News (Noticias) Tagged ‘HIV’

The Kaiser Family Foundation and Univision Communications Inc, the nation’s leading Spanish-language media company today unveiled “SOY…” (”I AM…”), a groundbreaking Spanish-language media campaign featuring the personal stories of a diverse group of Latinos living with HIV and the people who love them. The campaign was previewed today for approximately 3,000 members of the HIV/AIDS community during the opening plenary session of the 2008 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. SOY… will debut nationally on Univision network and radio in conjunction with National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD) on October 15th and continue throughout 2009.

For the first time in a national media campaign, SOY… profiles HIV-positive Latinos and their loved ones speaking openly about subjects not commonly discussed in Hispanic households. Campaign participants range in age from two teenage sisters (one positive, one negative) from Los Angeles to a 77-year-old grandmother in Puerto Rico and her daughter in Miami who has been living with HIV for more than ten years.

Developed by Univision and the Kaiser Family Foundation, SOY… includes 12 original public service ads (PSAs) each in television and radio formats and Spanish-language HIV/AIDS information and resources available online through a dedicated website (www.univision.com Uniclave: SIDA) and via a toll-free Spanish-language hotline (1-866-TU-SALUD). The campaign was developed as part of Enterate del VIH y SIDA! (Get the Facts about HIV and AIDS!), a long-standing public information partnership established in 2001 between Univision and the Kaiser Family Foundation to provide culturally relevant Spanish-language information and resources about HIV/AIDS.

“Univision has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation, building on Univision’s legacy of informing and empowering our audience,” said Ivelisse Estrada, senior vice president, Corporate and Community Relations for Univision Communications. “SOY… encourages families to openly discuss the topic of HIV/AIDS.”

“Despite its significant impact on the Latino community, AIDS is not discussed in many households,” said Tina Hoff, vice president and director of Entertainment Media Partnerships at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “By helping to personalize HIV/AIDS through the individuals who opened their lives for this campaign, SOY… seeks to break down the stigma that allows this disease to spread.”

Emmy-winning Univision journalist, Teresa Rodriguez, previewed SOY… today at USCA during a special plenary session examining the AIDS crisis facing U.S. Latinos. As part of the session, SOY… participants “Dee” and “Milagros” were joined by Dr. Carmen Zorrilla, an HIV-specialist OB-GYN at the University Hospital in Puerto Rico, and Guillermo Chacon of the Latino Commission on AIDS for an intimate discussion of the importance of speaking openly about HIV with family and loved ones, in schools, at churches and throughout the Latino community.

SOY… is an official media component of NLAAD. Univision and Kaiser are working with the Latino Commission on AIDS and the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) to distribute HIV/AIDS information resources and SOY… programming materials to community organizations, state and local health departments and local clinics across the country.

About HIV/AIDS and U.S. Latinos
Of the approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States, about 200,000 are Latino. Latinos have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, accounting for 19 percent of AIDS cases diagnosed in 2006 while comprising only 15 percent of the U.S. population. Latinos are testing positive for HIV, being diagnosed with AIDS and dying from the disease at higher rates than whites in the United States. As the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States, addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS in the Latino community takes on increased importance in efforts to improve the nation’s health.”

On the day of the opening ceremonies of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, President Felipe Calderon announced his plans to lift a Mexican Ministry of Economy requirement that pharmaceutical companies operating in Mexico must have a manufacturing plant in that country in order to use or sell generic versions of their lifesaving AIDS and other drugs in Mexico. This regulation has been an onerous and archaic requirement that has all but crippled the availability of far less expensive generic versions of drugs throughout the country. Calderon’s new policy is to take effect immediately.

“President Calderon’s repeal of the requirement that drug companies have manufacturing plants in Mexico in order for any company to import, use or sell generic copies of drugs is tremendous news for Mexicans in desperate need of access to lifesaving medications for HIV/AIDS and other diseases,” said Dra. Patricia Campos, Latin America Bureau Chief for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation AHF and a member of the ‘Coalicion de Activistas por el Accesso Universal en VIH/SIDA’. “I believe President Calderon’s actions earlier today came in no small measure thanks to the ongoing advocacy efforts of a growing group of dedicated activists in Mexico who have been pushing the government and industry on this issue. We salute President Calderon for his forward-thinking action which should dramatically improve and save the lives of countless Mexicans. It was the right thing for President Calderon to do with or without the pressure from activists; he did it, and we thank him for overturning this outdated requirement.”

