Latest news with #AIDS
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Health
- Indian Express
Meghalaya mulling law to make HIV testing mandatory before marriage: Health minister
The Meghalaya government is thinking about making a new law to make HIV/AIDS testing mandatory before marriage in view of the rising number of cases in the state, Health minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said on Friday. Meghalaya ranks sixth nationally in terms of HIV/AIDS prevalence, with the northeastern region facing a high burden overall, she said. 'If Goa has made testing compulsory, why shouldn't Meghalaya have its own set of laws? These laws would benefit the larger community,' Lyngdoh told PTI. 'The state is mentally prepared to take strong actions,' she added. The Health minister attended a meeting chaired by the Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong, which was also attended by Social Welfare minister Paul Lyngdoh and eight MLAs from East Khasi Hills district to formulate a comprehensive HIV/AIDS policy in a mission mode. The Heath department has been directed to prepare a cabinet note for the policy. The Health minister said the government will hold similar meetings in the Garo Hills and Jaintia Hills regions to develop area-specific strategies, in consultation with bureaucrats and medical professionals. She expressed alarm over the spike in cases, revealing that East Khasi Hills alone has recorded 3,432 HIV/AIDS cases, of which only 1,581 patients are receiving treatment. 'We have spoken only about East Khasi Hills, and the number is very high. The highest in the state is unfortunately in the Jaintia Hills region, both West and East,' she said. The Health minister also stressed that while awareness is no longer a major issue, the real challenge lies in improving testing and screening. She said 159 deaths have been attributed to the loss of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) treatment in the district. 'We must ensure that everyone who has been tested is brought into the treatment system. HIV/AIDS is not fatal if treated properly, just like cancer or TB,' she said. The minister noted that the primary mode of transmission in the state is sexual interaction, adding that injecting drug use is not yet a dominant factor due to challenges in identifying users.
CBS News
12 hours ago
- Business
- CBS News
Trump signs rescissions bill clawing back foreign aid, NPR and PBS funding
Washington — President Trump signed legislation to claw back $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding, the first time in decades that Congress has approved a president's request to rescind previously approved funding. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said Thursday that the package was "officially signed." Both the Senate and House passed the legislation, known as a rescissions request, in overnight votes last week before a July 18 deadline. Each chamber ran into different hurdles in getting it over the finish line ahead of the deadline, after which the funds would have had to be spent as Congress originally intended. The bill targets roughly $8 billion for foreign assistance programs, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. The package also includes about $1 billion in funding cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public radio and television stations, including NPR and PBS. Though all but two Republican senators ended up supporting final passage in the upper chamber, some said they had reservations about doing so, especially because they had not received details from the administration about how the broader cuts would impact specific programs. Two major points of contention were funding for a global AIDS prevention program and radio and broadcast stations in rural and tribal areas, which play a critical role in communicating emergency alerts and other information to residents. The final version of the package removed $400 million in cuts to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR, in an effort to appease some critics. The administration promised to find funding elsewhere to alleviate the cuts to the rural stations to win over others. Two House Republicans also opposed its passage in the lower chamber. Republicans said they expect it will be the first of multiple packages to claw back funding that they have characterized as "waste, fraud and abuse." Any future request is sure to spark another battle with lawmakers, some of whom have criticized the legislative body for giving up its budget oversight and ceding to the president's demands.
