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HIV-positive women sue KZN Health for ‘forced sterilisations’

More than a dozen HIV-positive Durban women are suing the [b]KwaZulu-Natal Health Department[/b] after they allege they were ‘forcibly’ sterilised. The [s]Independent on Saturday[/s] reports that four of the 12 women have spoken out about their ‘traumatic’ and ‘life-changing’ ordeal. However, KZN Health spokesperson Desmond Motha said there was no prevalent attitude that HIV-positive women should be sterilised. There was also no incentive for doctors to coerce women to have a sterilisation, he said. ‘Also, there has never been a policy that HIV-positive women should be sterilised,’ he said. Before carrying out sterilisation, the doctor must be convinced that the woman was an appropriate candidate. The woman needed to undergo counselling about the benefits and disadvantages, and understand that the method was non-reversible. ‘The informed consent must be conducted in a language the woman can understand, and must be witnessed by at least one other health worker.’ The report says these are procedures that the women claim weren’t followed.

In the US, meanwhile, some doctors are now endorsing i ntercourse without a c ondom as an option for couples in which one or both partners are HIV-positive and wanting to start a family. [s]The Washington Post[/s] reports that they are backed by a new understanding about the mechanisms of HIV transmission and the development of an effective once-a-day pill taken by the HIV-negative partner that can reduce the risk of infection. A baby born to an HIV-positive mother, regardless of the father’s status, now has a less than 1% chance of getting the virus. A study of 750 mixed-status heterosexual and g ay couples found no cases of linked HIV transmission when the positive partner was on anti-retroviral therapy. Dr Mark Sauer, of the [b]Columbia University Medical Centre[/b] says: ‘Like all innovative therapies, there’s not a lot of data yet, but everything we do know points to this being a reasonable risk,’ he said.

[link url=http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/hiv-women-sue-for-forced-sterilisation-1.1680821#.U1yrBIGSzE0]Full Independent on Saturday report[/link]
[link url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-mixed-status-hiv-couples-weigh-risks-more-choose-to-conceive-the-old-fashioned-way/2014/04/24/8c8b11a4-b9d4-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html]Full report in The Washington Post[/link]
[link url=http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-prevention/hiv-test-treat/4553-croi-2014-no-one-with-undetectable-viral-load-transmits-hiv-in-partner-study]CROI2014 presentation[/link]

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