I can not figure this out, and would love your thoughts!

I just read this story on Nigeria arranging marriages based on positive HIV-status. Basically, to stop the spread of HIV, the solution is to pair HIV-positive couples together (they can say "no" to a potential mate), in hopes they will no longer spread HIV to others.

Health experts are saying this is a bad idea, for so many reasons. The solution they seek is: wear condoms when having sex!

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Medicinal marijuana helps relieve neuropathic pain in people with HIV, says a University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine study.

It included 28 HIV patients with neuropathic pain that wasn't adequately controlled by opiates or other pain relievers. The researchers found that 46 percent of patients who smoked medicinal marijuana reported clinically meaningful pain relief, compared with 18 percent of those who smoked a placebo.

TUESDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- The drug nevirapine -- widely used in developing countries to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to babies -- persists in the breast milk and blood of mothers, a new Stanford University study finds.

That, in turn, could increase the risk that they and their children will develop drug-resistant strains of HIV, the researchers added.

ATLANTA - The number of Americans infected by the AIDS virus each year is much higher than the government has been estimating, U.S. health officials reported Sunday, acknowledging that their numbers have understated the level of the epidemic.

The country had roughly 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 — a dramatic increase from the 40,000 annual estimate used for the last dozen years. The new figure is due to a better blood test and new statistical methods, and not a worsening of the epidemic, officials said.

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 24 (HealthDay News) -- Since 1996, the life expectancy of HIV patients in developed countries taking antiviral therapy has increased more than 13 years, and deaths have dropped by almost 40 percent, researchers report.

Despite these gains, life expectancy still falls short by some 20 years, compared with people in the general population. Life expectancy among injection drug users and those who start their treatment late is even shorter.

WEDNESDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that people of African descent are much more likely to have a genetic trait that makes them more susceptible to infection with the HIV virus.

Scientists estimate that the trait -- which also provides protection against a form of malaria -- might account for 11 percent of the HIV cases in Africa, the continent hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic.

THURSDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- In developing countries where breast-feeding is a necessity, and HIV is rampant, the risk of disease transmission through breast milk might be reduced if infants were first fed a freeze-dried formula full of good bacteria that could capture and potentially destroy the deadly virus.

TUESDAY, July 1 (HealthDay News) -- Death rates for HIV-infected people lucky enough to get their hands on antiretroviral medications have decreased dramatically since the introduction of these drugs in 1996, new British research shows.

For most, the five-year, post-diagnosis survival for those infected sexually is now about equal to that of the general population.

Death rates were higher, however, for older individuals, for those who had been infected for a longer time, and for those who had been infected through intravenous drug use.

THURSDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- The latest data on HIV infection across 33 states finds new diagnoses jumping by 12 percent annually between 2001 and 2006 among young gay and bisexual men.

Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say the rise is "especially concerning" for young black men aged 13 to 24 who have sex with men. For this group, the annual rate of new HIV diagnoses rose by 15 percent annually, compared to a 9 percent and an 8 percent annual rise among their white and Hispanic peers, respectively.

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough. The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests.