This year's World AIDS Campaign encourages both individuals and institutions to reflect on how they respond to those living with HIV and AIDS. With challenging posters and television images the campaign clearly shows how the most painful symptoms of HIV and AIDS are often the reactions of others. When someone feels safe within their own community, they are more likely to take responsibility for their HIV status. This is why it is so important for all of us to examine our own attitudes. We need to ask ourselves: are we helping to create an environment where people can take responsibility for themselves and others? Or do our attitudes contribute to an environment of shame, fear and denial that prevents people from taking action? Only by confronting stigma and discrimination across the world will the fight against HIV/AIDS be won.

Live and let live. Help us fight fear, shame, ignorance and injustice worldwide!

JOHANNESBURG, 25 August 2003—South Africa’s Medicines Control Council (MCC) has given approval for the start of a Phase I human trial of a preventive AIDS vaccine candidate under study by an international research team sponsored by the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

The vaccine candidate, named HIVA.MVA, was designed by the University of Nairobi in Kenya and University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Phase I human trials of the vaccine candidate already have been completed in Kenya and the UK and are underway in Uganda.

Scientists agree that a preventive vaccine is the best hope to end the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. A preventive vaccine would be given to people who are uninfected with HIV, to stimulate their immune systems to prevent them from becoming infected or going on to develop AIDS.

http://www.mrc.ac.za/pressreleases/2003/26pres2003.htm

PARIS - Scientists from around the world gather in Paris this Sunday for an update on the war against Aids, gloomily aware that good news will be rare and that, after more than two decades, they still lack basic knowledge about their foe.
The four-day forum comes on the heels of President George Bush's tour of Aids-stricken African countries, where his pledges show that the political will and funding to fight the global scourge are at last being mustered.
Some 5 000 people, a third of them involved in fundamental research, are registered for the conference, an event that is held every two years and alternates with the International Aids Conference, staged in Barcelona a year ago.

Highlights include a speech by former South African president Nelson Mandela; the latest research on HIV drugs and fresh worries that the virus is becoming immune to them; an update on the search for a HIV-killing cream that can be used like a spermicide; and new studies on mother-to-child prevention and vaccine trials.

Researchers are eagerly awaiting the results from trials of a new class of so-called fusion inhibitors -- drugs which seek to prevent the Aids virus from attaching itself to an immune cell, the first step towards penetration and infection.

Early studies suggest that fusion inhibitors are especially powerful for individuals whose immune systems have been almost wrecked. They are the third and most promising generation of HIV drugs -- an evolution that began in 1987 with the introduction of AZT, initially licenced as a cancer drug and was followed in 1995 by the advent of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), the triple cocktail of anti-HIV drugs.

HAART slashes back viral levels to below detectable levels. But the virus then holes up in "reservoirs" in the body, believed to be the lymph glands, and then bounces back as soon as the patient stops taking the drugs. New research published last week suggests it does this trick by sending out a complex cascade of signalling molecules that opens up a "resting" T cell to a passing virus, thus reviving the cycle of infection and replication.

The blank spots in our knowledge, said Fauci, are agonisingly evident when it comes to vaccines.

Aidsvax, the only candidate to see through the three phases of trials -- it tried to prime antibodies to recognising the gp120 protein on the surface of the virus -- has been a sad failure. That has placed the emphasis on another path: encouraging defence by immune cells.

Mail & Guardian - 11 July 2003
Richard Ingham

Why Kids Care?

We are all born with the instinct for charity. It develops in children like any muscle - with exercise. Kids Care Clubs help kids stretch their charity muscles. By helping others kids learn how wonderful it is to be contributing members of their communities. Beyond citizenship, kids can learn so many life-lessons from charity: cooperation, tolerance, problem-solving, communication, self-awareness, confidence, respect for life and loyalty. And research has shown that children who practice community service are less likely to participate in risky behaviors like youth violence or drug and alcohol abuse.

START YOUR OWN KIDS CARE GROUP!! ...There isn't much to know about getting started, just find some kids who want to help and invite them to brainstorm projects
Go to www.kidscare.org/kidscare/startclb.shtml and find out just how easy it is!

CARE's HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs

Since the late 1980s, CARE has fought against the spread of AIDS. From one project in 1987, the portfolio has grown to include 47 projects with HIV/AIDS components in 32 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. CARE's goal in responding to the AIDS pandemic is to empower local communities to protect themselves from HIV-infection and to mitigate the effect of the pandemic on community survival. Specific interventions are designed to address the varying needs of people at three different stages relative to HIV/AIDS -- those who are not infected with HIV, those who are HIV-positive and those who have AIDS. Because prevention is the most effective method of slowing the AIDS pandemic, CARE provides men and women with accurate information about transmission through community education programs and informal discussion groups, educational television and radio messages, and training community health promoters on preventing transmission.

HERE ARE SOME WAYS THAT YOU CAN HELP BY GETTING INVOLVED!!!
(www.careusa.org/getinvolved/index.asp)

At CARE, we believe that every person can make a difference, and together, we can change the world. Here are some of the ways you can take action with CARE:

Advocate with CARE:
By using your voice with the media and elected officials, you can help CARE raise awareness of important issues like reproductive health and HIV/AIDS.

Volunteer:
CARE Corps volunteers work alongside Peruvian families and CARE staff on projects that promote sustainable solutions to poverty.

Youth Activities:
CARE's youth programs offer high school students the opportunity to experience a foreign country and culture while learning about CARE's work to help communities overcome poverty.

CARE In Your Community:
Each of our 14 regional offices sponsors fund-raising events and plans community outreach projects to help poor communities solve their most threatening problems