All Africa, 30 July 2014

Three teenagers Simbarashe Moyana, Josh Chikosha and Frankson Chikosha have embarked on an HIV and AIDS awareness campaign through a film titled "The Seed of Life" that is set to premiere next month. In an interview Moyana who is one of the producers of the film said different issues affecting the society inspired them to have the production.

"We completed our O' Levels last year but we failed to proceed with our education due different circumstances so we decided to tackle some of these issues that happen in the society through a film," he said.

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Mission Local, 29 July 2014

Before its closure in 2010, a house called "Marty's Place" served as a private homeless shelter for those living with HIV/AIDS. Soon the longtime institution, on Treat and 25th, will open again; when it does it will become the first "permanently affordable" housing cooperative for the city's LGBTQ community living with HIV/AIDS.

A Victorian built in 1895 whose muraled garage door opens out to Balmy Alley, Marty's Place offers a particularly charming new model for affordable housing. It will be owned and managed by the tenants who inhabit it.

"You have this vision of low-income housing as not being beautiful, but when you walk into Marty's Place, the beauty strikes you," said Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a queer housing activist at the Housing Rights Committee, who is among the team to reopen the house.

That beauty, according to Mecca, is the house's long legacy as a safe haven for people living with HIV/AIDS. Its namesake, Marty Purcell, died from the disease in 1990. In his memory, his brother Richard Purcell founded Marty's Place as a space "where people could find refuge."

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Luksaka Times, 29 July 2014

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Zambia (CDC) says Zambia will be among the first countries to achieve the target of an HIV and AIDs free generation.

Outgoing CDC country Director Lawrence Marum notes that Zambia has made tremendous progress in treating new infections and has paid particular attention to giving treatment to positive living patients.

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Blog AIDS Gov, 29 July 2014

Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series of reflective posts about social media use in support of messages for the national health observances.

April 10, 2014 marked the second annual National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day Exit Disclaimer (NYHAAD), a day of action to put young people at the center of the conversation around HIV in our country, highlighting both the impact of HIV & AIDS on young people and their role in responding to the epidemic. Today we reflect on the use of Twitter, Facebook and infographics around NYHAAD.
Meeting Young People Where They Are

In preparation for NYHAAD, Advocates for Youth Exit Disclaimer recognized that efforts had to be driven by young people, and recruited 17 Youth Ambassadors across the country to share their stories, illustrating the impact of HIV on young people and the barriers they face in seeking the information, testing, and treatment they need. The work of the Ambassadors exceeded our expectations, and their action resulted in blog posts, events nationwide, and proclamations of NYHAAD by the mayors of Gainesville, Florida, and Seattle, Washington.

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Miami Herald, 28 July 2014

Coming in third may mean a bronze medal at the Olympics, but in Florida, data shows that three is not a cause for celebration. The Sunshine State ranks third in the nation for the cumulative number of AIDS cases, and it's the third worst state for physician shortages.

An article looking at the HIV/AIDS crisis in America went so far as to say that Florida and other Southern states have cumulatively "emerged as ground zero." This is why prevention is so critical.

June 27 marked the 20th annual National HIV Testing Day — a day that we put a lot of energy into because, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in six people with HIV don't know they have it. Treatment is also critical, and options are coming from what many initially seem like an unlikely place: mobile broadband-enabled devices like smartphones.

Consider this, and you'll see why it's a natural convergence: The U.S. healthcare system already amounts to about 17 percent of GDP, and that number is expected to rise as demand for healthcare increases. As a society we are becoming increasingly reliant on mobile devices. In a recent study from Bank of America, nearly half of the respondents said they couldn't live without their smartphones, and more than 90 percent said they are "very important."

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