South America HIV News

DESPACHO GERAL, a Santos-based custom clearance agency for over twenty years, has successfully navigated the protocols for shipping the Spirit of Malabo to New York. The vessel departs today on MSC Krystal, a container ship operated by Mediterranean Shipping Company. The estimated travel time is approximately twenty-three days.

Victor Mooney of Queens, New York will use this vessel to row solo five-thousand miles from the Canary Islands to New York’s Brooklyn Bridge with a resupply in the British Virgin Islands later this year to help encourage global HIV testing. This will be the rower's fourth bid.

HIV prevalence lay below 1% among female sex workers (FSWs) in Panama, but the rate was higher in unregistered FSWs. Almost 4% of FSWs had syphilis.

Panama regulates sex work and requires FSWs to register with the Social Hygiene Programme of the Ministry of Health. Lying in Central America, Panama has a population of 4.1 million and a UNAIDS-estimated HIV prevalence of 0.8% among 15- to 49-year-olds.

Researchers planned this cross-sectional analysis using venue-based, time-space sampling to recruit FSWs in 2009 and 2010. Using an anonymous structured questionnaire, health workers interviewed FSWs about sociodemographic characteristics, sexual risk behavior, health history, and drug use. Women gave blood samples to be tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Men who have sex with men (MSM) in Brazil have a twice higher HIV prevalence than female sex workers and a 3 times higher prevalence than drug users, according to the first national biological and behavioral survey for HIV among MSM in Brazil.

MSM account for high proportions of HIV-positive people in many Western countries. To determine HIV prevalence in MSM in Brazil, researchers conducted this study using respondent-driven sampling to recruit men who had sex with another man in the last 12 months in 10 cities.

All study participants were at least 18 years old and lived in one of the 10 study cities. The researchers used self-reported HIV status and logistic regression analysis to impute missing values for HIV status. UNAIDS estimates that Brazil had an HIV prevalence of 0.3% among people 15 and older.

The Constitutional Tribunal of Peru is amending an article in its penal code which for many years had criminalized consensual sexual activity among young people. Sentencing was particularly severe with adolescents facing up to 30 years in prison. Article 173 of the penal code was also preventing young people from accessing essential health and reproductive services for fear of prosecution.

Under the revised penal code young people between the age of 14 and 18 years old will be able to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights providing the two parties are consenting. Non-consensual sexual relations will still constitute a crime in Peru with lengthy sentencing for people found guilty.

Venezuelan professionals are working in investigations to establish the molecular panorama of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and hepatitis, specialized sources said.
According to the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC), the work is carried out in the Laboratory of Molecular Virology of the entity.

This is to know the variants and genotypes circulating in the country, to facilitate diagnosis and treatment.

Thus, physicians have the necessary information to optimize patient monitoring and control of some form of the disease's development.

With a goal to reduce HIV risk behaviors, researchers investigated whether gay men and male sex workers in Mexico City would participate in a conditional cash transfer program that encourages HIV prevention education and regular testing. A new study in the European Journal of Health Economics reports the price that would get more than 75-percent participation: $288 a year.

Studies have found that conditional cash transfer programs, in which governments pay citizens if they consistently practice societally beneficial behaviors, have improved pediatric health care and education in Mexico, increased HIV testing in Malawi, and reduced sexually transmitted infections in Tanzania.

 Studies have found that conditional cash transfer programs, in which governments pay citizens if they consistently practice societally beneficial behaviors, have improved pediatric health care and education in Mexico, increased HIV testing in Malawi, and reduced sexually transmitted infections in Tanzania. Public health researchers therefore investigated whether the idea could be applied to HIV risk behaviors among gay men and male sex workers in Mexico City. A new study reports not only that some members of those populations would change behavior for conditional cash payments, but the exact prices they would accept.

"We're trying to prevent HIV from spreading and we are trying to save money," said public health economist Omar Galárraga, assistant professor of health services policy and practice and lead author of the study published in the February 2013 edition of the European Journal of Health Economics. "We want to make sure that every dollar spent has the greatest impact."

Official AIDS policy versus routine practices.

Located a half-hour's drive from Havana, the sanatorium at Santiago de las Vegas is the biggest and oldest AIDS center of the 17 on the island. The main facility is hidden behind a walled entrance in an architectural hybrid of heavy Soviet-style institution and Alpine ski resort set in the humid tropics. Across the highway, smatterings of low Florida-style bungalows serve as laboratories and medical wards and house some 450 patients.