Kenya: Make HIV Treatment for Children a Priority via
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How much will treating AIDS in Africa cost in ten years? via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
On World AIDS Day President Bush addressed the Saddleback Civil forum on Global Health. The President commented that since 2000
(when he came into office) the US has spent $99 billion on domestic AIDS
cases.
$99
billion has been consumed by only 350,000 patients on ARV treatment. This indicates that the cost of providing treatment (testing, monitoring, hospitalisation and so on) far exceeds the cost of buying drugs. This is a harbinger of what will happen in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The US has spent billions on treating its own patients, despite having one of the best healthcare systems in the world, which uses the highest quality drugs, and the strictest monitoring and testing. This kind of high quality medical environment helps slow down considerably the onset of drug...
The problem with World AIDS Day via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
Today is the 20th annual World AIDS Day. The challenge for AIDS activists and campaigners is to pique the interest of editors and journalists to ensure coverage of what has become a predictable event: the UN or some other body claiming we are on the brink of a global catastrophe, and that only billions more dollars of donor funding can prevent the biggest humanitarian crisis of all time from getting worse. Except this year, many people from within the global health community are beginning to rebel against this formula, detailed in this provocative piece from the Associated Press. As people such as Roger England point out, AIDS is undoubtedly a a great tragedy, but so too are the myriad easily preventable diseases that kill even more people - such as diarhoea or pneumonia. Why don't...
Red Ribbons & World Aids Day via Thembinkosi Foundation
It's World Aids Day on 1st Decemember. The theme this year is Respect and Protect - visit the website for more information. If you'd like to buy an exclusive Red Ribbon enamel badge then visit Thembinkosi Africa on Ebay. All funds raised by Thembinkosi Africa are going towards the building of the Zambezi International Catholic School in Zambia and its associated outreach projects. These outreach projects will include projects that will support people living with HIV/Aids. The Thembinkosi Foundation promotes the interests of those affected by HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa....
‘Empowering HIV/Aids Positive People Will Alleviate Poverty’. via Poverty News Blog
from All Africa Byline: Adedapo OlojoLagos, - Government and relevant stakeholders have been called upon to help empower people living with the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS); as a way to alleviate poverty among the masses in Nigeria.The call was made by the Executive Director of Ajegunle Community Project (ACP), Alhaja Roli Daniju, during a programme on stigmatisation organised by the group in Lagos.ACP, a non-governmental organisation, an NGO committed to reducing social inequalities among grassroots women and girl-child, organised the one day programme, titled, 'positive living and income generation' for women living with HIV/AIDS at their secretariat.The programme was supported by Global Fund for Women (LFW) and the objectives is to... ZICS Summer School via Thembinkosi Foundation
ZICS will operate a summer school during closure in both December and August. Students for the summer school are to be drawn from across Africa and from Europe and North America. The summer school programme will be based upon issues relating to sustainable development, the arts, sports, the environment and issues relating to HIV & Aids. Accreditation will be sought for the summer school programme.The Thembinkosi Foundation promotes the interests of those affected by HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa....
Candidate for top UNAIDS job says close it down! via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
On the 17th September, UNAIDS will begin interviewing candidates for the vacant position of Executive Director, caused by the resignation of Peter Piot.
Roger England, a noted health policy expert and chair of the Health Systems Workshop is throwing his hat into the ring - on the platform of shutting it down.Roger created quite a stir back in May, when he forcefully argued in the British Medical Journal that UNAIDS should be disbanded. Many of the shriller responses to his piece from various members of the AIDS lobby confirmed his suggestion that, in the AIDS industry, "we have created a monster with too many vested interests and
reputations at stake, too many single issue NGOs, too many relatively well paid HIV staff in affected
countries, and too many rock stars with AIDS support...
Racism or Risk? via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
Professor James Chin’s latest article on AIDS epidemiology attracted a couple of comments on the sensitive subject of
racism.
Is it not racist, they argue, to suggest
that some sexual behaviour in Africa increases the risk of contracting HIV / AIDS?
The answer is a clear ‘no’. HIV risk is
based upon epidemiological evidence, not racism – and by identifying high-risk
groups more can be done to help these groups.
Professor Chin, a former epidemiologist
for the World Health Organization (WHO), has successfully argued that there is
no risk of a ‘general’ pandemic of HIV / AIDS.
