dontgetstuckwithhiv

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When will governments in sub-Sahara Africa protect citizens from blood-borne HIV?

            Governments across sub-Sahara Africa support programs – testing partners, etc – to reduce people’s risk to get HIV through sex. Similarly, governments promote programs to protect babies by testing pregnant women and, if HIV-positive, giving them anti-retroviral drugs. Those programs cut sexual and mother-to-child transmission.             But why are so many people still getting…

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How to reach African and global HIV prevention targets?

Introduction: Missing the 2020 target             In 2014-16 the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), and UNAIDS set targets to cut new HIV infections (incidence) globally from 1.9 million in 2015 to 500,000 in 2020 and 200,000 in 2030 (Table 1). The 2030 target is a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – to end AIDS by 2030. Those targets promoted interventions that cut HIV…

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Misinforming Africans about HIV led to AIDS disasters

In the early 1980s, AIDS was first recognized among men-who-have-sex with men (MSM) and injection drug users (IDU) in the United States (US). Because hepatitis B was common in both groups but rare in the US general population, it was apparent almost immediately that whatever caused AIDS threatened groups at high risk for hepatitis B. That included the general population in Africa, where 70%-90%…

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HIV Own Goals – LGBTQ in Uganda

Shaming people for their alleged sexual behavior has deadly consequences for everyone infected with HIV and anyone engaged in behaviors claimed to result in HIV transmission, or claimed to be so engaged. Given the weight of evidence against the sexual behavior paradigm of HIV transmission (but only in high prevalence African countries), why does the industry still use it to prop up every…

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High HIV prevalence and unknown risks for African Americans, especially women

Abstract In the United States, HIV prevalence and incidence for African Americans (Blacks) are much higher than for non-Hispanic Whites. This is especially so for women. Differences remain unexplained more than 35 years after they were recognized in the 1980s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collects information on risks for persons diagnosed with HIV in Adult HIV…

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UNAIDS Knows What's Best

Winnie Byanyima, head of UNAIDS, wrings her hands about racism and stigma, and the title of the article points the finger at ‘Big pharma’. But that’s not quite accurate. Big pharma will take money from anyone, not just people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The characterization of HIV as a primarily sexually transmitted virus in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the main sources of stigma. The consequent…

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Stigmatize or prevent?

As a US citizen, my tax dollars promote the lie that almost all HIV infections in adolescents and adults in Africa come from sex. Experts who should know better began this lie in the 1980s and have repeated it for decades. The lie ignores early[1] and recent[2] evidence that only a minority of infections come from sex. Most who repeat the lie intend no damage because they believe it. Whether a…

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After investigating unexplained infections, what’s left for HIV prevention research?

After investigating unexplained infections, what’s left for HIV prevention research?

Evidence suggests most HIV infections in Africa come from bloodborne transmission, not sex.[1] The best way to stop such transmission is to investigate unexplained infections.[2] As soon as investigations find hospitals or clinics infecting patients, that will alert people in the general population as well as doctors, nurses, dentists, tattooists, and others to ask for and to use sterilized…

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eSwatini: recent survey shows how to stop the country’s HIV epidemic

eSwatini: recent survey shows how to stop the country’s HIV epidemic

In December 2022, eSwatini’s Ministry of Health published results from a 2021 HIV survey.[1] Although the report does not say so, it shows how to stop the country’s HIV epidemic. Briefly, most infections were coming from bloodborne risks, only a small minority came from sex. Finding and stopping bloodborne transmission is not hard to do.[2] Stopping bloodborne transmission depends on common…

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Protect women? Investigate unexplained HIV infections, and shun dangerous interventions

Protect women? Investigate unexplained HIV infections, and shun dangerous interventions

[Note: This blog responds to news that Wits University, South Africa, plans to promote HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to women through pills, injections and vaginal rings.][1,2] To protect African women from HIV – to protect yourself, too – pay attention to HIV in women with no sex risks. Women go for a lot of sex-related health care: pregnancy care, child delivery, birth control…

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Ebola, Uganda and the Shadow of the Media

Ebola, Uganda and the Shadow of the Media

If there was an outbreak of a potentially deadly virus, one that has been a headline ‘pandemic’ in the past, you’d expect to see it emblazoned across the mainstream media. Their health correspondants would be drooling over exotic offerings from the usual experts, Drs Piot, Ferguson, Fauci, people from WHO, CDC, SAGE and others. There would be dire predictions based on complex (but highly…

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Living forward – understanding and stopping Africa’s HIV disasters

Living forward – understanding and stopping Africa’s HIV disasters

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Bible, New International Version, 1 Corinthians 13: 13 Introduction: understanding more important than justice In this blog, I apply 1 Corinthians 13: 13 to Africa’s unnecessary HIV disasters – unnecessary because they have been driven for decades by easily avoidable blood exposures during health care, not…

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New evidence bloodborne transmission explains most HIV infections in sub-Sahara Africa  

What new evidence?             Studies that collect HIV from people in a community and then describe how each person’s HIV is organized (sequence their HIV) can find out how HIV has been spreading in the community. People with similar HIVs very likely have linked infections – one infected the other directly or indirectly (through one or more others). If sex is the most important risk, a lot of…

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Time to let go of sexual fantasies about Africa’s HIV epidemics

Time to let go of sexual fantasies about Africa’s HIV epidemics

For decades, too many experts in health agencies and universities have said most HIV in Africa comes from sex. Some does, of course. But most does not. Blaming sex never fit facts – many, many HIV-positive Africans knew and said they did NOT have any sexual risk. Too many experts didn’t believe them. Finally, we have new evidence to challenge experts’ sexual fantasies. This new evidence comes…

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Covid-19 provides an opportunity to challenge lies about HIV in Africa

Covid-19 provides an opportunity to challenge lies about HIV in Africa

This website is about bloodborne HIV in Africa, not Covid-19 (hereafter: C19). However, because debates about C19 policies include charges of lies, misinformation, and unethical research, C19  debates have parallels with mismanagement of HIV in Africa. Recognizing these parallels could not only call attention to long-term mismanagement of HIV in Africa but also strengthen debates about C19. For…

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Please don’t bother me with facts, I like my sex fantasies!

Please don’t bother me with facts, I like my sex fantasies!

Sex, sex, sex. Beginning in the late 1980s, several years after HIV was recognized in Africa, health bureaucrats, staff, and researchers have peddled salacious and racist fantasies that almost HIV-positive adults got it from sex. But what about facts? One way to see how people in a community have been getting HIV is to see who has viruses that are similar. Because HIV changes over time as it…

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Ignoring children’s HIV risks – is there any good excuse?

Ignoring children’s HIV risks – is there any good excuse?

In Mozambique, a national survey in 2015 found that a third of HIV-infected children age 6-23 months had HIV-negative mothers.[5] In a national survey in eSwatini in 2006-7, 22% of tested mothers of HIV-positive children age 2-12 years were HIV-negative.[4] With evidence like that, why does UNAIDS say that 100% of HIV-positive children age 0-14 years got HIV from their mothers?[2] Why do health…