torresdd

Unable to afford the expensive anti-retroviral
medicines produced in developed countries,
Cuban chemists analysed the drugs' chemical
components and set about recreating their own
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/...03/2770631.stm
HIV medication has been made widely available

By Molly Bentley
BBC News Online science writer in Denver

Few stories about HIV/Aids infection bring hope.

But in the Caribbean,
where communism takes its last gasp,
there is encouragement in the fight against Aids.

"Cuba has a lid on the HIV/Aids problem,"

said Byron Barksdale,
the director of the American Cuban Aids Project,
a non-profit organisation that provides humanitarian
aid to the island.

There has been no dramatic increase in HIV
transmission in Cuba since the beginning of
the epidemic,

said Dr Barksdale at the at the annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science in Denver.

Cuba's 0.03% infection rate is one of the lowest in the world.

In addition, certain forms of HIV transmission that
plague the rest of the globe are almost non-existent
on the island.

There is virtually no transmission of the virus through
intravenous drug use, blood transfusion or to newborns
at birth.

Drugs available

The country now produces enough anti-retroviral
medicines to supply the country's patients.

As a result, the 25% predicted mortality rates
for patients with Aids in 2002 were instead 7%.

While mother-child transmission is a huge
problem in African countries, for example,
in Cuba, the government ensures that all
HIV-positive mothers are treated with
prophylactic AZT therapy up to delivery
and then the babies are delivered by
caesarean section.

No infants contract the virus through the birth canal,
according to Dr Barksdale, who added that Cuba's
prevention measures are not likely to be implemented
in other countries.

"It would be difficult to mandate Caesarean sections
on all HIV-positive mothers in the United States," he said.

Cuba's low HIV infection rate is due largely to the
country's extraordinary response in early years of
the epidemic.

Stigma

Cuba established the National Commission on
Aids in 1983 to provide education on the disease,
a full two years before the first Cuban national
contracted the virus,

and at a time when the word "Aids" carried such stigma,
US President Ronald Reagan refused to use it in public speeches.

But in Cuba, said Dr Barksdale,
people had lived under socialism long enough
to have "an idea of classlessness," which made
educating the public and providing medical
attention fairly straightforward.

Under Cuba's socialised health care system,
all HIV/Aids patients receive medical care
and drugs free of charge.

But some requirements of the programme pinch personal liberties.

In the late 1980s, Cuba implemented a classic
public health measure and began quarantining patients.

The quarantine system includes eight weeks
of education and drug support, after which the
patient is free to leave -

although, many choose to stay,
according to Dr Barksdale.

Surveillance

In addition, a national surveillance system
tracks all infected people and their partners.

As a result, the government has an extensive database
on all HIV/Aids infections, including their source,
whether from overseas or within the country.

While the authoritative response helped
contain the spread of the virus, Cuba's
political isolation initially prevented access
to life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.

Then Cuba got innovative.

Unable to afford the expensive anti-retroviral
medicines produced in developed countries,
Cuban chemists analysed the drugs' chemical
components and set about recreating their own.

Cuba now produces sufficient quantities of
seven anti-viral medications for all its patients.

Because it is self-sufficient in drug production,
said Dr Barksdale, the country's next step is
to export medication.

He predicts that Cuba will soon offer to sell
the anti-retroviral drugs at cost to other countries.

"I suspect there will be countries in Latin America,
the Caribbean basin, and in Africa that will purchase
these drugs directly from Cuba," he said.

In this, Cuba has set an example of political
leadership in its response to the Aids crisis,
according to Monica Ruiz, from the US
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"It's an example of what a country
can do on it's own shores," she said.