The WHO’s head of HIV / AIDS, Kevin de Cock,
admitted this was true earlier this year.
However, there are still certain high-risk
groups for which HIV /... Reaping the bitter harvest of ARV resistance via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
The FT has an important article that will make grim reading for the 22,000 AIDS activists descending on Mexico this weekend for their biennual conference. According to the piece, resistance to ARV is becoming an acute problem in the poorest countries, and is set to get worse.
The problem is exacerbated, as the article intimates, by the WHO-backed “public health approach” to AIDS treatment. The overriding focus of this approach is to get as many patients on treatment as quickly possible.
In order to meet their self-imposed treatment targets, global donors and health agencies (MSF, Clinton Foundation, Global Fund etc) have ridden roughshod over the IP rights of ARV innovators, purchasing bulk quantities of cheap copy drugs to minimise costs.
Their treatment programmes have...
Scrap the G8 via Global Development: Views from the Center
UNAIDS: Science vs Spin via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
Following the release by the CFD of Jim Chin's paper on the Myth of a general AIDS pandemic, there have been some tectonic shifts in the AIDS policy world. This culminated in Dr Kevin De Cock of WHO's public assertion that there is minimal risk of epidemic HIV transmission in heterosexual populations outside of sub Saharan Africa.
This is contra to the hitherto official position that it is only a matter of time before AIDS bridges from high risk groups into general populations. As Prof Chin argues, such 'generalised' epidemics have not occured outside of Africa, and nor will they.
Needless to say, Dr De Cock is receiving a lot of flak from those who claim that such frankness simply gives succour to AIDS denialists and moral fundamentalists, and gives the impression...
More spin from UNAIDS via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
This week the Commission on AIDS in Asia released its prediction that, without additional action, AIDS deaths in Asia could rise from 440,000 each year currently to nearly 500,000 annually by 2020, and total infections could double from 4.9 million to 10 million.
Our friend Prof Jim Chin, author of the AIDS pandemic: the collision of epidemiology and political correctness, has some stern words about this report on his website. Prof Chin is particularly aggrieved by the report's claim that "regionally, AIDS is estimated to be the single largest cause of death and morbidity due to disease for adults age 15-44 years." In reality, in Asia, AIDS wasn't even in the top 10 killers in 2001.
By the way, Prof Chin is discussing his new CFD paper at a lunchtime event on 22nd...
Irresponsible ARV roll-out may undermine scientific breakthoughs via Campaign for Fighting Diseases Blog
The Times of London has a good leading article on the approval in Britain of the new AIDS therapy Isentress, which it describes as a 'triumph of human ingenuity'.
The arrival of this new drug is indeed miraculous when considered against an increasingly
burdensome drug regulatory environment, and the escalating political risks of
investing private capital in AIDS research.
The column lets itself down, though, by reflexively and unfairly laying into the South African government's track record on AIDS treatment. In early 2007, 140,000 of 983,000 eligible South African patients were receiving antiretroviral treatment — the highest number in the developing world. This number is increasing.
South Africa has attracted controversy because its AIDS treatment programme has not... World AIDS Day – Time for enlightened leadership via Overseas Development Institute - Blog
Islam & HIV/AIDS: “International Consultations” via CRISIS IN SOMALIA
Following is an announcement by The Islamic Relief.
Islamic Relief Worldwide is delighted to announce a conference entitled Islam and HIV/AIDS that will, God willing, take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 26 to 30 November 2007. It will comprise of five days of consultations that aim to generate practical responses to the HIV and AIDS pandemic from an Islamic perspective
There are around 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS in the world. The disease devastates individual lives as well as communities, and is increasingly affecting Muslim populations. This conference aims to contribute to halting the spread of the disease and to ensuring appropriate care for people affected by it. The Muslim world has been silent about the issue of HIV and AIDS for much too long, and it is...
World Bank Approves US$ 15 million via Ainashe.net
In a Press Release issued recently, the World Bank says:
The Horn of Africa is one of the regions that has been most prominently impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This area is characterized by sizeable mobile populations of transport workers, migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, and cross-border populations, populations that are most vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.
