Congratulations on the idea, and the creativity...

I was introduced to your website by Dr. Mirhaghani, to browse the information...
Since I am an infectious disease specialist trained in Iran & re-trained here in USA, now working with HIV/AIDS patients at cedars -Sinai medical center in Los Angeles, I just had a few comments about your site...
I was one of the first responsible doctors for HIV counselling & management in Iran when the first case of AIDS was diagnosed in 1987, and spent many year at the ministry of health and the national AIDS committee to help run the Iran's national aids program...
Therefore I am familiar with the system, the people, the stigma, the government's efforts to prevent the spread of HIV, etc...
Remember that the era of aids has changed, we can "treat" AIDS and control the replication of the virus and many people will live normal lives with good management, so beware when using the word "darman nadarad", darman darad, aladj nadarad, same as diabetes & hypertension...
Your translations are sometimes misleading, and become false statements to ordinary people... When answering simple questions, beware that the word "montafi" is very tricky and rewarding...
There are many organizations that could provide you with accurate data, and there are many false information on the internet, which should not be translated as fact at your site...
For example the vaginal microbicide medications are double edge swords, they may irritate the vaginal mucosa and increase the risk of transmission with a false sense of security...
The vaccines are way far from actual efficacy and the Thailand experiment has been a total failure...
Again, I strongly support your effort & your enthusiasm, just be cautious about the spread of "facts" vs "myths"...
Good luck with the hard work

Vivian Shirvani
     دکتر مرجان هزاره
  • Dear Dr. Shirvani,

    Thank you very much for taking time to send us your comments, we appreciate and welcome all comments and suggestions from our readers, specifically from medical and scientific community.

    I am working in the field of HIV/AIDS since 9 years and am presently the scientific director at an AIDS organization in United State, performing pre-clinical and clinical trials on anti-HIV drugs, microbicide and HIV vaccine.

    Indeed, it is possible that during translation the meaning of a word might change slightly. However we are concentrating lots of effort to minimize it, by explaining throughly the information and we also make sure that all information and statements posted on the website are accurate and based on the latest development in the field of HIV and AIDS.

    We are all aware that the era of HIV/AIDS has changed. The antiretroviral therapy does not CURE the disease (darman nadarad) and as you rightly stated HIV has become a chronic disease like Diabetes in DEVELOPED countries. However, we would like to emphasize to our reader that even if they are under treatment, HIV virus is still present in their body and that they can TRANSMIT the virus to other people through well known routes of transmission (DARMAN gatii nadarad). I believe that the two word "aladj" and "darman" have similar meanings, but one is in Arabic and the second is in Farsi.

    New vaginal microbicides are under investigation and some of them are in Phase I clinical trial. I think that you are talking about nanoxynol-9, which is indeed increases the risk of transmission through irritation and loss of vaginal epithelial cells. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already issued several warnings about this compound and it is not used anymore as a vaginal microbicide. Lately the scientific and medical communities have concentrated lots of efforts to develop new version of vaginal and rectal microbicide that do not irritate vagina or rectum. This is mostly because women can use them without the consent of their partner (specifically in African countries) and also they are cost effective. Therefore such a compound can decrease the rate of transmission dramatically in developing countries. So the notion of microbicide being a "DOUBLE EDGE SWORDS" is not applicable for new version of these compounds.

    Indeed, HIV vaccines are investigational and there is no efficient vaccine in the market against this disease, we never stated otherwise on our website.

    Again thank you for your consideration and your helpful comments.

    Marjan Hezareh, Ph.D.