About AHF

AIDS Healthcare Foundation AHF is the nation’s largest non-profit HIV/AIDS organization. AHF currently provides medical care and/or services to more than 79,000 individuals in 20 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia. Additional information is available at www.aidshealth.org

Contacts

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Mexico
Dra. Patricia Campos López
Chief Latin American Bureau
MX direct 01152 33 35 85 31 17
U.S. mobile 1213-361-2524
MX mobile 01152 33 34 82 92 07

In an apparent reversal of CDC’s January 2008 decision to revise the number of new Hispanic HIV/AIDS diagnoses based on the inclusion of Puerto Ricans as Hispanics, the latest CDC report released in August 2008, entitled “Estimation of HIV Incidence in the United States”, again failed to include Puerto Ricans in the AIDS incidence among Hispanics, thereby grossly undercounting the diagnosis rates among Hispanics. This conscious undercounting has a direct impact on the allocation of funding and resources brought to bear on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Hispanic community, as well as creating confusion regarding the success or failure of prevention efforts.

CDC’s January 2008 decision to revise the number of new Hispanic HIV/AIDS diagnoses to include Puerto Rican Hispanics diagnosed with AIDS in 2006, dramatically raised the total HIV/AIDS diagnoses rates for Hispanics from 17.3% to 22%, demonstrating, for the first time, that Puerto Rico alone accounted for 20% of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 2006 among Hispanics in the country. This decision was a strong step forward in reflecting the numbers of Latinos impacted.

“The decision to exclude Puerto Ricans from the Hispanic incidence analysis is perplexing. The CDC made a positive step forward in its original decision to include Hispanics, but has subsequently taken two steps back by again excluding Puerto Ricans from the Hispanic incidence rates. We will never have accurate estimate of HIV incidence in the Hispanic community if this discrimination continues”, said Dennis deLeon, President of the Latino Commission on AIDS.

“We call on everyone to mobilize, demand respect, and call for recognition from CDC of the health crisis that HIV/AIDS represents in our Latino\Hispanic communities in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands”, stated Guillermo Chacon, Vice President of the Latino Commission on AIDS. “We will not allow our experience of the epidemic to be invisible. Our health crisis is real. We want an accurate picture of the impact of HIV/AIDS now,” concludes Chacon.

Dennis de Leon & Guillermo Chacon will be available to the media during the

International AIDS Conference, August 1st thru the 8th, 2008

ABOUT THE LATINO COMMISSION ON AIDS

The Latino Commission on AIDS is a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1990 dedicated to fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Latino/Hispanic communities. The Commission is the leading national Latino AIDS organization coordinating National Latino AIDS Awareness Day and other prevention and advocacy programs in more than 40 States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information visit: www.latinoaids.org or www.nlaad.org. UNIDOS PODEMOS / UNITED WE CAN “

BeadforLife, a collaboration between the women of Uganda and women of North America, has announced that it will present a poster at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, the largest professional conference on HIV/AIDS.  BeadforLife will also participate in the Global Village, sharing beads and stories with conference attendees.

BeadforLife is a non-profit organization providing impoverished Ugandan women an opportunity to lift their families out of poverty by creating beaded jewelry with recycled paper. Many of the Beaders are HIV+ mothers or refugees, all of whom have been living in extreme poverty.

“We are committed to engaging in the fight against HIV, and will share our educational experience at the International AIDS conference” says Devin Hibbard, North America Director.

“In our work with impoverished HIV+ women, BeadforLife has seen that it is important to provide more than access to drugs,” says Hibbard. “We give HIV+ women the opportunity to earning a living, and the impact on their health and lives has been tremendous.”

This August, BeadforLife will celebrate its milestone of one million pieces of jewelry purchased from the women of Uganda. Since its inception in 2004, the project has been so successful that women who used to survive on a dollar a day now live in their own homes that they saved for and built themselves The revenue generation has doubled each year, rising from $500K in year one (2004) to $3.4 million in year three (2007).

BeadforLife.org has an array of beautiful bead jewelry for people who would like to purchase Fair Trade products and engage in global giving.

For more information on BeadforLife, please contact Devin Hibbard, North America Director, at: devin@beadforlife.org, or call 206-228-9819. Or, contact Amy Yanda-Lee at: 303-325-3105, amy@bohemepr.com.

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About BeadforLife: BeadforLife (www.beadforlife.org) is a collaboration of women in Uganda and women around the world.  Women in Uganda roll beautiful bead jewelry out of recycled paper and women worldwide sell the jewelry and educate themselves and others about extreme poverty.  The profits return to Uganda and fund health care, housing and business training initiatives.  BeadforLife is a 501(c)(3) organization.