: Far From Over,” with support from the Pulitzer Center.
SUMMARY:Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission is considered one of the most basic goals for curtailing the AIDS epidemic, and Nigeria is struggling mightily. In our series The End of AIDS, William Brangham and Jason Kane examine why this oil-rich nation is falling so badly behind, and profiles a unique, church-based program that’s showing real promise.
SUMMARY:Russia’s HIV epidemic is growing by 10 percent per year, and yet many proven HIV prevention and treatment strategies aren’t being used. William Brangham and Jason Kane report in collaboration with Jon Cohen of Science Magazine and the Pulitzer Center in our ongoing series “The End of AIDS: Far From Over.”
SUMMARY: A massive HIV test-and-treat study is underway in Kenya and Uganda. Migratory men in the fishing industry there have been hit especially hard, and researchers are trying creative ways to encourage them to get tested. William Brangham reports from Mfangano Island with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for our series, “The End of AIDS?”
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Finally, as the International AIDS Conference convenes in Durban, South Africa, this week, we continue our End of AIDS series.
As we have been reporting, public health officials believe that getting the overwhelming majority of HIV-positive people tested and consistently treated is a crucial step to ending the epidemic. But that's proven a difficult goal.
But in Western Kenya, on the border with Uganda, there's a small island where researchers are finding remarkable success with even the hardest-to-reach groups.
Correspondent William Brangham and producer Jason Kane continue our series, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): It's late on a Monday night.
Fisherman Kevin Opiyo and his crew are heading out onto Lake Victoria on the very western edge of Kenya. They throw out their lines and stretch out their nets, hoping the tiny omena fish are schooling below.
Fishing these waters is long, grueling, dangerous work. It's also become one of the main pathways for the growth of the HIV epidemic in this part of Kenya.
Opiyo himself is infected.
KEVIN OPIYO, Fisherman (through translator): I'm confident that I got it through sexual intercourse and can say it was the time I was working in Remba.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Fishing crews often have to travel long distances to other islands on the lake, and into neighboring Uganda.
DR. MOSES KAMYA, Makerere University/SEARCH Co-Principal Investigator: I think there's a mentality among fishermen that life is not as important. Therefore, you can enjoy it and have as much sex as you can.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Dr. Moses Kamya is an HIV researcher who's been working with fishermen in the region for years.
DR. MOSES KAMYA: You know, fishermen tend to have a lot of disposable income, and, you know, they can buy sex very easily. And, of course, where fishermen are, there are, you know, sex workers who hang around them.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM:The fishermen live on Mfangano Island here on Lake Victoria, near the border with Uganda. The island's 25,000 residents live clustered in homes near the water, and fishing is the main industry.
Largely because of this migratory fishing, it's estimated that nearly one out of every three adults here is infected with HIV.
SUMMARY: Nearly one in five people infected with HIV globally lives in South Africa, and only half of those individuals are on treatment. But the nation has made major strides against the virus in recent years and now is aggressively moving to implement a plan to "end" the epidemic. William Brangham reports in the final installment of our series "The End of AIDS?"
SUMMARY: There’s still no vaccine and no cure, but the medical community is increasingly focused on ambitious plans to bring about an end to HIV/AIDS. The NewsHour launches its series, “The End of AIDS?” with a look at intense prevention efforts underway in one of the cities most impacted by the epidemic, San Francisco. William Brangham reports with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Now we kick off a special series about efforts to try to end the AIDS epidemic.
Leaders and researchers from around the globe will be meeting at the International AIDS Conference in South Africa next week. One major focus: How to stop the epidemic.
But with no vaccine or cure in sight, how likely is that? This week, we’re looking at efforts around the world.
We start in San Francisco, where we have followed people for the past six months.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): San Francisco’s gay pride events went off this summer like they usually do, loud and colorful and celebratory.
But there’s additional reason to celebrate. San Francisco, one of the cities where the AIDS epidemic first emerged, and one that suffered terribly from it, has now launched the country’s most ambitious campaign to control it.
It’s called, “Getting to Zero.”
Luis Canales is a living example of that campaign. Canales is HIV-positive. He got infected having unprotected sex with another man three years ago. But — and this is one of the linchpins of San Francisco’s effort — Canales was tested and then started on HIV treatment immediately after diagnosis.
LUIS CANALES (AIDS victim): Yes, right away. And I think it was the next day, I came in and started my meds.
DR. STEVEN DEEKS, University of California, San Francisco: That, as a physician, is my goal: To keep people on therapy for their own good.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Steven Deeks is Canales’ doctor.
DR. STEVEN DEEKS: Luis, how you doing?
LUIS CANALES: Pretty good.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This approach is called RAPID.
And Deeks says, the sooner the virus can be stopped with antiretroviral drugs, the better. But it’s not just for the patient.
DR. STEVEN DEEKS: From a public health perspective — and I think this is what’s really driving a lot of interest in the RAPID program — someone’s on therapy, they can’t pass the virus to other people.
SUMMARY: The epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in America is Atlanta and the southeast, and among the hardest hit populations are gay and bisexual black men. According to the CDC, half of them will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes if current trends continue. William Brangham reports with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in the second part of the NewsHour’s “The End of AIDS?” series.
COMMENT: For Atlanta, the problem is based on - you're black and in a fundamentalist Bible-belt. It IS predjustice.
SUMMARY: Nearly one in 10 Americans living with HIV live in New York, where an ambitious plan aims to cut new infections and HIV-related deaths. But it has serious challenges, including keeping people on their meds, and stopping the spread among IV drug users. William Brangham reports with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in the third installment of our “The End of AIDS?” series.
SUMMARY: Rwanda emerged from its 1994 genocide to build one of the most successful AIDS responses in Africa and is working mightily to halt mother-to-child HIV transmissions. They’ve done it with a mix of science, technology and “aggressive neighborliness.” William Brangham reports with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for the fourth part of our series, “The End of AIDS?”
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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