[NETvoyne]

So it's financially more cost effective to screen Sub-Saharan Africans, because doing it for every immigrant, whilst would be more effective against the disease, is financially impractical, I'm sure. The figures speak for themselves.

HIV screening has become very cheap, there is no need to single out only SSA's. The USCIS required all immigrants to be screened for HIV before they arrive and are given legal resident status in the US, although that law was just changed at the beginning of this year.( don't know if it is effective yet)

[Tjfyojlg]

Trog, why are you using the term "Sub Saharan Africa" as a catch all descriptor for this epidemic? Lesotho's prevalence rate is 28% Somalia's is 0.5% Do you think it's fair to the NHS that you use the term "SSA" when Lesotho's prevalence rates is 60 times greater than Somalia's?

If you preffer, the term should be Niger-Congo Africa. That's the region where HIV soars.

[LoloLibia]

Hold on a minute here; yes it's not nice to make people feel bad, but here's the deal; the people get FREE AIDS tests and given the information and permitted entry to the UK. Those who have the disease, well, I'm sorry, but our charities do try and provide amenities in Africa which they can use. This is too important to not want to hurt feelings, if it's in the national interests of the receiving population.

You're right, national interests go beyond hurting feelings, I am a British citizen and I appreciate that, yet I feel it is unfair to make a single people feel singled out. Yes it will be an advantage for them but there must be a different way to apply such a procedure. While it goes against my personal beliefs, on a government level Slick Willys suggestion may be applicable.

[Hujkmlopes]

Trog, why are you using the term "Sub Saharan Africa" as a catch all descriptor for this epidemic? Lesotho's prevalence rate is 28% Somalia's is 0.5% Do you think it's fair to the NHS that you use the term "SSA" when Lesotho's prevalence rates is 60 times greater than Somalia's?

Screening a Somali as much as a citizen of Lesotho? Don't you think you're not going to be getting a clear, cost effective picture while using SSA as your screening criteria when basically a quarter of people from Lesotho are HIV positive, while the same amount of Somalis as Italians are HIV positive?

I'm using it because the sources for the data I provided are using it.

http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCe...09/default.asp

You see?

southern and South Africa are included in the Sub-saharan data:

Somalian rates are suspect, the country doesn't even have a government, how can any figure from there be considered realistic? Africans also travel a lot, so a Somalian could find refuge in neighbouring areas and be HIV. But the recorded case will be for the region they died in. And many African refugees don't even have passports. That's far too much red tape. Just test them all, for it benefits them too, given the fact they get a free AIDS/HIV test.

[EliteFranceska]

If you basically had a list that made it obligatory to test anyone from a country's whose HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is say, more than 1.5% or whatever figure you feel might accurately screen for AIDS whole still remaining cost effective, wouldnt that be a wiser decision than condemning ALL of Sub Saharan Africa, where some countries do have alarming rates, while others have prevalence rates equivalent to Asian and LatinAmerican rates, and others to European and North American rates...don't you think you're being a tad inefficient?

[IRYzouNv]

HIV screening has become very cheap, there is no need to single out only SSA's. The USCIS required all immigrants to be screened for HIV before they arrive and are given legal resident status in the US, although that law was just changed at the beginning of this year.( don't know if it is effective yet)

How do you know it's cheap? There's the administration costs, this includes all the paperwork that needs doing, the recording of figures and monitoring, the staff involved, the cost to archive data, negotiation with various embassies etc. The test is only one small part of the whole process.

[GrolmangHat27]

Better close the door. It is easier and cheaper.

[AntonioMQ]

I'm using it because the sources for the data I provided are using it.

http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCe...09/default.asp

You see?

southern and South Africa are included in the Sub-saharan data:

Somalian rates are suspect, the country doesn't even have a government, how can any figure from there be considered realistic? Africans also travel a lot, so a Somalian could find refuge in neighbouring areas and be HIV. But the recorded case will be for the region they died in. And many African refugees don't even have passports. That's far too much red tape. Just test them all, for it benefits them too, given the fact they get a free AIDS/HIV test.

The fact that there is no government and still the only data available all list rates that are incredibly low not only for African but World standards should tell you something. These data are collected by NGO's and since they have a vested interest in embellishing AIDS rates in lieu of receiving aid (pun intended) and funding for their presence in Somalia, if there's any suspicion it is that the AIDS rate in Somalia is even lower than 0.5%

Most Somali refugees are internally displaced, the few that are in Kenya and Ethiopia are not a contributing factor to the AIDS epidemics in those countries, so once again, the only hypothetical red tape I see in insisting on screening Somalis, while being lax with Eastern Europeans is a political and racial red-tape.

