Kofi Annan appointed the Canadian Stephen Lewis as his 'Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa'.111
Kofi Annan opened the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS in New York. This was the first ever UN meeting devoted to a public health issue.112
During the UNGASS, representatives of all 189 members of the UN signed a Declaration of Commitment on HIV and AIDS. This document contained many significant pledges, including one to reduce HIV prevalence among young people (aged 15 to 24) by 25% in the most affected countries by 2005, and to reduce it by 25% globally by 2010.113
There was a sudden explosion in HIV cases among injecting drug users in Dublin, Ireland. It was reported that diagnoses jumped fivefold between January 1999 and June 2000. Diagnoses fell to a low of 12 in 1998, but in the next 18 months 96 people tested positive. Doctors blamed this on a sudden tightening of regulations around the supply of the heroin substitute methadone, which caused more people to start injecting street heroin.114
Stephen Kelly was found guilty at Glasgow High Court of 'culpable and reckless conduct' for having unprotected sex despite knowing that he had HIV. He infected his girlfriend in 1994. Kelly was the first person to be tried under Scottish law for this type of offence. It was feared that the threat of legal action would make people more reluctant to be tested for HIV.115
President George Bush appointed an openly gay man, Scott Evertz, as Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, but did not find any extra money in his 2002 budget for AIDS prevention or treatment.116
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to manufacturers of HIV/AIDS drugs, cautioning them to tone down the optimistic tone of their antiretroviral drug advertisements.117
"Examples of such images range from robust individuals engaged in strenuous physical activity to healthy-looking individuals giving testimonials of a specific drug's benefit. However, not all individuals have a response to ARV therapy; in fact, some patients will still have disease progression despite ARV therapy."118
A former Japanese Health Ministry official was found guilty of negligence for failing to stop the sale of untreated blood products. Over 1,800 haemophiliacs had contracted HIV in Japan since the early 1980s from untreated blood and more than 500 had died.119
No comments:
Post a Comment