Latest news with #HIV
The Citizen
19 minutes ago
- Health
- The Citizen
Shining a light to dispel stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS
In a powerful display of solidarity and support, the Inkosi Langalibalele Local Aids Council (LAC), in partnership with the People Living with HIV (PLHIV) sector, hosted a moving Candlelight Memorial yesterday (May 29). Held at the Nyezane Community Hall, the event brought together community members, government departments and support organisations in a unified stand against the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. More than just a day of remembrance, the gathering served as a beacon of hope – honouring lives lost, uplifting those still on the journey, and recognising the tireless efforts of volunteers and caregivers. With local councillor M Kubheka leading the way, the symbolic lighting of candles reflected a shared commitment to compassion, awareness and longevity for people living with HIV. Also read: Shock as rape allegations surface at Estcourt school The event was a success that saw Kubheka surrounded by government departments, members of the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPWA) and the PLHIV sector to successfully turn on the lights. The annual memorial continues to be a moment where voices are heard, lives are celebrated, and communities come together to inspire change. Click to receive news links via WhatsApp. Or for the latest news, visit our webpage or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Join us there! At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside Bill Gates' meeting with his foundation's staff after his $200 billion bombshell: ‘How do we get people to care?'
Bill Gates had a question for the employees of his charitable foundation, which he recently announced will spend $200 billion to reduce disease and death among the world's poorest. 'How do you get people to care?' the Microsoft founder asked at the Gates Foundation's annual meeting this month. 'We're going to have to up our game quite a bit.' Hundreds of Gates Foundation employees—many flown in from the foundation's country offices in India, China, South Africa, and elsewhere—filled an amphitheater across the street from the world's largest private philanthropy's two-winged headquarters in Seattle. This year's event came at a remarkable moment: Employees had just learned that the operation they work for will no longer exist 20 years from now. On its 25th anniversary, the Gates Foundation announced that after doubling its spending in the next 20 years, it will shutter operations. The $200 billion it will spend is the largest philanthropic commitment in modern history. Walking into the dimly lit auditorium, Gates received a standing ovation from the mezzanine down to the front row. 'We are at an amazing milestone,' said the foundation's cofounder. Gates began by celebrating the progress made in the foundation's first quarter-century, including the reduction by half of childhood deaths, and successes fighting malaria, polio, and other infectious diseases. He teared up as he mentioned the people—his mother, father, fellow philanthropist Warren Buffett, and ex-wife and foundation cofounder Melinda French Gates—who have influenced him the most in his philanthropy. The tone was far from triumphal, however. Even as Gates laid out the foundation's big ambitions—including eradicating polio and malaria, and reducing deaths from tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS by 90%—he warned of how far there is to go, bemoaned the sector's fragility, and said the recent drastic cuts to foreign aid from the United States and other top donor countries are already threatening the last two decades' progress. 'It's going to take our very best work to get this reversed, our advocacy to get the resources restored,' Gates told the foundation's staff. And he said, he's looking for 'amazing, low-cost innovation, so we can take what remains and actually get those figures going back in the right direction.' CEO Mark Suzman spoke for many when he expressed rage at the cuts in aid from wealthy countries. Gates and his foundation had made the decision to pursue these ambitious public health goals before the Trump administration's gutting of the United States' main international aid agency, USAID—and several other countries are also cutting their international aid budgets. 'Make no mistake, we are entering a new era, one in which, as you've heard, the world's poorest people can no longer rely on strong, steady support from the world's richest nations,' Suzman said. 'It is okay to be frustrated… We never thought we'd have to fight so hard to justify the importance of our work.' But, he continued: 'This is a fight we are ready for.' Reached after the gathering, one staff member at the foundation said that colleagues' mood has been 'pretty optimistic and enthusiastic' after the $200 billion announcement. 