[HaroldMY]

If you basically had a list that made it obligatory to test anyone from a country's whose HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is say, more than 1.5% or whatever figure you feel might accurately screen for AIDS whole still remaining cost effective, wouldnt that be a wiser decision than condemning ALL of Sub Saharan Africa, where some countries do have alarming rates, while others have prevalence rates equivalent to Asian and LatinAmerican rates, and others to European and North American rates...don't you think you're being a tad inefficient?

Inefficient? This benefits the UK and it benefits the individual, because they get to know if they have the disease or not and will be given appropriate information as well. The problem of AIDS/HIV in Sub-sahara Africa (and I use that term in accordance with how the data is recorded), is immense and not comparable with anywhere else in the world. To repeat, the figures are approx. 70% of cases in the world and that's just those ones that are discovered, not the people killed in civil war or of through lack of medical care.

[MaickiP]

Some parts of Sub Saharan Africa have prevalence rates lower than America's. While others are the epicentres of the AIDS epidemic. Lumping them into one macrogroup does not make statistical sense. This is my point, it is a simple one and beyond this would be us going in circles, I broke the same point down several times.

If you prefer letting the 1 in 100 HIV positive Russians coming to Britain, unscreened, compared to turning away the 0.5% Somalis who actually are HIV positive by screening them, then say so. But cost effective, the policy is not. It's discriminatory plain and simple.

[Kalobbis]

The fact that there is no government and still the only data available all list rates that are incredibly low not only for African but World standards should tell you something. These data are collected by NGO's and since they have a vested interest in embellishing AIDS rates in lieu of receiving aid (pun intended) and funding for their presence in Somalia, if there's any suspicion it is that the AIDS rate in Somalia is even lower than 0.5%

That's just speculation. Africa is suffering from a severe AIDS epidemic, and if you don't like the data collected by NGO for AIDS rates, then resource the life expectancies for the areas, which are often a reflection of AIDS and death rates. Or charitable works that are attending to these stricken places in order to try and help and who plead for more international aid.

Most Somali refugees are internally displaced, the few that are in Kenya and Ethiopia are not a contributing factor to the AIDS epidemics in those countries, so once again, the only hypothetical red tape I see in insisting on screening Somalis, while being lax with Eastern Europeans is a political and racial red-tape. Well, there's a reason for the situation in Somalia, which appears an isolated exception.

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/healt..._can_be_risky/

[In Somalia, diagnosing AIDS can be risky



JOWHAR, Somalia -- There may be no harder place in the world to fight AIDS than Somalia.

For the United Nations and Western charities, some areas are off-limits because it is so risky. But even in places where they operate, the basic task of testing someone for the virus is widely considered too dangerous.

''If we tell someone that they are HIV positive, they might take revenge," said Josef Prior Tio, general coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in this central Somali town and in Mogadishu, the capital.

''You could get killed," said Halima Hasan Osmani, a supervisor at a Doctors Without Borders clinic that specializes in care for pregnant mothers but does not test for HIV. A nearby hospital does offer tests, but the Doctors Without Borders staff will not ask whether a patient knows his or her status.

Faiza Narbeth, a Somali native and consultant to the UN Development Program's HIV/AIDS initiative, explained the problem by telling a story she had heard earlier this month at an educational HIV/AIDS seminar. She said that one participant told the group about a birth attendant who had tested a pregnant woman in the southern city of Kismayo, learned that the woman was HIV positive, and then gave the result to the woman and her husband.

''The participant in the seminar told us that the husband accused the birth attendant of infecting his wife," Narbeth said. ''The birth attendant was hidden by the community and had to flee from Kismayo. But the husband found her and shot her dead. These stories are commonplace."

Somalia's HIV prevalence rate is estimated at 0.9 percent of the population, according to a World Health Organization survey in 2004 of pregnant women in antenatal clinics. But no comprehensive studies have been done in the country, which has been without a central government for 15 years. If accurate, that rate would be one of the lowest in Africa.

In Somalia, the UN's focus is simply to educate people about the dangers of HIV and how to prevent transmission. But the widely accepted ''ABC" prevention method -- abstinence, being faithful to one partner, and consistent use of condoms -- is hotly contested here.

At Narbeth's 30-person seminar, some vehemently opposed condom use, saying it encourages promiscuity, which is against the tenets of Islam.

''We agreed to disagree," Narbeth said. ''It raises the problem of how do you fight against the spread of the disease. We are at the beginning, beginning, beginning stage, where everything is based on fear." John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.

