Former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, now a member of the City Council, wants all inmates in the city jail tested for HIV/AIDS. In a bill he proposed recently, Barry urges that authorities collect blood from inmates, including those convicted of a sex crime, as they enter the D.C. Jail. Following the test, prisoners would be provided counseling, under the bill, which has been stalled in committee since July. “Lives are being lost, breadwinners are being lost, family members are being lost,” a Barry spokesman told The Washington Post. “We need to be doing all that we can in this serious situation.” Barry notes that the District of Columbia has an “alarming HIV/AIDS rate, reminding that at least 3 percent of the city’s residents – some 15,000 people – are living with the virus, the highest known rate in the nation, the Post reports. What’s even more alarming, many experts say, is the number of D.C. residents who don’t even know they have HIV/AIDS. Recent studies have shown that nearly a third of those tested for HIV are inmates at the D.C. Jail. “If you look at how the epidemic is spreading, there is a high prevalence [of the virus] in the jail population,” D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told the Post. “People are bringing it back to our community, which really is continuing to spread the virus.” Nationally, 21 states test inmates for HIV when they first arrive. Still, most of those only do so with inmates’ consent or upon court order, according to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Since 2006, when the voluntary HIV testing program was launched, 99 percent, or more than 27,000, inmates have opted to take the test.” the Post writes. Some warn that Barry’s plan could actually deter inmates from participating in voluntary testing. “Our fear is that if you put in place a mandatory program, you not only have very little to gain but you may actually be undermining a good program that we already have in place,” said Walter Smith, executive director of D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a public policy organization that supports HIV testing but opposes the bill. Both D.C. Corrections Director Devon Brown and HIV/AIDS Administration Director Shannon Hader said they oppose mandatory testing.

Thousands of east Africans were wrongly diagnosed as HIV positive because of cheap, rapid tests used in poor nations and administered at VCT centers. A study published in The EastAfrican included 6,255 people, ages 18 to 60, at a village in Masaka and the Kakira sugar plantations, in Uganda and a coastal village in Kilifi and a slum in Kangemi estate in Nairobi. Two different tests done on all  6,255 people found that 131 had “discrepant” results — where one is positive and the other negative, the report said. Read more.

World Lens: Grace Jones hits Germany; the pope’s in Africa. See pics.

African nation welcomes Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI touched down in Cameroon Wednesday amid growing backlash about his comments against condom use. The pope, making his very first visit to the continent in his role, refused to back down on the Catholic church’s ban against condoms, upsetting many health officials, reports CNN. In his comments Tuesday, he even went as far as to say that condoms were the cause of the spread of AIDS. HIV and AIDS have devastated sub-Saharan Africa; according to an UNAIDS/World Health Organization report, more than 22 million people in the region are infected with HIV. In addition, nine out of 10 children who have HIV are from sub-Saharan Africa and the region has 11.4 million children orphaned because of AIDS. Despite the stance against condoms, the Catholic Church is probably the largest privately funded provider of HIV care worldwide, according to CNN’s Vatican analyst John Allen. The pope has put together a group of scientists and theologians to contemplate whether married couples should be allowed to use condoms, if one of them had the HIV virus. The pope will end his visit to the continent with a stop in Angola.

A youth health forum on Chicago’s South Side Saturday drew more than 1,000 teenagers who were tested for HIV/AIDS and other diseases, The Chicago Tribune reports. Within 20 minutes, following a simple saliva swab, the youths learned their HIV status before receiving a T-shirt, candy or a pen. Even those who said they were not sexually active took advantage of the free screening, according to the Tribune. “It’s good to get them in the habit, even if they haven’t been sexually active,” said Regina Hampton, a case manager for Circle Family HealthCare Network, which administered the screenings. “You can get it from blood transfusions or a freak accident.” Saturday marked the second annual Teen Test Day, and organizers are saying it was even more successful than last year when the event drew 650 teenagers who were tested for HIV, which infects Black teens more than any other group. Teen Test Day is sponsored by the Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilizations, a Chicago youth group.