'We are super energized thinking about what legacy building looks like and how we can work ourselves out of a job by building local capacity and empowering our partners to continue the mission,' the staffer wrote to Fortune. Suzman said the foundation's goals have not changed. 'When critical coalitions seem to crumble before our eyes, we cannot just shrink our ambitions,' he said. 'When the very idea of hope for a better future starts to sound naïve or out of date, we must remind people that our optimism does not come easily. It has been hard-earned. It is not based on blind faith, but concrete, measurable results.' Gates asked his employees to reinvigorate their drive to achieve the foundation's core mission, bring new partners along, and invest in the potential of AI to help alleviate poverty and play a key role in drug discovery. 'I really believe, and I hope it's not a naive belief, that we can achieve—despite the headwinds—even more over the next 20 years than we did in the first 25,' he said. This story was originally featured on
Fox News
36 minutes ago
- General
- Fox News
I'm a physician and I'm worried that our health agencies are facing increasing chaos
The American health system is bleeding out, and it desperately needs a real doctor. Leading Health and Human Services (HHS) today is like navigating a chaotic hospital — patients in every hallway, monitors screaming, seconds ticking away. Yet, instead of a seasoned physician who triages and trusts proven protocols, that hospital is overseen by an activist named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A patient's oxygen level plummets; nurses turn to HHS Secretary Kennedy. Instead of orders, they get a lecture on conspiracies. Chaos follows. That chaos is now national. Our health agencies are trying to perform open-heart surgery while debating the effectiveness of a scalpel. Scientists who should be developing next-generation cancer vaccines are, instead, defending 60-year-old elementary science. Conspiracy ideology is beginning to take over, and we're all going to pay the price. I'm a board-certified physician and one of the most-followed online, and since Kennedy took office, I've been forced to swap from fact-checking Instagram influencers to fact-checking the nation's top public-health official. Our nation's health system is in shambles, and the leadership of HHS plays a pivotal role in fixing this disaster. That's why it's deeply alarming that Kennedy, who continues to spread misinformation and denies the fundamentals of medicine, remains at the helm of the agency. Although he claims he's "not anti-vaccine," his words and actions tell a different story. He recklessly attacks vaccine efficacy, spreads disproven theories linking vaccines to autism, and denies fundamental virology — from diseases like HIV, measles, and more. I'm all for healthy skepticism, but scientific skepticism means investigating data, not cherry-picking it … or making it up. These aren't privately held beliefs either — a post on his active X account states that the HPV vaccine "increases cervical-cancer risk" all despite mountains of real-world data showing up to 88% drops in cancer among vaccinated teens. Sweden, England, and even the CDC surveillance report plunging pre-cancer rates. Recently, he claimed, "50% of the population is diabetic" and that "one out of every three kids" already has the disease. In reality, true estimates put China's diabetes prevalence around 12%, and the U.S. pediatric figure closer to one in 300. If one of my interns inflated numbers by a factor of 10, they'd be sent back to remedial math. Kennedy does it regularly on primetime television. Worse, he's now canceled $12 billion in disease outbreak prevention programs, proposed a 26% cut to the NIH budget, and pink-slipped roughly 20,000 public-health scientists and staff. Those decisions have consequences: dozens of federally funded vaccine clinics in Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, Texas and Washington were canceled just as measles cases blew past 1,000 — the worst surge in a generation. He's dismantling the firehouse while buildings are burning. Public health cannot survive an HHS head who guts the programs that keep us safe and then fans the very myths that make outbreaks explode. Kennedy's long record of undermining proven public health measures and spreading scientific falsehoods makes him a threat to millions of Americans. Certainly, he should never have been confirmed to lead the office in the first place, but choosing to leave him in charge is like handing the keys to a driver who continues to insist that stop signs and red lights are optional. Today, I say that Kennedy is the wrong person to lead HHS. The integrity of our nation's health agencies demands leadership grounded in facts, research, and transparency — not misinformation. Doctors like me take an oath to 'do no harm.' We must call out leaders like Secretary Kennedy when they cause great harm to public health. We must stop the bleeding.
