Differential Treatment: Restricted Access to Newer Antiretrovirals
World Health Day, observed on 7 April 2011, focused on antimicrobial resistance including drug resistance issues related to HIV/AIDS. Antiretroviral treatment has been rapidly scaled up in many developing countries in the past decade without major emergence of HIV drug resistance as initially feared. WHO recommends a minimum resource strategy for prevention and assessment of HIV drug resistance in resource limited countries, and works with a global network of individuals, institutions, and countries to implement the strategy.
A National Response to the HIV Epidemic in Papua New Guinea
In the context of the HIV epidemic in Papua New Guinea, sex workers and males who have sex with males (MSM) engage in potentially risky sexual practices which remain under archaic criminal laws.1 Those at risk continue to face prejudice, moral condemnation, and violent abuse from some sectors of society, as well as harassment by police and blackmail, which are aimed especially at MSM. Their vulnerability and lack of security impacts on the national response, as it drives them underground and affects their access to treatment and services. However, ongoing educational projects by MSM groups and sex workers appear to be improving police attitudes.
The 4th Decade of AIDS: What is Needed to Reshape the Response
The international community has reached the first part of Millennium Development Goal 6: halting and reversing the spread of HIV. At least fifty-six countries have either stabilized or reduced new HIV infections by more than 25 per cent in the past ten years, and this is especially evident in sub-Saharan Africa, the region most affected by the epidemic. New HIV infections among children have dropped by 25 per cent, a significant step towards achieving the virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission by 2015. In addition, today more than five million people are on antiretroviral treatment, which has reduced AIDS-related deaths by more than 20 per cent in the past five years. However, with more than 33 million people living with HIV today, 2.6 million new HIV infections, and nearly 2 million deaths in 2009, the gains made in the AIDS response are fragile.
Interfaith Response to HIV/AIDS
The story of interfaith response to HIV/AIDS is one that moved from initial doubt, denial and moral hesitation -- even direct denunciation -- to one of global reach and scale. This is a story that demonstrates both the power and challenges that come from specific beliefs, morals, and theology. It also points to greater possibilities for bridging divides in faith and culture through the power of common action on so great an issue of shared concern.
A Decade of Fighting for our Lives
A group of South African activists founded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on 10 December 1998, International Human Rights Day. It was no accident that TAC was formed exactly fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The backbone of TAC is its use of advocacy to fight for the realisation of the right to health, which is enshrined both in international treaties and in the South African Constitution.
Women and HIV
What is it with women and girls? Why are we always left behind? Why can't we choose the things we want to be a part of? Why must we always race to the front, rather than be left peacefully alone when we would rather not partake? Is it because, as women, we are strong, powerful, and the foundation of our society?
When we started hearing about HIV in Motherland Nigeria, it was about men dying at the mines or long-distance truck drivers going home to die. But before you could form the words to thank God that women weren't acquiring the nasty virus, common sense reminded you that whatever a man acquires -- good or bad -- will surely come home.
In the Beginning
In the beginning, the AIDS epidemic struck like a thief in the night -- suddenly, terrifyingly, and deadly. At first, there were a few cases of a rare malignancy, Kaposi's sarcoma; then came the appearance of Pneumocystis pneumonia; and finally a plethora of opportunistic infections including systemic candidiasis, cryptococcal meningitis, and Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare -- all rare diseases associated with this new mysterious, unknown, and unnamed spectre.
Asleep at the Wheel
The world has been living with the HIV/AIDS epidemic for some thirty years, and prevention methods have been scientifically proven and disseminated to the public for nearly as long. Yet, there are, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) High Level Commission on HIV Prevention, at least 7,000 new HIV infections every day -- an alarming number that indicates HIV/AIDS awareness is at an unacceptable level of neglect by governments, civil society, and the private sector. There was a strong worldwide effort towards HIV prevention when the disease began spreading rapidly throughout the developing world in the early 1990s but, more recently, a disproportionate amount of funding has been directed towards treatment, rather than prevention. Obviously, prevention is the most effective method in slowing down the spread of this terrible disease, but decision-makers still view HIV prevention as a health problem, not a societal one.
The Imperative for Faith Communities: Overcoming the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Through Stigma Reduction
The world faith community has made some good progress against the spread of HIV/AIDS by using individually-focused, informed messages, such as the ABC strategies, Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condom Use, as well as policies, programmes and budgets that are simple, morally appealing, politically convenient, financially lenient and scientifically relevant. For greater and more sustainable success against HIV/AIDS, these messages and programmes must be expanded, and the epidemic tackled with a multi-sectoral, multi-level, and multi-dimensional ethic that simultaneously reduces the Stigma, Shame, Denial, Discrimination, Inaction and Mis-action (SSDDIM) still attached to HIV, while promoting the SAVE model: Safer practices, Available medicines, Voluntary testing and Empowerment through education, at the individual, family, local community, national, regional, and global level. This must be accomplished if we are to significantly halt, reverse, and eventually overcome new infections related to AIDS before the virus triumphantly and devastatingly celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in 2031.
The Conference on Disarmament: Injecting Political Will
The Conference on Disarmament (CD)* has met in vain for years. After the successful negotiation of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970 and, more recently, the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1992, the forum increasingly stagnated. The last time the Conference agreed to negotiate was in 1996 -- this time for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly but has yet to enter into force.
Commit to Love and Respect Our Planet
Nearly every day on television or in the newspapers we see reports of natural disasters in different parts of the world, causing concern and alarm. Our planet is going through a most difficult time because mankind, in its eagerness to improve upon personal economic and living conditions, has forgotten that its actions cause pollution and uncontrollable climate change. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, this term is used to refer to global climatic change that is directly and indirectly attributable to human activities that change the atmosphere's composition.
We Have Become the Change Agents in Our Communities
Students in Lusaka, Zambia, learn about tuberculosis and resolve to sensitize their peers. We would like to share an experience that opened our eyes to some issues that most of us take very lightly. Our teacher, Florence Lutale, introduced us to a global programme in collaboration with the Genius Group of Schools in Rajkot, India, and schools in the United States to share our experience on global infectious diseases. The programme is the brainchild of GreenContributor, a non-governmental organization. We identified tuberculosis (TB), which is often overshadowed by HIV/AIDS in terms of publicity. While conducting research, we found out that not many students at the International School in Lusaka had been in contact with anyone suffering from TB. Many in Zambia believe that it is a disease infecting poor people, or those suffering from HIV/AIDS.