Promise of AIDS/HIV drugs gives Malawians fresh hope

[Guest guest]

Can we please cut the crap about AIDS drugs---I'm sure we all know on this list what a scam all of that is. In fact AIDS is a US race based genocidal laborartory created virus in the first place.

Let's get REAL.

If you haven't checked out Dr. Boyd Graves HIIVAIDS investigation please do so.

 

http://www.boydgraves.com/press/

Misty <misty3 wrote:

Promise of drugs gives Malawians fresh hope - and a reason to get tested forHIVBy Jeremy Laurance in Blantyre, Malawi19 February 2004---http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=492799There were six pages of Valentine tributes in The Nation newspaper, Malawi'slargest selling daily, last weekend. The messages, each topped by aheart-shaped photo of the intended, had a beguiling innocence about them.There was no innuendo, no lovey-dovey language - just straightforwarddeclarations from the heart. "Your love gives me courage", Phiri told herboyfriend, George Mphasa. "Your love makes me a better man," Henry promisedhis girl, Grenna Kaiya.So romance can flower even in a land where it has brought so much death

andsuffering. Everyone knows that out of the desire that drives men and womentogether has come a disease which is destroying Africa. One in four of thelovers who pledged their loyalty to their partners in the pages of TheNation are infected with HIV - and an untold number will break their vows ofloyalty and have sex with someone else.Gordon Brown the Chancellor, warned on Monday that progress towardsdevelopment in some parts of the world was so slow that it could take morethan a century to achieve the millennium goals set for 2015, which include atarget of halting the spread of Aids. But Aids cannot be defeated by money,or medical research or international help alone. That will depend onachieving social and cultural change, which could be the toughest challengeof all.The young urban Malawians who placed their Valentine messages in thenewspapers are no different from young people everywhere. They like to drinkand

dance and flirt. At the Panorama bar, newly built on a hill a few milesoutside Blantyre, the band was belting out old rock standards last Fridaynight and scores of young people were shaking their booty on the open-airdance floor.George, a large man with a big laugh, returned from the dance floor foranother beer. "I am going back," he announced, with a grin. "I am gettinglots of offers." Girls with spray-on trousers and plunging necklines eyedthe men, approaching strangers as if they were old friends. A bar girl cameover to take our order and sat down with her thigh pressed against mine.When I asked, prosaically, where the toilets were, she offered to show me,telling my companions in Chichewe, the local language: "I think I am doingwell with him."Peter, a tall, serious man from Tanzania, described how he took his sisterto a bar in Dar es Salaam and was given a frosty reception by the bar girls."They don't like it if you

go there with someone," he said. "They regardevery man as a potential client." One of the tragedies of the Aids story isthat while vast sums of money have been poured into research aimed atfinding a cure for the disease, far less effort has been expended onunderstanding the social and cultural forces that have fanned the flames ofthe epidemic.Alex de Waal, of Justice Africa, has said that faith in medical science mayhave retarded investment in humbler technologies, such as finding inventiveways to promote the condom; or improving the economic and social position ofwomen. Much more is known about the virological complexities of HIV than thesexual networks and practices that help it to spread.For 30 years until the early 1990s, Malawi was locked in a time warp underits conservative president, Hastings Banda, who had a fear of the modernworld. Long hair for men was banned and women were forbidden from wearingshort skirts

or trousers. In the decade since Banda's death, many of therestrictions that were strangling development have been loosened - butvestiges remain. Recently in Blantyre, a skimpily dressed woman was set uponby a mob, offended by her provocative attire, stripped naked and run out oftown. Her dignity was only saved by a friend who covered her with a blanket.Some preach abstinence and faithfulness as the only means to curb theepidemic - and there is some evidence that, combined with promotion ofcondom use, this has had success in reducing infection rates in Uganda.But this ignores a key cultural feature - the economic dependence of womenon men. Women are taught from the earliest age to be subservient to men. Inthe Panorama bar, the bar girls address their male customers as "Bwana" andgive a little curtsy as they are paid. Women are less likely to be educatedand less likely to find paid work. That gives men a licence to misbehave

andleaves women with no option but to consent to their demands. One 20-year-oldwoman said: "What are relationships about then? Men are supposed to providemoney and other things."I was in Blantyre to run a course for local journalists on reportingHIV/Aids, organised by the Commonwealth Press Union. While the 18participants - 14 men and four women from across sub-Saharan Africa - werekeen to debate condom use, HIV testing and the provision of antiretroviraldrugs, they were less comfortable with discussion of the relationshipbetween the sexes and the need to empower women.The consequences of this failure are starkly evident. On Hanover Street inBlantyre, a woman approached George, a reporter from Zambia and offered sexfor 750 kwacha (£3.75). "Do you have a condom?" George asked her (strictlyin the interests of research). She did, she said, adding if he wanted"plain" sex - without a condom - the cost would be

double.But why should people care when life is fraught with risk in any case?Malawians are among the poorest people in Africa and hunger and disease areever present threats. One in five children dies before the age of five, theeighth highest childhood mortality rate in the world. And malaria claimsmore lives in Malawi than Aids.At the Aids clinic at Thyolo hospital, 19 miles south of Blantyre, run byMédecins sans Frontières, 900 men and 898 women were tested for HIV inDecember; 328 women were positive compared with 206 men, a 60 per centdifference. Women are twice as likely to be infected with HIV as men.Aids has left 20-year-old Rose Madengu's long limbs skeletal - she weighsslightly more than five stone. She was started on antiretroviral drugs lastNovember - provided free by MSF. She is now much improved, said Dr PatrickGomani, the medical director. Rose told how her two children died withinweeks of birth and her

husband "ran away". She had suffered diarrhoea for ayear but now that has stopped - another sign that the drugs are working. Butthe most important benefit the drugs had brought her was hope.At last, there is a point to getting tested for HIV - because now there is atreatment. Since MSF began offering free treatment last April the numbercoming for tests has steadily increased. And as testing becomes morewidespread, the stigma attached to the disease, and the behaviour with whichit is associated, diminishes.A sign of the change came last week when President Bakili Muzuli launchedthe government's Aids policy - to provide antiretroviral drugs nationwidefrom next July. In doing so he made a plea for openness about the disease -and revealed that his own brother had died of Aids.As the drugs that have been denied for so long become available, for thefirst time, to secure their future, Malawians may see some point in

changingthe way they live.MALAWI - THE AIDS NIGHTMARE* Population 11.3 million* 900,000 people aged 15-49 are infected with HIV/Aids* One in four people infected in urban areas and one in eight in rural areas* 87,000 died from Aids in 2003* Teachers are dying at a faster rate than replacements can be trained* 641,000 people have died since the first case of Aids was identified in1985* Target of 50,000 in treatment with antiretroviral drugs by 2005 22 February 2004 01:03 Search this site:Printable Story«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§ - PULSE ON WORLD HEALTH CONSPIRACIES! §Subscribe:.........

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