The report produced by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, and its partner organizations said the HIV epidemics in Asia vary between countries but are fueled by unprotected paid sex, the sharing of contaminated needles by drug users, and unprotected sex among men who have sex with men.

Men who buy sex constitute the largest infected population group and the report said most of them are either married or will get married.

“This puts a significant number of women, often perceived as ‘low-risk’ because they only have sex with their husbands or long-term partners, at risk of HIV infection,” UNAIDS said in a news release.

According to a report last year on the global AIDS epidemic, an estimated 5 million people in Asia, and 74,000 in the Pacific, were living with HIV in 2007.

The new report, released Tuesday at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Bali, Indonesia, and at U.N. headquarters in New York, said that by 2008, women accounted for 35 percent of all adult HIV infections in Asia, up from 17 percent in 1990.

UNAIDS estimated that more than 90 per cent of the 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia became infected from their husbands or partners while in long-term relationships. In Cambodia, India and Thailand, the largest number of new HIV infections occur among married women, it said.

According to the report, at least 75 million men regularly buy sex from sex workers in Asia, and a further 20 million men have sex with other men or are injecting drug users.

UNAIDS said many of these men are in steady relationships and it is estimated that 50 million women in the region are at risk of acquiring HIV from their partners.

“HIV prevention programs focused on the female partners of men with high-risk behaviors still have not found a place in national HIV plans and priorities in Asian countries,” Dr. Prasada Rao, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team Asia and the Pacific said at the launch of the report, according to a U.N. release.

The report notes that the strong patriarchal culture in Asian countries severely limits a woman’s ability to control her sex life.

While society tolerates extramarital sex and multiple partners for men, women are generally expected to refrain from sex until marriage and remain monogamous afterward, it said.

“Discrimination and violence against women and girls, endemic to our social fabric, are both the cause and consequence of AIDS,” Jean D’Cunha, South Asia regional director for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said in a statement. “Striking at the root of gender inequalities and striving to transform male behaviors are key to effectively addressing the pandemic.”

The report calls for stepped up efforts to prevent HIV infections for men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and clients of female sex workers. It said that programs should emphasize the importance of protecting their regular female partners.

One of 12 countries that prohibit HIV-positive immigrants from entering the country, the United States currently has mandatory testing as a part of the U.S. immigration screening process. Those who test positive for HIV are only able to enter the country with a waiver. The proposed removal would do away with both of these requirements.

“We’re trying to end the stigma and the discriminatory practice for a disease that doesn’t warrant exclusion for coming into this country,” Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, told MSNBC. “We have to appreciate this is not a threat we face from abroad.”

Active tuberculosis, syphilis, leprosy and gonorrhea are other diseases that prevent a person from entering the U.S. The sexually transmitted diseases lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), chancroid, and granuloma inguinale are also on that list.

Read the full Iowa Dependent story here.

Anna-Lise Williamson, an AIDS researcher at the University of Cape Town, told The Associated Press that the clinical vaccine trial that began Monday would continue with U.S. money. But she said South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology had stopped funding her research this year and the utility Eskom’s contract for funding ended last year and was not renewed.

Even though South Africa’s science minister appeared at a ceremony launching the vaccine trial with Williamson and lauded her research, neither he nor Eskom immediately returned calls seeking comment about funding.

At the ceremony, one of 36 healthy volunteers was injected Monday before officials and journalists in Cape Town’s Crossroads shantytown. The event was also attended by American health officials who gave technical help and manufactured the vaccine at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“For vaccine development presently, the South African AIDS Vaccine initiative has no money,” Williamson said. “If we do not continue working on this, we will never have a vaccine… it’s incredibly important that we keep working.”

The South African vaccine, developed at the University of Cape Town, targets the specific HIV strain that has ravaged South Africa.

During nearly 10 years of government denial and neglect, South Africa developed a staggering AIDS crisis. Around 5.2 million South Africans were living with HIV last year – the highest number of any country in the world. Young women are hardest hit, with one-third of those aged 20-to-34 infected with the virus.

AIDS vaccine researchers have met so many disappointments some activists are questioning the wisdom of continuing such expensive investments, saying the money might be better spent on prevention and education.

A new report says HIV vaccine research funding worldwide decreased for the first time since 2000, with investments of almost $1.2 billion in 2008, down 10 percent from 2007.

South Africa was also the site of the biggest setback to AIDS vaccine research, when the most promising vaccine ever, produced by Merck & Co. and tested here in 2007, found that people who got the vaccine were more likely to contract HIV than those who did not.

South African scientists working on the latest vaccine had to overcome deep skepticism from their political leaders, who had shocked the world with their unscientific pronouncements about the disease. Williamson said South Africa, at the heart of the epidemic, must press ahead with trials to test the safety of the vaccine.

“We have got the biggest ARV (anti-retroviral) rollout in the world and still hundreds of people are dying every day and getting infected everyday,” she said.

Williamson’s vaccine also is being tested at a trial of 12 volunteers in Boston that began earlier this year, said Anthony Mbewu, president of South Africa’s government-supported Medical Research Council that shepherded the project.

“It is being very well tolerated, no adverse events, so it is going very well,” Williamson said Monday.

The trial started in the U.S., partly to allay any criticism that the United States was collaborating in an AIDS vaccine that would use Africans as guinea pigs.

The government decided it was important to develop a vaccine specifically for the HIV subtype C strain that is prevalent in southern Africa “and to ensure that once developed, it would be available at an affordable price,” Mbewu said.

Some 250 scientists and technicians worked on the latest vaccine project.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a leading AIDS researcher, said the South African scientists received more money from his institute’s research fund than any others in the world except the U.S. The U.S. had paid to produce the vaccine.

He called it “the most important AIDS research partnership in the world.”

