HIV perceptions

The HIV prevalence rate in US is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/14/AR2009031402176.html

My landlady, in Providence, is a high-school teacher and asked me to give a presentation about HIV while I am here... Thought to use Gapminder and HIV because I have worked on both of them. I compared USA, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Canada and Sweden. The prevalence in USA in 1985 was 0.3% which was similar to South Africa in 1988, India in 1996 but in Zimbabwe that made an interesting jump in prevalence >1% (1.3%) in 1980. Today HIV prevalence rate in high-income countries is The interesting part is between Canada and Sweden, that both provide access to health care, but Canada social model is built on in-migration, although they screen their applicants for HIV. So does it mean it is an internal epidemic? Around 2004, I think, there was study in Sweden that have looked into why HIV patients come late to seek care, and most probably was due to lack of information on HIV. People used to relate HIV sickness to the horrifying AIDS pictures in the early 1980s before availability of a...

Last week, a young man stopped me in the mall to ask me if I am from Italy, then he asked me about am I doing in Providence. When he knew I am PhD student working on HIV, he asked me what is he supposed to know about HIV, so wasn't sure what am I supposed to say or recommend. I asked him back what he wants to know, so he asked if he would get infected if he touches HIV on a table. I felt lucky that I have read the article of body.com about what people ask questions in relation to HIV: http://www.thebody.com/content/art54843.html?tw We definitely need to improve people's knowledge on HIV, the question is how best to do it?

Sometimes, friends email me to ask me if I know anything about the House of Numbers documentary. This has been a bit of a hot potato topic, in relation to denying HIV/AIDS, which started by former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki and former minister of health, the late Dr. Mantho Tashabalala-Msimang. Whatever their reasons to go for such argument, this did cost the loss of thousands of lives in South Africa. If you are interested in reading more about this topic, I would recommend following the blog of Dr. Seth Kalichman, professor in psychology at University of Connecticut. http://denyingaids.blogspot. com Also if you use twitter, you can follow him on http://twitter.com/sethckal Should you be interested in this topic in a deeper way, you can use his book Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy. Also I would like to add that all royalties are donated to buy anitiretrovirals in Africa.

During my stay in Beirut Dec.2009, I was asked to discuss HIV issues with someone who recently knew he is HIV+ve. Of course I know about HIV but I do not know how to discuss it, or do proper counseling. I was member of the facebook page of Think+ve, an NGO operating in Lebanon to support HIV+ve community and their network. So went over their website and phoned them to ask for info about their services. They requested to phone me back, and got detailed info how they can support people. http://www.thinkpositive-lb.org/

Lebanon is a low HIV prevalent country. The pattern of transmission is mixed between men having with men (MSMs) or with women (MSWs). Although the person can buy condoms from pharmacies, but it still depends where you are in Lebanon, and what I hear from friends, if there is pharmacist who is a woman (which genderwise is common in Lebanon), men tend to avoid buying from that pharmacy. Also the perception of using a condom has been related to promiscuity,i.e. why to use condom if you have one partner or if you are not married? Not sure if this is related to being in a low-prevalent country, religion effect on people's mindset or...? Back to the title, I took this picture on January 1st, at Corniche area in Beirut when went with parents for the first day of the year walk...