"While each country will provide a different
response, this shows that political will has
to be there."

pedro martori

Estrategia del pueblo Soberano contra las mentiras del Payaso...Chavez

Recuerdan que cuando las fuerzas de los USA estaban atacando Iraq, salían a
cada rato el asesino saddam (amigo del excremento de Sabaneta) y sus
mercenarios pot TV asegurando que ellos estaban venciendo y que los
americanos mentían al enunciar sus conquistas en Iraq? Bueno, esta misma
táctica o estrategia militar está siendo empleada aquí con nuestros logros.
El excremento de Sabaneta y sus secuaces seguirán negando cualquiera de
nuestros logros. No nos dejemos desanimar por el enemigo. Sabemos muy bien
que no reconocerá el fracaso ni siquiera después que esté preso con una
sentencia de más de 400 años. Nosotros, todos los venezolanos vamos a firmar
y luego vamos a GUARIMBEAR. Sin duda alguna. El soberano es la mayoría y en
Venezuela se hará la voluntad del soberano.


News - Noticias
www.VenezuelaNet.org
News@VenezuelaNet.org

....."Venezuela es el único país del mundo donde una oposición fascista pide
elecciones y un gobierno democrático las niega"...
Manuel Caballero

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message with "remove" as the subject.

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super duty

Hey yahoo, when you go to Cuba do you have sex with the Cuban guys without
any protection, other than your BPs?

You posted, """"Cuba's 0.03% infection rate is one of the lowest in the
world.""""""""

With that low rate, torresD should be able to enjoy the pleasures of sex
without the aid of a condom.

------------------------------------------------------

advado cifuentes

Don't blame the superdick for being mad at Cuba, although having getting
pooped is not a crime.

nine14six

Brazil's political appointees draw flack
Larry Rohter NYT


BRASILIA The country's leading newsmagazine calls it "the most radical and
voracious partisanization of the state bureaucratic structure" in Brazilian
history. Since taking office at the start of the year, President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva has stuffed government ministries and agencies with political
appointees, many of them unseasoned, and the country is now feeling the
effect of their efforts to learn on the job.

Da Silva's Workers' Party had limited administrative experience, even at
state and municipal levels, when it began to govern this nation of 175
million people. The result, critics contend, has been confusion and
immobility, as thousands of posts have been filled with party loyalists.

Complaints of delayed and inefficient services are multiplying, and even
with budget cuts, some government ministries are so unsettled that they seem
likely to end the year unable to spend money allotted them.

"The Workers' Party has created a model in which militancy in the party or a
labor union counts more than administrative experience or an academic
curriculum," said Lúcia Hippólito, a political scientist who has studied the
bureaucracy for 20 years.

"They've gone way beyond the policymaking level and deep into the management
level with inexperienced people who do not know how to run the machinery of
state and are committing one folly after another."

Party leaders reject accusations of incompetence and deny that any
housecleaning or disruption of the bureaucracy has occurred.

But they also say that in emphasizing political loyalty as a criterion for
appointments, they are merely doing what other parties have done in the
past.

"There has been no division of spoils or dismissals for political reasons,"
José Genoino, president of the governing party, said in an interview at the
party's headquarters in São Paulo. "

The egalitarian structure the Workers' Party has traditionally favored may
be contributing to the perception of chaos, political analysts say.

Da Silva has on several occasions been publicly contradicted by his own
cabinet ministers, whose own declarations have sometimes been rebutted by
their subordinates, leaving doubt as to who makes policy and what that
policy actually is.

"It is the logic of a social movement transferred to the structure of
government, and that has grave consequences," said Edson Nuñes, author of
"The Political Grammar of Brazil" and a professor of political science at
Candido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro.

"The Workers' Party doesn't recognize the idea of hierarchy, and since
everyone is a comrade, you have a lack of command and rank and even of
loyalty to the minister."

During the presidential campaign last year, da Silva, a former factory
worker and labor leader, was openly contemptuous of the technocrats he said
had mismanaged the Brazilian economy and turned a blind eye to corruption.

"A lathe operator can do a better job," he said repeatedly in stump
speeches, promising a new era of efficiency and honesty.

But to fill so many posts with loyalists, the government has quietly eased
job qualifications. The prerequisite of a college degree for some senior
posts has been dropped.

At the National Health Foundation, a decree that required five years of
experience in health care for regional directors was summarily changed to a
"preference."