[afro-nets] Unserved HIV Prevention Window: Healthcare Safety @ Toronto 2006

["nigeria abstinence" <nabstinencecoalition@yahoo.co.uk>]

Unserved HIV Prevention Window: Healthcare Safety @ Toronto 2006
----------------------------------------------------------------

Please Join Us   A Safe Healthcare Caucus hosted by Safe Healthcare International Institute will be held at the Theatre in the Marriot Toronto Downtown Eaton Center (approximately 1.5 kms from the Convention Center) on the eve of the International AIDS Conference from 6 pm to 11 pm on Saturday, August 12. Although no advance registration is required, to ensure we hold a place for you, please email lillian_salerno@yahoo.com. Cocktails and hors d?oeuvres will be available throughout the evening. There is no charge to attend.

Program:
  6:00-6:30 pm: Drinks and hors d?oeuvres
  6:30-7:00 pm: Welcome and introduction
  7:00-7:30 pm: Screening of Unheard Voices 
  This new film from India interviews people who have been infected with HIV through health care. The film examines widespread misinformation about the survival of HIV outside the body and the efficiency of HIV transmission through common healthcare practices.
  7:30-8:30 pm: Open discussion: How to respond to unexplained HIV infections?
  Moderator: Mariette Correa. Panel of experts: to be announced.
  8:30-10:00 pm: Screening of Injection, by Mickey Grant 
  Injection documents the tragedy associated with the reuse of syringes in Africa. Specifically, the film outlines the plight of five Bulgarian nurses currently appealing convictions for murder on the dubious charge that they deliberately injected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV. The film contends that millions of patients in the developing world ? like children in Libya ? are infected through careless errors, without criminal intent. Funding of film provided by Retractable Technologies, Inc. 
  10:00-11:00 pm: Open discussion 
  How can patients ensure they do not contract HIV during health care?
   Moderator: Dr Emmanuel Okechukwu. Panel of experts: to be announced.
  Safe Healthcare International Institute thanks Retractable Technologies Inc. (RTI) for a grant to support this program.

Hope to see you at the Caucus! 

Best regards,

Lillian Salerno      
mailto:lillian_salerno@yahoo.com 
David Gisselquist
mailto:david_gisselquist@yahoo.com
Mariette Correa
mailto:mariettec@gmail.com
Dr. Emmanuel Okechukwu
mailto:actionfamily2000@yahoo.com
   
Time to deliver?safe health care for all

2006 marks the 25th anniversary of the recognition of AIDS as an emerging disease. With the discovery of HIV as a bloodborne virus, wealthy countries responded with aggressive programs to test blood and to ensure sterile conditions in health care. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in much of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

UNAIDS continues to caution UN employees regarding the risks of health care in developing countries. However, AIDS prevention programs do not warn the general public of these risks ? a blatant a violation of medical ethics. Vulnerable, uninformed patients continue to contract HIV from unsafe health care. The World Health Organization has estimated that unsafe health care accounts for 9% of HIV infections ? more than 1,000 per day. Other estimates are even higher. If two 747s crashed each day, we would pay attention. 

Despite proven healthcare-acquired HIV, AIDS prevention programs relentlessly blame almost all infections on sex and injection drug use. This almost exclusive focus on ?bad? behaviors promotes stigma against people living with HIV. Stigma is especially damaging for African and Asian women who each year discover ? through now routine tests in antenatal clinics ? that they are HIV-positive, while many of their husbands are HIV-negative or untested.

Every year, healthcare providers in Africa and Asia identify but ignore hundreds of unexplained HIV infections. Ignoring unexplained infections leaves families to suffer without recompense or treatment, and leaves communities at risk with no effort made to trace and stop the sources of these infections. 

Healthcare related HIV transmission is not addressed in any session at this conference. No papers or posters will be presented detailing outbreak investigations of unexplained infections in Africans or Asians. 

After 25 years of failure and misdirection on the part of health systems and HIV/AIDS experts, it is time to deliver safe care. 

--
Nigeria Abstinence 
mailto:nabstinencecoalition@yahoo.co.uk