But he warned “There are extraordinary challenges ahead,” referring to the years of testing needed now that South Africa has reached the clinical trial stage.

At an international AIDS conference in Cape Town, Vice President Kgalema Motlanthe emphasized Sunday night that the clinical trials were being held “under strict ethical rules.”

Mbewu said the crisis in South Africa more than justifies the expenditure on AIDS research. AIDS strikes men and women alike in Africa, where the epidemic is fueled by the many people who have sex with several people at the same time.

In the 1990s, South Africa’s then-President Thabo Mbeki denied the link between HIV and AIDS, and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, mistrusted conventional anti-AIDS drugs and made the country a laughing stock trying to promote beets and lemon as AIDS remedies.

Williamson, a virologist, said the scientists had to fight constant controversy, including international organizations that tried to stop the state utility Eskom from funding the project. Eskom gave “huge amounts” regardless, she said.

“International organizations told Eskom that this was a terrible waste of money, that putting money into South African scientists was like backing the cart horse when they need to be backing the race horse,” she said.

Even her research director told her she was wasting her time.

“Most of them just made us more determined to prove them wrong,” Williamson said.

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said 11 men and 15 women each face a charge of unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and loud and boisterous behavior. Their names and ages were not immediately released.

Schneider said the group entered the rotunda, located beneath the Capitol dome, and linked themselves together with a white chain at about 10 a.m. The area is usually crowded with tourists, but police restricted the traffic while they made arrests.

The activists carried signs in support of funding for needle exchange, HIV/AIDS housing and programs aimed at fighting AIDS. They chanted, “Fight global AIDS now,” and, “Clean needles save lives.” They marched in a circle before lying down on the floor.

Police bound the activists hands together and dragged some of the demonstrators to their feet as they arrested them.

The arrests came one day before President Barack Obama is to arrive in Ghana, where 320,000 people are HIV positive, according to the United Nations’ AIDS fighting agency, UNAIDS.

The activists were part of a coalition of five AIDS groups from Washington, Philadelphia and New York. They included ACT UP Philadelphia, DC Fights Back, Health GAP, New York City AIDS Network and Housing Works.

Omolola Adele-Oso of DC Fights Back questioned why lawmakers were bailing out financial institutions instead of devoting more dollars to AIDS programs.

“HIV is not in a recession,” Adele-Oso said in a written statement from the coalition about the demonstration.

I’ve been all fire and brimstone on the Obama administration lately– and, I think, my anger has been justifiable.

But my overarching disappoitnment with how the administration is handling most issues important to the LGBT community doesn’t mean I’m incapable of recognizing the small, positive steps they’re taking in the right direction. Last week’s ceremony offering official apology to Dr. Frank Kameny for his 1957 firing from the civil service was a nice symbolic step, for example. The administration’s decision to insist of counting same-sex marriages in the 2010 census was also a sign of progress.

And then at the end of last week, we got an action that was more than just symbolic.

The Obama administration has taken the first step toward lifting the ban on HIV positive foreign citizens from entering the United States. The administration’s Office of Management and Budget posted a notice on Friday indicating that the department of Health and Human Services should begin the work to reverse its regulation which disallows HIV positive foreigners from entering the US.

Congress passed the policy change last year, and though the bill was signed by President Bush, it has not been implemented at this point.

The implementation likely has wide-ranging effects on both travel and immigration policy. Under the current law, foreign citizens who are HIV positive canont travel to the United States and immigrants can be subject to HIV testing, and deportation if they’re found to be HIV positive. The exact changes to be made in curent regulation will be determined by the Department of Health and Human Services, but the bill passed by Congress grants broad authority to overturn the ban completely.

With the slogan “Take the Test, Take Control,” NAPWA encourages all those at risk of HIV to get tested. Though the day started in 1995, NAPWA has worked for years to support  seeking voluntary testing and counseling if a person is at risk for HIV.

According to the official website, the National HIV Testing Day “was developed in response to the growing number of HIV infections in communities of color and other heavily impacted communities,” and that the CDC “estimates approximately 250,000 Americans are living with HIV but unaware of their HIV status.”

Visit the National HIV and STD Testing Resource website to find a testing location near you.

The economists cite the passage of bans on gay marriage, such as the recent passage and upholding of Proposition 8 in California, as causing more underground sexual behavior due to an increase in intolerance to homosexuality.

“We found the effects of tolerance for gays on HIV to be statistically significant and robust – they hold up under a range of empirical models,” says Hugo Mialon, an assistant professor of economics.

Andrew Francis, also an assistant professor of economics, said that policymakers will consider the two men’s research when ruling on gay marriage.

For more information, read the full Science Daily article here.

“The stigma and discrimination against homosexuals in Chinese society have prevented gay men from revealing their sexual orientation or taking HIV/AIDS tests and treatments, holding back the efforts to curb the disease,” Prof. Zhang Beichuan of Qingdao University told the official Xinhua news agency.

With the help of LGBT groups in nine major cities, Zhang polled men in gay bars and bath houses. Of the 2,250 gay men surveyed, 20.7 percent were married to women.

Other surveys have found that as many as 90 percent of China’s gay population is closeted.

“In western countries, only a fraction of homosexuals would get into heterosexual marriages. But in China, about 70 to 80 percent of gay men had the intention of marrying a woman sooner or later,” Zhang told Xinhua.

The survey found that about half of the men polled had looked for strangers to have sex. More than 18 percent participated in group sex and 13 percent said they paid for sex.

When questioned about sexually transmitted diseases, more than 20 percent said they had experienced an STD during the past six months. Less than a quarter had taken an HIV/AIDS test, with 2.2 percent positive.

Zhang told Xunhua that society needs to show a greater understanding and tolerance toward gays. He also said the government needs to provide better access to HIV/AIDS education.