However, the Horn of Africa is also where there is hope that something can be done to bring about change. Countries like Kenya and Uganda are bringing down their HIV/AIDS prevalence rates — from 15% and 18.5% respectively in the 1990s to about 6.1% and 6.7% today. The efforts that have seen these figures come tumbling down have been mainly at country level.
The Press...
Rien que la verité via Light in the Heart of Darkness
What better way to spent a Saturday night in Kinshasa than hearing live to the biggest Congolese musicians around. Last night was the concert for the ABCD - Rien que la Verité album at the main stadium. Rien que la Verité (Only the Truth) is a US Embassy project which collected 14 of the top Congolese musicians make an album raising awareness about HIV/AIDS surrounding the 4 main messages:AbstinnenceBonne fidelitéCondomsDépistage (Testing) While official data shows Congo's HIV prevalence at 4.5%, it is suspected that many areas where there have been foreign militaries operating or which have road access to higher-prevalence countries such as Zambia and Rwanda, have significantly higher rates of infection (UNAIDS speculates up to 20% in conflict-affected areas). Unfortunately...
Sex, Hypocrisy and Development via Global Development: Views from the Center
The sudden resignation on Friday of Ambassador Randall Tobias, the first U.S. director of foreign assistance, stunned staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department and left the administration’s beleaguered aid reform effort without a leader. The acting deputy administrator of USAID, Jim Kunder, wrote to staff late in the afternoon that he had just received the "shocking" news that the White House would soon announce Tobias’s immediate resignation for "personal reasons."
Things got more shocking when news broke that Tobias had confirmed to ABC News that he had patronized a high-end call girl firm run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Federal prosecutors allege Palfrey was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in... Too many cooks to meet the Global Health Challenge? Or simply time to improve the cooking? via ODI WebLog
CGD State of the Union Bingo 2007 Goes Global: Where We Played, and What We Heard via Global Development: Views from the Center
From D.C. to Dhaka, scores of people gathered around live broadcasts of President Bush to play CGD State of the Union bingo and watch the president’s first address to a new Democratic majority in Congress. The rules are simple: listen for key policy terms in Bush’s address and be the first to mark your bingo card. The point: U.S. foreign policy, global warming and migration policies matter for global development and have an impact on poverty and inequality throughout the world. Some highlights from State of the Union bingo 2007:
The Diner in Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C: Policy wonks and development aficionados packed The Diner in Adams Morgan, which donated prizes for our bingo participants from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International... Liquid Condoms: What’s in a Name? via TIME.com: The TIME Global Health Blog
Ah, the power of a catchy name. Utah researchers are reporting advances in developing a "liquid condom" that would protect women from getting infected with the AIDS virus. No, this isn't something that you paint on but rather a compound that a woman would insert in her vagina and that would release anti-viral medication in the presence of semen. It'll take years, however, before we see any marketable products.
Of course, "liquid condoms" already exist. They're called microbicides and are being tested right now for the protection of women. But "microbicide" is such an awkward, antiseptic name, it's no wonder—despite the millions of dollars of Gates money being spent on microbicides—that we hear so little about them in the popular press.
—Christine...
AIDS could lock southern Africa in poverty: UN envoy via Poverty News Blog
from Yahoo News via AFPFailure to arrest the HIV/AIDS pandemic will keep the countries of southern Africa locked in poverty and hamper long-term development goals, a senior United Nations envoy said.On his final visit to the region, James Morris said the triple threat of food shortages, HIV/AIDS, and the loss of government capacity to respond represented "the most serious humanitarian challenge in the world today."This was the case despite great strides made in the region, which has seen the number of people requiring food aid decreasing from a massive 14 million people in 2002, to the 4.3 million that will need food aid in the beginning of 2007, he warned Wednesday.The combination of AIDS and the millions of children orphaned by the pandemic could prevent southern African governments...
SOMALIA: Uganda Refuse Helping Ethiopian Invasion via Ainashe.net
Oryem Okello; the Ugandans Minister of State for Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying:
We have decided that at this particular time, we should not go to Somalia.
The Minister went on by saying:
The situation has deteriorated rapidly — it risks all-out war.
This is a great victory for the Somali people. No country should help facilitate Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. I hope other countries will act wisely and follow Uganda’s lead.
Click here to view the article on the Reuters’ Alertnet....