South African teens are getting high off HIV drugs. Teens in South Africa are reportedly buying medication used to treat HIV and AIDS and smoking it to get high. Patients and healthcare workers are selling them the meds, reports the BBC. “I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked at first, these were school boys in their uniforms,” documentary maker, Tooli Nhlapo, told the BBC. “They take a pill and grind it, until it is a powder. Some also mix it with painkillers and others mix it with marijuana. They showed me how they roll it and smoke it,” said the filmmaker. AIDS patients have been caught smoking their medication instead of using it as prescribed, which doctors say will not help treat the virus. The anti-retroviral medication acts as a hallucinogen and has the effect of relaxing those who smoke it. “When you look at them, just a few seconds after taking it, they are in another world,” Nhlapo said. Healthy people who smoke the drugs could be putting themselves in danger, according Dr. Kas Kasongo. “People who are healthy that are taking this medication are exposing themselves to potential side-effects of these drugs,” he said. He also said patients are also putting their health at risk by not taking the drugs as they are supposed to. “We don’t have more than 20 anti-retroviral drugs on the market and, remember, they have to be used in a cocktail of at least three or four,” he said. “Therefore, abusing a particular drug, whichever it is, is a concern because it can give rise to resistance to drugs within that same group.” 

Zimbabwe president says cholera outbreak is over. Despite what international health organizations are saying, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe believes that the outbreak in cholera in his nation is over, reports Reuters. “I am happy we are being assisted by others, and we have arrested cholera,” Mugabe said in a speech Thursday where he also accused the West of trying to invade Zimbabwe. “Now that there is no cholera, there is no case for war.” The water-borne illness, which is normally easily treated and prevented, has killed almost 800 people in the nation, and a United Nations agency says that number is on the rise.  The death toll rose to 783 and 16,403 Zimbabwean are believed to have cholera, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “The figures speak for themselves. We hope that the joint efforts of the United Nations and government will contribute to halting the epidemic,” said a spokeswoman for the group in response to Mugabe’s words. And U.S. agency, USAID, also insists the outbreak is ongoing and that they are sending an additional $6.2 million in aid. “This is a cholera outbreak that is ongoing and urgent. This is clearly a humanitarian crisis,” an official from the group told reporters. The nation’s opposition movement, Movement for Democratic Change, whose leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is in deadlocked talks to form a unity government with Mugabe, also denounced his claim. “We remain on the side of the people, while Zanu-Pf [Mugabe's party] remains on the side of terror,” and MDC statement said. French officials also accuse the Zimbabwe president of not letting in aid workers to slow the disease’s spread. “Contrary to what Mugabe says, the cholera epidemic is not under control. … France strongly regrets this decision and calls on Zimbabwe’s authorities to allow aid to reach the population,” a spokesman said. The disease could spread to 60,000 people if it’s not treated, says the U.N.

What can you do about HIV/AIDS?  What is your personal responsibility for fighting HIV and AIDS, Vital Signs asks on the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. As Black Americans make up nearly half of all Americans living with HIV, Vital Signs wants to know what are you willing to do to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS? To weigh in, go to Vital Signs.

A little music does the heart good. Keep the gospel playing on your iPod or throw on a little Beyoncé and sit back and relax, knowing that your blood vessels are expanding wide open, letting the blood flow freely.  Turns out that hearing a joyful noise does the heart good. In fact, nothing could be healthier for your heart, a new study suggests. “Listening to music that makes you feel good may also be a good preventive measure for heart health,” said study author Dr. Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, in Baltimore. “There’s no downside. It’s simple, economic and it may pay off dividends in regard to a healthy heart.” Dr. Carl Lavie, medical director of cardiac rehabilitation and prevention director of the Stress Testing Laboratory at the Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans, also told HealthDay: “Although this was just [a short-term] study, it suggests that laughter and listening to relaxing music may provide cardio-protection or be heart-healthy. I suspect that the authors are correct in this theory. But the important thing to know is whether regular performance of this or similar activity would have long-term benefits on the cardiovascular system, similar to… such things as regular aerobic exercise that has been extensively studied and proved to have substantial long-term benefits.” Previous studies had found that music could affect heart rate and blood pressure. Prayer has also been shown to improve cardiac performance. And Miller’s group previously found that laughter improved vascular health.
  

Can you tell if he’s HIV-positive? A new feature at BET.com asks if you can tell by looking at someone whether he or she is HIV-positive. “Are You Positive?” provides information about HIV and AIDS as well as HIV-testing information and a site locater as part of a special feature that appears in advance of the BET News special of the same name. To find out more, go to BET.com/lifestyle.
(www.bet.com/lifestyle/bodysoul)