UNAIDS congratulates John Nkengasong on his appointment as inaugural director of the Africa centres for disease control and prevention

Source: UNAIDS

John Nkengasong has been named as the first director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). The Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the Africa Union, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which will provide strategic direction and promote public health practice within Member States.

“Public health is essential to the growth and development of Africa and a basic human right. I cannot think of someone better qualified to lead the new Africa CDC,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director, UNAIDS. “Concerted and coordinated action is needed to overcome the unnecessary burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases across the African continent. We look forward to working with the new director to end AIDS as a public health threat, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and build the future we want for Africa through the African Union’s Agenda 2063.” More

22/12/2016

HIV patients may be at 50 per cent higher risk of heart attack

Source: Economic Times

"The actual risk of heart attack for people with HIV was roughly 50 per cent higher than predicted by the risk calculator many physicians use for the general population," said first author Matthew Feinstein from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, US.

The higher risk for heart attack -- about 1.5 to two times greater -- exists even in people whose virus is undetectable in their blood because of antiretroviral drugs, according to the study published in journal JAMA Cardiology

"There is chronic inflammation and viral replication even in people whose blood tests don't show any sign of the virus in the blood," Feinstein explained. That is because the virus still lurks in the body's tissues, creating the inflammation that causes plaque buildup and can lead to a heart attack or a stroke. More

21/12/2016

Court hears first case of HIV discrimination at workplace

Source: Global Times

A court in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province heard the province's first-ever lawsuit addressing job discrimination against an HIV-positive individual on Wednesday.

Filed by the 27-year-old plaintiff, Ah Ming (pseudonym), a former employee of a Guangzhou-based public institution suspended from work since December 2015, the Baiyun District Court of Guangzhou heard the case in a private session on Wednesday.

Qiu Hengyu, Ah Ming's attorney, told the Global Times that "China's Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases already excludes HIV carriers from the list of people who need to be quarantined, and the law should overrule the [infectious disease prevention and treatment] regulation."

Among the six contagious diseases - including cholera and active tuberculosis - that will restrict patients from engaging in producing food, AIDS has been excluded, said Qiu, citing a notice issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission on July