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
The week Clinton and Epstein became close friends
When Bill Clinton needed a plane for a whirlwind tour of Africa, his fixer knew the man to call. In the autumn of 2002, the silver-haired former president with a megawatt smile was down on his luck and deep in debt. Why not ask Jeffrey Epstein, the secretive financier known as a fixer for some of the richest people in the US, said Doug Band, Mr Clinton's chief counsellor. The nine-day trip the men then shared has now become a subject of intense focus for allies of the current occupant of the White House – who is struggling to shift the news agenda on from his own ties to the deceased paedophile whose 'little black book' contained 14 phone numbers for Donald Trump, and 21 for Mr Clinton. On Wednesday, a key Trump ally in Congress organised a successful vote to subpoena both Mr Clinton and his wife, Hillary. Should they be deposed, they will be questioned once more about what they knew of the child sex-trafficking ring that was, at the very least, run right under the noses of the richest and most powerful people in the US. 'I'm never going to let this story go, because of what I heard from a source about Bill Clinton on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein,' said Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, shortly before he took office. Mr Clinton, now 78, has always denied having had any knowledge of the 'terrible crimes' committed by Epstein. 'I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing,' he wrote in his 2024 memoir, Citizen: My Life after the White House. But there was enough strange behaviour on Epstein's luxury Boeing 727 jet for Mr Band to claim he subsequently advised the former president to end their relationship. On September 21st 2002, Mr Clinton climbed on board along with Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein himself. Also present was a 21-year-old masseuse, Chauntae Davis, who later testified that she was repeatedly raped and abused by Epstein. 'The Lolita Express', as the aircraft would become known, had multiple private compartments and a 'Round Room' with a doughnut-shaped couch, according to its pilot. The cockpit door was always closed. When not in the air, Mr Clinton glad-handed with prime ministers and fellow presidents, beginning his relaunch as the kind of global statesman who could help to solve intractable problems such as the spread of HIV/AIDS, and not an incorrigible Lothario who received oral sex from an intern in the Oval Office. Providing the funds for this transformation – and basking in his proximity to power – was Epstein. It was a report on their trip in the New York Post's 'Page 6' that turned the shadowy fund-manger into a figure of nationwide gossip, prompting two eyebrow-raising profiles in Vanity Fair and New York Magazine. Asked for his opinion of Epstein after the trip, the former president offered his gratitude but did not suggest the two were friends. 'Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist,' he told New York Magazine. 'I especially appreciate his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa.' Epstein, for his part, reportedly told friends that Mr Clinton stunned foreign leaders in the same way Mike Tyson would if he walked into a downtown gym, saying 'He's the world's greatest politician'. There is no suggestion that Mr Clinton was aware of how Epstein treated Ms Davis, who was among dozens of young women known to hang around the bachelor. But it hurt his reputation when a photograph was released in 2020 of the young woman giving him a massage. In the image, taken in a Portuguese airport en route to Africa, Ms Davis stands behind the former president, kneading his shoulders. '[Clinton's] stupid but he's not an idiot,' one source told the reporters Daniel Halper and Alana Goodman, denying Mr Clinton was engaged in sex with the young women who surrounded Epstein. But he was 'getting it on' with Maxwell, claimed the source, who was quoted in the journalists' 2020 book 'A Convenient Death: The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein'. A Clinton spokesman has called this claim 'a total lie'. That the two had a rapport is clear. Another image from the Africa trip shows them standing side-by-side at the top of the stairs up to the cockpit, with Mr Clinton's hand on Maxwell's shoulder. On a stop-over on the way back to the US, the former president joined in the cheeky tour Prince Andrew led around Buckingham Palace, in which Maxwell and Kevin Spacey were pictured sitting side-by-side in thrones reserved for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. Even after Epstein's abuse was first uncovered the pair remained in contact, with Maxwell invited to the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010. By then, Epstein had finished his 13-month prison sentence for sexually abusing a minor – and Maxwell had been served with deposition papers in a separate civil suit. On Thursday, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche was due to meet with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year-sentence for procuring underage girls for Epstein to have sex with. Democrats have warned that Mr Blanche could float a full pardon for Maxwell in exchange for 'information that politically benefits President Trump'. Others have speculated she may be willing to stretch the truth in order to get out of prison. In 2020, Mr Band, Clinton's former fixer, gave what remains the most revealing interview about life on board Epstein's plane on that fateful Africa trip. Epstein, he told Vanity Fair, made a series of ridiculous claims, including that he had invented the derivatives market. While unaware of Epstein's crimes, Mr Band said he got enough bad vibes to advise a cease to all relations. The advice, apparently, was not immediately followed. Mr Clinton has long denied ever having visited Little St James', Epstein's private island in the Caribbean where much of his abuse took place. But Mr Band – who fell-out with his former employer before the interview – claimed he did indeed visit, in January 2003, on a trip he declined to attend himself. A spokesman for the Clintons provided Vanity Fair with a detailed travelogue that contained no evidence of such a journey. That Epstein got a kick out of his ties to Mr Clinton was evident. In his appeal against further sex trafficking charges in 2019, his lawyers said he had been one of the originators of the idea for the Clinton Global Initiative, casting it as proof of his good intentions and, implicitly, of friends in high places. A signed photograph of Clinton was displayed in his New York mansion and, later, Epstein bought a painting of the former president in red high heels and a blue-dress – just like the one Monica Lewinsky reportedly wore for their Oval Office encounter. Before it was ever hung on the wall, Mr Clinton did set some distance between himself and his rich acquaintance. In late 2003, Epstein organised a dinner in honour of Mr Clinton in New York. Also in attendance were Lord Mandelson and David Blaine, who performed card tricks to 'barely clad' models, New York magazine reported. Mr Clinton, however, never showed up. And Mr Trump's efforts to turn the focus on to his political rival are complicated by another name on the guest-list that night – his own.
