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is discrimination and against the law for Taipei City Government to exclude AIDS patients from applying for social housing, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.

According to the Taiwan AIDS Foundation, the Taipei City Government publicly announced recently that seven groups of people will be excluded from applying to live in five of the designated social housing communities in Taipei, including AIDS patients, homeless people and victims of natural disasters.

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The British HIV Association (BHIVA) and the Department of Health’s Expert Advisory Group on AIDS (EAGA) published this week a position statement on the use of HIV treatment by people with HIV to reduce the risk of transmission. For the first time, the document provides health professionals with a consensus statement, developed by UK experts, which can be used to guide discussions with individuals.

Clinicians, epidemiologists, policy experts and HIV-positive people contributed to the document. The key points are outlined here.

Malawi will soon have a National HIV and AIDS Policy that has aphrase that effectively bars religious figures from claiming that they cured AIDS or even administering such cures.

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Ronald Kasule looked exhausted as he wheeled himself into a conference room at the Le Meridien President hotel in Dakar, Senegal, in December 2011. The man, who has multiple disabilities in his hands and legs, had arrived to present a paper on the sexual rights of persons with disabilities.

When he spoke, he left many in tears not only because he expressed his dissatisfaction with the organisers, who put a session on persons with disabilities (PWDs) on the third floor, which is not easily accessible. He is particularly critical of disability-blind interventions, for instance regarding sexual and reproductive health information.

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Over the past few decades, one of the most perplexing questions in global health is how to stop HIV.

There have been campaigns involving condoms, abstinence and even the circumcision of all men younger than 46. But one relatively new strategy, called treatment as prevention, is causing quite a buzz.

The idea is to give all HIV-positive people antiretroviral drugs to drive down the levels of virus in their systems so they no longer pose a threat of transmitting the disease.

Sounds good in theory, but how well does it play out in the slums of Nairobi or the townships of Johannesburg?

Two studies published in the journal Science find that, in places where HIV drugs are widely available, the risk for new HIV infections drops dramatically and overall life expectancy increases by more than a decade.

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ST. LOUIS• An eating disorder treatment center in west St. Louis County has agreed to pay $140,000 to settle the claims of a woman who said she was turned away because she is HIV positive, the ACLU said Wednesday.

Former nurse Susan Gibson filed a complaint with the Department of Justice alleging that she was rejected from the Castlewood Treatment Center because of her HIV-positive status, the ACLU said. Gibson applied to the center in 2010 and was rejected after her admission was delayed for months while she was told, falsely, that a payment agreement was the holdup. Castlewood officials were actually behind the delays and rejection, the settlement says.

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