Thousands of Africans Wrongly Diagnosed as HIV Positive

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.

TAGS: AIDS, East Africa, HIV, photos, Pope Benedict XVI, VCT centers, World Lens

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