Getting political with evidence-informed policy via ODI WebLog
HIV Hits the Gut Early and Hard via TIME.com: The TIME Global Health Blog
More bad news for efforts to create an effective AIDS vaccine. Turns out that in the first few weeks of an HIV infection, the virus damages the immune system more thoroughly than anyone had expected. The reason no one really noticed the problem before now is because the carnage occurs in the tissues of the intestinal tract and not in the bloodstream.
In other words, to borrow some World War I-type military terminology, that could mean that the front line that a vaccine would have to protect has just grown a lot longer and more complicated.
We tend to think of the immune system as something that’s active in the bloodstream—after all you get blood tests to learn your white blood cell count or to measure what kind of antibodies you’re generating. But in fact much of the work done...
HIV/AIDS Control May be Crowding Out Other Health Initiatives via Global Development: Views from the Center
HIV/AIDS control is now receiving enormous attention in global health circles. This is reason both for celebration and concern. It is reason for celebration because the disease has been neglected in the past and the tide may be turning against this humanitarian crisis. It is reason for concern because there is growing evidence that the extensive focus on this one disease is crowding-out resources and policy-maker attention for the many other causes of death and illness of the poor in the developing world.
In an editorial that appeared in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization on December 1, World AIDS Day, I provide evidence (pdf) of possible crowding-out effects.
For instance, over the years 1998 to 2003, as funding for HIV/AIDS grew from 9 percent to 43...
More Health Workers, Yes. But Only Within Better Systems via Global Development: Views from the Center
*This post is co-authored by Ruth Levine
In the Washington Post today, three doctors with sterling reputations in the AIDS world (Lola Daré, executive secretary of the African Council for Sustainable Health Development International and a member of CGD's working group on IMF programs and health spending; Paul Farmer, pioneer of new AIDS treatment programs in Haiti and Rwanda; and chief of Harvard Medical School's Department of Social Medicine Jim Kim, a member of CGD's working group on the Global Fund), call on the Bush Administration to spend $8 billion on training of community workers, nurses and doctors in Africa to deal with AIDS treatment.
Their proposition that many more community-level health workers be deployed to provide essential services, breaking the implicit and... A Living AIDS Quilt via TIME.com: The TIME Global Health Blog
World AIDS Day 2006 has me thinking about the original AIDS Quilt, which was first stitched together in 1987. It’s all about remembering the thousands upon thousands of individuals in the U.S. who have lost their lives in the epidemic. It’s a way of making sure that people who society found easy to overlook are not forgotten. It’s one of the most moving pieces of artwork you’re ever likely to see.
There’s another AIDS quilt that’s just as important, just as dramatic, just as moving. It’s a quilt of the living that, at least for now, you have to stitch together yourself. You can find the pieces here and there in photos, movies, stories of people who are getting medical treatment, returning to work or going back to school, learning how to live with HIV.
Here are a few of...
Stories of Hope from Africa via TIME.com: The TIME Global Health Blog
Stories in the mainstream press about sub-Saharan Africa tend to follow a pretty grim litany of poverty, corruption, violence and despair. (The photos are often even worse.) So I hereby submit for your perusal An African Miracle, which is a story of hope about children who are getting treated for AIDS that ran in the Dec. 4 issue of TIME.
On one level, this is story is about the Pediatric AIDS Corps—a group started by Dr. Mark Kline of Baylor—and its mission to bring medicine and doctors to the furthest reaches of the world to help treat children with HIV/AIDS.
But on a larger level, it’s a story about what’s possible when lots of people and organizations get together to make positive changes in the world we live in.
As so often happens when I write stories, I learned more...
Personal Struggles with AIDS via TIME.com: The TIME Global Health Blog
Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks. I'm just settling into India and will start posting from here more regularly.
First, though, a couple of last things from Africa. If you haven't seen Christine's piece An African Miracle in this week's magazine, it's definitely worth a read. Reporting from Lesotho, she shows how "children respond faster and better than adults to ARVs" and the ways several groups have risen to the challenge of getting AIDS drugs to poor African kids.
Then there's this moving story about a woman from KwaZulu Natal who is fighting to keep together her family and community even as HIV/AIDS rips it apart. Full disclosure: the author of this story is my wife Laurie Goering, who writes for the Chicago Tribune; Leo, the subject of the piece was our...