AP - "Hey baby, you OK?" Mike asks his girlfriend as she sits down next to him.

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, Dec. 31 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the nation's first nucleic acid test to detect the presence of HIV in donated blood and tissue.

Reuters - HIV-positive infants are over 20 times more likely to develop tuberculosis than their HIV-negative counterparts, researchers from South Africa report in the current issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

AFP - A senior opposition politician withdrew his statement that people with HIV should be banned from marriage, after he was criticised by AIDS activists, a report said Sunday.

Reuters - Use of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) for over 5 years may lessen a person's risk of developing cancer of the lower portion of the large bowel, study findings suggest.

AFP - Mohammad Azeem leads prayers every Friday at his local mosque in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, but one week his sermon contained a shock for the deeply conservative congregation.

AFP - Proposals for compulsory screening and sex and marriage curbs for HIV sufferers have triggered an intense debate over how to handle a disease taking hold in mainly Muslim Malaysia.

Reuters - HIV carriers should not be allowed to marry, in order to avoid having sick children, a top Malaysian politician was quoted on Monday as saying.

AFP - Malaysia will urge non-Muslim couples to take voluntary pre-nuptial HIV screening tests before tying the knot due to high levels of infection among married women, the deputy premier said.

AFP - Malaysia's HIV infection rate has dropped by nearly half over the past five years but the number of women infected is rising sharply, deputy premier Najib Razak reportedly said Thursday.

Reuters - Three studies published on Wednesday add to evidence that circumcision can protect men from the deadly AIDS virus and the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

AFP - "I came out to show people we are normal," says AIDS worker Roberto Ruiz, who is fighting the social stigma that HIV/AIDS still carries in the Philippines.

Reuters - Instead of infiltrating breaks in the skin, HIV appears to attack normal, healthy genital tissue, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study that offers new insight into how the AIDS virus spreads.

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. hospitals enrolled in a voluntary program to improve stroke patient treatment increased their adherence to national recommendations, according to a five-year study that included 790 hospitals that provided data on 322,847 stroke patients admitted from 2003 to 2007.

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- A new route of male-to-female transmission of HIV -- in which the virus can travel through healthy genital skin to reach immune cells in just four hours -- has been identified by U.S. researchers.

AFP - An auction of celebrity memorabilia on the sidelines of the Dubai International Film Festival raised 1.8 million dollars for the fight against AIDS, the organisers announced on Saturday.

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, Dec. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report that a treatment under development appears to stop the equivalent of the AIDS virus in monkeys.

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 9 (HealthDay News) -- The rate of HIV transmission in the United States has dropped 88 percent since 1984 and 33 percent since 1997, even though the number of people living with HIV in the United States has increased, researchers reported Tuesday.

AFP - The harassment and imprisonment of drug users in China is undermining the country's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, activist group Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

AFP - An international conference on AIDS in Africa that ended Sunday was dominated by worries about funding amid a global financial crisis and marked the first time gays took centre stage.