logo
Haitians with HIV defy stigma as they publicly denounce USAID cuts and dwindling medication

Haitians with HIV defy stigma as they publicly denounce USAID cuts and dwindling medication

Washington Post24-05-2025

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A video showing dozens of people marching toward the office of Haiti's prime minister elicited gasps from some viewers as it circulated recently on social media. The protesters, who were HIV positive , did not conceal their faces — a rare occurrence in a country where the virus is still heavily stigmatized.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

A New Shot Prevents HIV—and Breathes New Life Into a Stagnant Biotech
A New Shot Prevents HIV—and Breathes New Life Into a Stagnant Biotech

Wall Street Journal

time2 hours ago

  • Wall Street Journal

A New Shot Prevents HIV—and Breathes New Life Into a Stagnant Biotech

Later this month, the Food and Drug Administration is widely expected to approve a groundbreaking twice-yearly injection to prevent HIV—a milestone in the decadeslong fight against a once-devastating disease. For Gilead Sciences GILD -0.28%decrease; red down pointing triangle, the dominant player in HIV treatment, the breakthrough is doing what years of splashy but underwhelming acquisitions failed to achieve: It has Wall Street paying attention again. Since reporting last June that just two annual shots of lenacapavir prevented all HIV infections in a study of women and girls, shares have surged 73%.

Top 10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy
Top 10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy

Business Insider

time3 hours ago

  • Business Insider

Top 10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy

Despite being one of Africa's largest economies, Nigeria struggles with systemic challenges that shorten lifespans, including widespread infectious diseases, high poverty rates, insecurity, and a lack of adequate healthcare and infrastructure. Business Insider Africa presents the top 10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy. The list is courtesy of the UN's World Population Prospect. For instance, Nigeria's average life expectancy of 54.6 years is a stark contrast to Monaco, where people live the longest. Most of us don't sit around wondering how long we'll live. But the average life expectancy in your country says a lot more than just how many birthdays people might celebrate. It's a powerful indicator of how well a society is doing when it comes to healthcare, living conditions, education, nutrition, and even political stability. Globally, life expectancy can vary depending on where you're born. According to the latest World Population Prospects report by the United Nations, there's a stark divide between high-income and low-income nations. Wealthier countries, equipped with advanced healthcare systems, cleaner environments, and better infrastructure, tend to have significantly higher life expectancies than poorer nations that grapple with disease, malnutrition, conflict, and poor access to healthcare. Unfortunately, Africa dominates at the bottom of the global life expectancy chart. Of the 25 countries with the lowest life expectancy in the world, 24 are on the African continent. This isn't just a coincidence, it reflects deep-seated challenges like underfunded healthcare systems, limited access to clean water and sanitation, high rates of infectious diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS, and ongoing political or economic instability in many regions. For instance, Nigeria's average life expectancy of 54.6 years is a stark contrast to Monaco, where people live the longest, with an average of nearly 87 years, a gap of more than 32 years. Despite being one of Africa's largest economies, Nigeria struggles with systemic challenges that shorten lifespans, including widespread infectious diseases, high poverty rates, insecurity, and a lack of adequate healthcare and infrastructure. Below are the top 10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy: Rank Country Life Expectancy (Both Sexes) Life Expectancy (Male) Life Expectancy (Female) 1 Nigeria 🇳🇬 54.6 54.3 54.9 2 Chad 🇹🇩 55.2 53.4 57.2 3 South Sudan 🇸🇸 57.7 54.8 60.8 4 Central African Republic 🇨🇫 57.7 55.5 59.6 5 Lesotho 🇱🇸 57.8 55.0 60.4 6 Somalia 🇸🇴 59.0 56.5 61.5 7 Mali 🇲🇱 60.7 59.3 62.1 8 Guinea 🇬🇳 60.9 59.7 59.7 9 Benin 🇧🇯 61.0 59.5 62.4 10 Burkina Faso 🇧🇫 61.3 59.1 63.4

Breakthrough in search for HIV cure leaves researchers ‘overwhelmed'
Breakthrough in search for HIV cure leaves researchers ‘overwhelmed'

Yahoo

time3 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Breakthrough in search for HIV cure leaves researchers ‘overwhelmed'

A cure for HIV could be a step closer after researchers found a new way to force the virus out of hiding inside human cells. The virus's ability to conceal itself inside certain white blood cells has been one of the main challenges for scientists looking for a cure. It means there is a reservoir of the HIV in the body, capable of reactivation, that neither the immune system nor drugs can tackle. Now researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, have demonstrated a way to make the virus visible, paving the way to fully clear it from the body. It is based on mRNA technology, which came to prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic when it was used in vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. In a paper published in Nature Communications, the researchers have shown for the first time that mRNA can be delivered into the cells where HIV is hiding, by encasing it in a tiny, specially formulated fat bubble. The mRNA then instructs the cells to reveal the virus. Globally, there are almost 40 million people living with HIV, who must take medication for the rest of their lives in order to suppress the virus and ensure they do not develop symptoms or transmit it. For many it remains deadly, with UNAids figures suggesting one person died of HIV every minute in 2023. It was 'previously thought impossible' to deliver mRNA to the type of white blood cell that is home to HIV, said Dr Paula Cevaal, research fellow at the Doherty Institute and co-first author of the study, because those cells did not take up the fat bubbles, or lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), used to carry it. The team have developed a new type of LNP that those cells will accept, known as LNP X. She said: 'Our hope is that this new nanoparticle design could be a new pathway to an HIV cure.' When a colleague first presented test results at the lab's weekly meeting, Cevaal said, they seemed too good to be true. 'We sent her back into the lab to repeat it, and she came back the next week with results that were equally good. So we had to believe it. And of course, since then, we've repeated it many, many, many more times. 'We were overwhelmed by how [much of a] night and day difference it was – from not working before, and then all of a sudden it was working. And all of us were just sitting gasping like, 'wow'.' Further research will be needed to determine whether revealing the virus is enough to allow the body's immune system to deal with it, or whether the technology will need to be combined with other therapies to eliminate HIV from the body. The study is laboratory based and was carried out in cells donated by HIV patients. The path to using the technology as part of a cure for patients is long, and would require successful tests in animals followed by safety trials in humans, likely to take years, before efficacy trials could even begin. 'In the field of biomedicine, many things eventually don't make it into the clinic – that is the unfortunate truth; I don't want to paint a prettier picture than what is the reality,' stressed Cevaal. 'But in terms of specifically the field of HIV cure, we have never seen anything close to as good as what we are seeing, in terms of how well we are able to reveal this virus. 'So from that point of view, we're very hopeful that we are also able to see this type of response in an animal, and that we could eventually do this in humans.' Dr Michael Roche of the University of Melbourne and co-senior author of the research, said the discovery could have broader implications beyond HIV, with the relevant white blood cells also involved in other diseases including cancers. Dr Jonathan Stoye, a retrovirologist and emeritus scientist at the Francis Crick Institute, who was not involved in the study, said the approach taken by the Melbourne team appeared be a major advance on existing strategies to force the virus out of hiding, but further studies would be needed to determine how best to kill it after that. He added: 'Ultimately, one big unknown remains. Do you need to eliminate the entire reservoir for success or just the major part? If just 10% of the latent reservoir survives will that be sufficient to seed new infection? Only time will tell. 'However, that does not detract from the significance of the current study, which represents a major potential advance in delivery of mRNA for therapeutic purposes to blood cells.' Prof Tomáš Hanke of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, disputed the idea that getting RNA into white blood cells had been a significant challenge. He said the hope that all cells in the body where HIV was hiding could be reached in this way was 'merely a dream'.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store