Demonstration

When members of Brigada Callejera, a sex workers' and transgender rights organization in Mexico City, came to the first of the AIDS2008 activist meetings last Saturday morning, they explained the human rights issues that sex workers here face. Not only are sex workers forced to take STD and HIV tests - and carry a card saying they are HIV negative - a new policy requires them to pay for these tests themselves. This repression is in addition to the fact that sex work is still illegal here, and the police are more likely to arrest workers if they carry condoms.

The group, whose members include Elvira Madrid, Krisna, and Elma Delea, also held a lively protest for access to HIV meds in Mexico yesterday. I believe that Krisna said in the activist meeting on Saturday that antiretrovirals cost 7,500 pesos per month (about $750) here in Mexico, but I need to fact-check that. She did say that indigenous people have almost no access to prevention or treatment services.  read more »

Join activists from around the world in a silent demonstration during the August 7^th plenary to protest against the appalling allocation of adequate access to TB/HIV services.   Meet at 08:30 a.m. in the left corner outside the exhibition area to plan.  The demonstration is at 10:30 a.m.  

Worldwide as few as 1% of PLWHA are screened for TB-apreventable, curable disease that's the leading killer of people with HIV. Thenumber of daily deaths is despicable. Come in solidarity to let the devastating numbers speak for themselves.

As top CDC officials arrive today in Mexico City, U.S. activists and their allies are eagerly preparing to confront policymakers to hold them accountable for the worsening HIV epidemic in the U.S.  read more »

Activists will gather today, August 6, at 4:00 pm (CST) outside of the Media Center, and then will march to, and disrupt, the U.S. HIV epidemic session in order to issue an “F” report card to the speakers.