[evalayCap]

The fact that Somalia is too lawless and dangerous to even perform these AIDS tests show that whatever data we have is an estimate. There are more incentives for NGO's to embellish the prevalence rates than to diminish them. Even these embellished and estimated rates are still on par with countries like lawful and safe Italy and half of relatively peaceful Russia. What does that tell you?

[blohannaserri]

@Trog


That's reasonable.

HIV has got down the African life expectancy very sharply. This is a fact. A serious fact.

http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/aaB...Expectancy.jpg

[orison]

Harvard University: Muslim Areas in Africa Have Lower Rates of HIV Infection

May 17, 2004
P.B. Gray and colleagues at Harvard University found that "religious constraints on sexuality may have consequences for the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases." "Recognizing that several Islamic tenets may have the effect, if followed, of reducing the sexual transmission of HIV," the investigators tested "the hypothesis that Muslims have lower HIV prevalence than non-Muslims."

The researchers found that among 38 sub-Saharan African countries, the percentage of Muslims in the population negatively predicted HIV prevalence. "A survey of published journal articles containing data on HIV prevalence and religious affiliation showed that six of seven such studies indicated a negative relationship between HIV prevalence and being Muslim," the study stated.

"Additional studies on the relationship of risk factors to HIV prevalence gave mixed evidence with respect to following Islamic sexual codes (e.g., vs. extramarital affairs) and other factors," the authors wrote, but revealed that "benefits arising from circumcision may help account for lower HIV prevalence among Muslims," they concluded.

The report, "HIV and Islam: Is HIV Prevalence Lower Among Muslims?" appeared in Social Science & Medicine (2004;58(9):1751-1756). http://www.thebody.com/content/art26340.html

Perhaps not bothering with screening Africans from Islamic regions wold make some cost effective sense

[anconueys]

http://www.thebody.com/content/art26340.html

Perhaps not bothering with screening Africans from Islamic regions wold make some cost effective sense

Non Islamic Africa is what is considered SSA by many people. Fuck that I don't want people being tested just because they are Negroid. It is still singling out.

[Dr. Shon Thomson]

Well, Niger-Congo Africans bring HIV and Islamic Africa brings bombs.... I bet not only HIV tests are required.

[OlegSan]

Yeah, however the study only researches Muslims in Sub Saharan Africa aka Black Africa. So even where the AIDS epidemic is at its most critical rates in SSA, Muslims always have substantially lower prevalence rates compared to non-Muslims



---------- Post added 2010-06-19 at 00:19 ----------

Well, Niger-Congo Africans bring HIV and Islamic Africa brings bombs.... I bet not only HIV tests are required.

Damnit pinguin, are you getting paid to troll? If not, I suggest you go professional, you are ready for the big leagues.

[Teeppoodiug]

Yeah, however the study only researches Muslims in Sub Saharan Africa aka Black Africa.

I was not aware of that. Without making an extraordinarily epic claim I'll say the singling out of any nation, religion or ethnicity is something I am against. I find it wrong as a whole.

[vSzsgifP]

http://www.thebody.com/content/art26340.html

Perhaps not bothering with screening Africans from Islamic regions wold make some cost effective sense

It's not something based on ethnicity, or creed, it's simply based on the likelihood of there being a greater risk- it's purely demographic. The moderating influence of Islam is lowering the numbers of AIDS cases, perhaps, which is why North Africa is less affected too. But there simply isn't enough of an influence in Sub-Sahara Africa to account for this. It's too big a risk and the more people delay on this, the more people in my country are put at risk:



This reference estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa actually has 88% of the global AIDS cases. 12% is the rest of the world, so it is obvious that screening African immigrants is far more effective.

[KasaBalak]

''If we tell someone that they are HIV positive, they might take revenge," said Josef Prior Tio, general coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in this central Somali town and in Mogadishu, the capital.

''You could get killed," said Halima Hasan Osmani, a supervisor at a Doctors Without Borders clinic that specializes in care for pregnant mothers but does not test for HIV. A nearby hospital does offer tests, but the Doctors Without Borders staff will not ask whether a patient knows his or her status. LMAO

"You say I have AIDS, I kill you!"
"No...no...I'm saying you should get tested"
"You say I have sex with women who have AIDS? I kill you!"
"No...uh...ok just wear condoms when you have sex, alright?"
"You say I need condoms, I have sex with whores? I kill you!"
...
Seems to be that the AK-47 is your best protection against an HIV+ result in Somalia.

lolz