As the World Health Organization abandons the time-tested and rights-respecting method of VCT to adopt untested and rights-abusing routine testing and counselling, it is good to see that some in Myanmar / Burma are thinking about how to make VCT work.

We interrupt the series of postings on abstracts presented at the Toronto international AIDS conference to bring you an announcement that the 3D one hundred million dollar grant agreement has been signed.

One wonders how much interraction has taken place between authors of these four papers on people living with HIV in Myanmar / Burma and how much contact there is between groups and networks …

Today begins a series of postings of abstracts presented at “AIDS 2006 – the 15th International AIDS Conference held in Toronto in August. This Toronto abstract reminds us that after a new technology has been proven to be effective and accepted, it still needs champions to promote it. Is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation listening?

The most important issue reported in this article is the availability of free web based email like Gmail. As Gmail is fully encrypted and there are add-ins and extensions to make it doubly encrpyted, its availability gives people the ability to communicate safely with anyone who has an email address.
What do you think of Mr Parker giving the Junta a heads up on the use of proxy servers?

“Most sex workers claim that the economic environment had forced them into the sex trade, according to a Rangoon / Yangon based journalist who conducted interviews for a survey on sex workers.” So would a growing economy like China's in Myanmar decrease the number of sex workers? … What do you think?

There is a high rate of syphilis in Burma / Myanmar, too. And no national antenatal detection and treatment programme to decrease it.

Not enough is done on the issue of HIV in prisons or other custodial situations in Burma / Myanmar. The attached document details one hundred action points to improve the situation. Is UNODC taking action on them?

Apologies for not posting this advertorial earlier in the year.

This appears to be a report from a Manila newspaper on a WHO/UNFPA meeting on One Hundred Per Cent Condom Use Programmes in Manila attended by representatives from Myanmar. Can anyone tell the [him] moderator more about it?

It is always good to keep up with what Myanmar-booster Xinhua says about internet use in Burma.

Now this is a reasonable alternative to ABC …