African couples urged to get HIV ‘love test’

Couples in the African kingdom of Swaziland are being urged to get tested together as part of a HIV "love test" campaign. The nationwide initiative — funded by the United States government and implemented by global charity ‘Population Services International’ (PSI) — is aimed at couples because tests can be useless if partners are not aware of the others’ HIV status. “If partners get tested separately, they may not disclose the results and not get the support they need,” Dominic McNeill, spokesman for PSI Swaziland, told CNN.

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HIV/AIDS: A Surging Epidemic in Washington, D.C.

HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Update 2008 Washington, D.C., Department of Health 82 pages The Gist: There are few who still shrug off HIV and AIDS as exotic calamities that befall only specific segments of the world’s population. But many of us are probably oblivious to just how badly the virus is ravaging our nation’s capital. According to a city report, 3% of Washington, D.C., residents suffer from HIV or AIDS — a figure that ranks as the highest in the nation and far outstrips the 1% benchmark at which a health issue becomes a “generalized and severe” epidemic

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A New Approach to Designing the AIDS Vaccine

The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services boldly announced in 1984 that there would be an AIDS vaccine within two years. The discovery of an AIDS-causing virus , she said, was already demonstrating “the triumph of science over a dreaded disease.” Today, 25 years and many failed attempts later, an AIDS vaccine seems as elusive as ever

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