Addis Ababa, Jan 24 - He'd been captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and escaped a bomb blast in Iraq. His bicycle's been stolen six times but Somen Debnath from the eastern Indian state of West Bengal is determined to complete his mission to pedal 200,000 km to 191 countries by 2020 and reach out to 20 million people to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS.

Melbourne, December 17 : A test for HIV which provides a preliminary result within 30 minutes had been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for marketing in Australia.

Announcing the approval of the test, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said that it will lead to quicker treatment and will reduce the risk of sufferers passing on the virus, the Age reported.

Washington, December 10 : Scientists have found that bats with white-nose fungus sometimes suffer in the same way that humans with AIDS do.

Carol Meteyer, a scientist for the U. S. Geological Survey, peered through a microscope at hundreds of little bats and started to notice something very weird.

Mysore, Nov 30 : Better healthcare and increased awareness have helped control the spread of HIV/AIDS, once feared as an epidemic, according to doctors attending to AIDS victims at the Asha Kirana Hospital here, Karnataka's only specialised hospital for treating the disease that has 6,400 registered cases from the state at present.

The vulnerability of rural masses, however, remains high.

Harare, Nov 22 - An AIDS support organisation in Zimbabwe will launch a new and modified female condom after the first one launched in the country was discontinued as it "made a lot of noise during the act".

Women and AIDS Support Network (WASN) information manager Evince Mugumbate said her organisation will launch the female condom in rural Gokwe, about 300 km west of Harare, to promote higher usage of the product in the fight against HIV.

Johannesburg, November 21 : An aim to eventually end the worldwide AIDS pandemic is not “merely visionary” but “entirely feasible”, a UN report has said.

The report noted that eradication of AIDS is going to be possible due to better access to drugs that can both treat and prevent the incurable human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the disease, News24 reported.

Itanagar, Feb 24 : To generate mass awareness on HIV/AIDS among the young Arunachalees between the age group of 15 and 35 years, Member of Parliament Takam Sanjoy said that they want to educate the youths through a rock festival and ensure their commitment to fight the disease.

Singapore, Dec 8 : In a first-of-its-kind service in Southeast Asia, a community organisation in Singapore has launched a mobile service van that would conduct HIV tests and also keep the person's identity and the test results a secret.

Action for AIDS Singapore launched the test service Wednesday, Xinhua reported.

Belgaum (Karnataka), Nov 29 : They sit on a mat in a modest building, innocent eyes wandering while a blackboard in the background reads "all is well". Parvati and Amar (names changed) are as talented and active as anyone else their age but have been discarded by their kin for being HIV positive.

Parvati is a student of Class 6 in a Karnataka government school and has been the topper of her class while Amar is the captain of his school.

Beijing, Nov 1 - China has recorded about 429,000 registered AIDS patients and HIV carriers by the end of September, Xinhua reported.

According to the official figures released Monday, these statistics are up by nearly 60,000 over the past 11 months.

Pretoria, June 15: South African scientists, who launched a 24-month trial to confirm the efficacy of a microbicide gel that would reduce the risk of women getting HIV, have found an unexpected spin-off – it also boosts sexual pleasure.

Wits professor Helen Rees, of the university''s reproductive health and HIV institute, said the R300m trial would involve about 2,200 sexually active women at seven locations countrywide.

London, May 26 : Scientists have shared insight into rational vaccine development, and envisage that by 2020 there would be vaccines for malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS.

Seattle BioMed Director Alan Aderem, Ph. D., along with Rino Rappuoli, Ph. D., Global Head of Vaccines Research for Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, discussed recent advances in vaccine development.

Washington, Mar 4: A new study of anti-HIV/AIDS medicines in the developing world is on the verge of turning "the whole treatment world on its head," says expert.

Paul Palumbo, of pediatric medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, has shed light on the IMPAACT''s findings in Africa and India.

Beijing, Feb. 17: AIDS has been ranked as the deadliest infectious disease in China for the third year in a row, claiming 7743 lives in 2010.

"Deaths from AIDS have peaked in recent years but that doesn''t mean that treatment and control measures aren''t working well," said Hao Yao, deputy director of the Chinese Health ministry's disease prevention and control bureau.

Ludhiana, Jan 22: A herbal company in Punjab, Nixon Biotech Private Limited, has claimed to have found a herbal cure for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Allahabad, Jan 1 : In a remarkable gesture towards humanity, an old age couple in Uttar Pradesh''s Allahabad city are providing shelter to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) patients, who have been discarded by their family members.

Kamar Jyaz Zaidi, the owner of shelter, said that they did not get any help or charity from anywhere for running shelter home.

Allahabad, Jan 1 : In a remarkable gesture towards humanity, an old age couple in Uttar Pradesh''s Allahabad city are providing shelter to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) patients, who have been discarded by their family members.

Kamar Jyaz Zaidi, the owner of shelter, said that they did not get any help or charity from anywhere for running shelter home.

New Delhi, Dec 04 : A report scheduled for formal release in the first half of next year has revealed that China will have about 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2015.

China already has 740,000 HIV/AIDS sufferers on the mainland and sex has become the major reason for the transmission, reports the China Daily.

New Delhi, Dec 2 : A story in the media can act as a powerful communicator of an important message, while a misrepresentation can cause irreversible damage. For reporting on the sensitive and important issue of HIV, the media should be trained and sensitised, experts said at conference here Thursday.

The conference which saw the participation of the Press Council of India (PCI), NGOs and people suffering from HIV/AIDS, was organised by the NGO Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR).

Dhaka, Dec 1 : Thirty-seven people died this year due to AIDS as the total number of HIV/AIDS cases in Bangladesh rose to over 2,000, the country's health minister said Wednesday.

The number of AIDS cases rose to 2,088, compared to 1,745 in 2009, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ruhul Huq said at a programme organised in the Bangladesh capital on the World AIDS Day, Xinhua reported.

Shimla, Dec 1 : Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal Wednesday said the state has registered a sharp decline in the number of HIV/AIDS cases over the past few years.

Moscow, Nov 30 : There are 568,217 people in Russia living with HIV, official statistics show.

On the eve of the World AIDS Day - Dec 1 - Russia's health ministry Tuesday said the number of HIV-positive cases among 30-40-year-olds in the country has risen from nine percent in 2000 to 36 percent in 2009.

Washington, Nov 30 : An international team of researchers has revealed that media coverage on HIV/AIDS has fallen by more than 70 percent in developed countries over the last 20 years.

While in the early 1990s, an average of 1.5 articles linked to HIV/AIDS could be found in every issue of the main broadsheet newspapers, levels of coverage have dropped to below 0.5 articles per newspaper issue since 2008.

Washington, Nov 25 : Scientists have solved a long-standing mystery about HIV infection- how the virus promotes the death of CD4 T cells.

It is the loss of this critical subset of immune cells that leads to the development of AIDS.

Most immune cells that die during HIV infection are seemingly not infected, a phenomenon formerly described as "bystander cell killing."

Geneva, Nov 23 : The UN Tuesday noted a decline in new HIV/AIDS infections and fewer deaths, but warned that the economic crisis could dampen hopes for further positive developments.

New infections worldwide declined by 19 percent between 2004 and 2009, UNAIDS, the UN programme to combat the disease said in its annual global report.

In 2009, 1.8 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses, down from the 2.1 million in 2004.