POS

India and 12 countries in Africa will receive $3.8 billion in treatment and prevention aid from the Clinton-created Leadership and Investment in Fighting Epidemic (LIFE) initiative, reported the All Africa news service in August.

Botswana’s government will provide free HAART to the country’s HIVers through public health clinics, thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, President Festus Mogae said in August. 36% of residents are positive.

Ohio’s Planned Parenthood served up a $5 voucher for McDonald’s with a side order of 12 condoms and safer-sex pamphlets in a new effort to target local youth. The anti-abortion group Human Life International opposed the outreach, claiming it targeted “low-income neighborhoods.”

NEG

A Taiwanese credit agency hired PWAs as debt collectors to scare clients into paying their dues. As the director of the agency “did not ask the patients to bite the debtors to make them pay,” many locals said it was proper business, reported the Guardian.

Three men attacked an AIDS educator in his home after he disclosed his positive status on a local South African television program. Despite the beating and other threats, Vulindlela Vilakasi vows to keep talking AIDS on TV and at local schools.

The Nigerian government suspended the trial of an HIV vaccine -- already given to 30 soldiers -- until a government study can verify the injection’s efficacy. The vaccine’s maker, Jeremiah Ablaka, claims to have “self-immunized” and said he will next inject himself with HIV to prove the point.