Hindustan Times
14 hours ago
- Health
- Hindustan Times
As cases rise, Meghalaya says it may mandate HIV/AIDS testing before marriage
SHILLONG: Meghalaya health minister Ampareen Lyngdoh on Thursday said the state could make pre-marital testing for HIV mandatory across the state as one of the steps to curb the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS. Ampareen Lyngdoh said HIV/AIDS cases in East Khasi Hills alone have doubled to 3,432, but only 1,581 patients were under treatment (X/ampareenlyngdoh) 'We are mentally prepared to take strong actions,' Lyngdoh said after a meeting chaired by deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong and eight legislators from the East Khasi Hills to discuss the rising cases of HIV in their constituencies. 'The numbers are scary. And it's time Meghalaya takes the monster by its neck,' Lyngdoh declared. Lyngdoh said HIV/AIDS cases in East Khasi Hills alone have doubled to 3,432, but only 1,581 patients were under treatment. She added that 681 patients hadn't turned up for follow-ups, raising red flags over the state's ability to retain patients within the treatment net. 'Today, we discussed only East Khasi Hills. But the most alarming numbers are actually from West and East Jaiñtia Hills. The virus is no longer a threat—it's a full-blown crisis,' she warned. The minister said the government would refrain from disclosing location-specific data to prevent stigma but confirmed that Meghalaya's HIV/AIDS burden has reached critical levels. In this context, she said the government was seriously considering making HIV testing compulsory before marriage. 'If Goa can do it, why can't Meghalaya?' Lyngdoh asked, adding that the state may introduce laws for the community's well-being. Lyngdoh said they would now sit with legal experts and the department to see how legislation of this nature can be framed. We're no longer in denial,' the minister said. To be sure, Goa - like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh – has debated the idea of mandating pre-marital testing for nearly two decades but has not enacted a law. For one, it has been argued that mandating testing before marriage would have limited utility if people were having pre-marital sex. UNAIDS and WHO also strongly oppose mandatory or compulsory HIV testing and advocate for voluntary, confidential testing with informed consent. Lyngdoh said the challenge also lies in ramping up testing and ensuring access to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART). Citing government data, Lyngdoh revealed that 159 patients have died after dropping out of ART treatment, which she called an 'unacceptable' figure. 'HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence. It is manageable like cancer or TB—there's a clear treatment protocol. We just need people to come forward,' she said. However, a large number of people remain reluctant to get tested, which hinders surveillance and treatment efforts. 'There are likely many more in our communities who remain undiagnosed. That's the scariest part,' she cautioned. The minister said unlike other states, Meghalaya hadn't been able to identify the population of injecting drug users. 'That tells us our testing and tracking systems need urgent overhaul,' Lyngdoh said. The government plans to hold region-wise consultations across Garo Hills and Jaiñtia Hills, involving senior doctors and bureaucrats, before finalising a new policy. The policy blueprint, once prepared, will be brought before the cabinet.
Economist
19 hours ago
- Health
- Economist
Rethinking the war on AIDS
AIDS AND HIV, the virus that causes it, once sparked fear across the world. Apocalyptic forecasters in early 2002 reckoned that in some southern African countries half of new mothers would soon die of AIDS. Tens of millions of lives would be lost over coming decades. Economies would be devastated. Instead, what was arguably the most effective foreign-aid programme ever was introduced in 2003 by President George W. Bush.