USA Today
an hour ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Jerry West was hospitalized after bringing Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant to the Lakers
Jerry West was hospitalized after bringing Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant to the Lakers After Magic Johnson was forced to retire from the NBA because he tested HIV positive in November 1991, the Los Angeles Lakers went into purgatory. They had an aging roster, and they decided to start over and rebuild rather than fight to hold onto a shred of respectability. They managed to miss the playoffs once in 1994 before returning there the following year and upsetting the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round. But they weren't championship contenders and didn't have a superstar, and late executive Jerry West knew that merely being good wouldn't be good enough for their spoiled fan base. In the summer of 1996, they had the opportunity to snag the biggest of superstars this side of Michael Jordan. Shaquille O'Neal wasn't fully content with being on a strong Orlando Magic team, and he became a free agent that summer. Better yet, he was just 24 years of age and a bigger-than-life personality who seemed tailor-made for Los Angeles. West managed to land O'Neal, and in the process, he also landed the draft rights to a 17-year-old prodigy named Kobe Bryant. But bidding against the Magic for O'Neal pushed him to the limit emotionally, and once the job was done, he was spent. He admitted in an interview with Graham Bensinger that he was hospitalized after he won the bidding war for the dominant center. "After that was done and the draft was done, I had to go in the hospital for three days," West said. "I was just emotionally spent and exhausted. ... One day, I went to see the doctor, and he said, the day after that, he said, 'we're going to have to put you in a hospital.' And I was there for three days. I was absolutely listless. I had no energy at all." As brilliant as West was as the main man in the Lakers' front office, he was often a nervous and anxious man. He likely thrived off of that type of energy, but the growing pains the Lakers had as they rebuilt throughout the 1990s took a toll on him. In fact, he seriously considered quitting his front office role in 1998. He did end up leaving his post in 2000 after they had finally won it all. Two more championships would follow in the next two years, and after a very rocky retooling process in the middle of the 2000s, they won two more world titles with Bryant and Hall of Fame big man Pau Gasol in 2009 and 2010. It's pretty safe to say that the emotional and physical toll West went through in 1996 was worth it.
GMA Network
an hour ago
- Health
- GMA Network
DOH monitoring mild variant of monkeypox in PH
The Department of Health (DOH) allayed the fears of the public as the monkeypox cases being monitored in the country are of Clade II variant, the mild variant of the said disease. According to Chino Gaston's report in '24 Oras' on Friday, the DOH, however, assured that it is on guard to prevent the entry of the more transmissible Clade 1b variant to the country. 'All of them are mpox Clade II. Wala pa kaming nakitang mpox Clade 1b sa Pilipinas. Yung [Clade] II, very mild, self-limiting, at tsaka ang transmission niya ay skin-to-skin contact,' said Health Secretary Ted Herbosa. (All of them are mpox Clade II. We have yet to monitor any mpox Clade 1b in the Philippines. The Clade II variant is very mild, self-limiting, and the transmission is only through skin-to-skin contact.) The DOH chief added that some of the fatalities it recorded did not die of mpox, but due to complications brought about by advanced human immunodeficiency virus or HIV. The latest mpox case logged was a resident from Maco, Davao de Oro. The patient has already recovered, but there were two other suspected cases in Maco and in Nabunturan. Another case was also reported in Iloilo Province but was also declared recovered by the provincial health office. In Iloilo City, on the other hand, four individuals are under isolation and monitoring due to suspected infection. Meanwhile, the local authorities in Bacolod City will strictly monitor hotels, spas, wet markets, and terminals to prevent any outbreaks. Among the symptoms to watch out for include a skin rash or mucosal lesions, which can last two to four weeks. The rashes are accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, and swollen lymph nodes. There is no cure to mpox for now, but isolation, proper care, and rest for up to four weeks would suffice for recovery. — Vince Angelo Ferreras/BAP, GMA Integrated News
