Between six and nine million people in developing countries currently urgently need anti-retroviral treatment while in reality only between 230 000 and 300 000 have access to these drugs, according to a report by HealthGAP, a US-based human rights group.
Equity in Health
Defining equity in health
Inequities in health systematically put groups of people who are already socially disadvantaged (for example, by virtue of being poor, female, and/or members of a disenfranchised racial, ethnic, or religious group) at further disadvantage with respect to their health; health is essential to wellbeing and to overcoming other effects of social disadvantage. Equity is an ethical principle; it also is consonant with and closely related to human rights principles. The proposed definition of equity supports operationalisation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health as indicated by the health status of the most socially advantaged group. Assessing health equity requires comparing health and its social determinants between more and less advantaged social groups. These comparisons are essential to assess whether national and international policies are leading toward or away from greater social justice in health.
DYING FOR TREATMENT -THE TAC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CAMPAIGN
This Briefing document is intended to help TAC activists and supporters to understand the background to TAC's decision to embark on a civil disobedience campaign in March 2003. Hundreds of pages could be written about TAC's efforts to persuade government to work with civil society on an HIV/AIDS treatment programme - but this is just a summary. In addition, although there is a great deal of independent research and information that could be cited to support TAC's demands, this document refers only to government's own research and policy statements to show how, in reality, the reluctance to commit to a treatment plan, including anti-retroviral medicines, contradicts its own findings, policies and constitutional duties.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29694
Fury at Zambia army HIV test
The Zambian army's decision to turn away HIV positive applicants has been angrily criticised. Health Minister Brian Chituwo said the new policy was introduced because "with the excessive physical military activity recruiting HIV positive staff would be sending them to the grave faster". But this reasoning is rejected by medical experts who say good nutrition and effective medical treatment, including anti-retroviral drugs, will solve this dilemma.
hiv/aids causes world population drop
The United Nations Population Division on Wednesday lowered its estimated world population projections for 2050 by 400 million, largely due to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and "lower than expected" birthrates. The "World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision" report attributes about half of the decrease to a rising number of deaths due to AIDS-related complications and the other half to the fact that three out of four countries in less-developed regions will have fertility rates below replacement levels by 2050.
improve access to drugs, investment groups say
A coalition of UK and European investment funds with $943 billion under management are calling on pharmaceutical companies to take swift steps to ensure that poor countries have access to essential medicines. As major pharmaceutical company shareholders, the pension funds are concerned that the value of their investments will decline. If the companies fail to address criticisms over patents and pricing, they will face greater regulation that could ultimately damage profits and also face more comprehensive threats to the current global patent system, in the view of some investors.
PROFITING FROM AIDS
Drug companies are continuing to sell anti-retrovirals at hugely inflated prices in South Africa with some branded drugs selling for up to eight times more than generic versions available worldwide but that are not yet manufactured locally. The price for an annual course of triple therapy consisting of AZT, 3TC and Nevirapine in South Africa would cost around R20 000 (around R1 700 per month) before VAT and the chemist’s mark-up is added. In contrast, the same course of generic ARVs would cost around R3 300 year (or R275 a month). The huge profit margins of the drug companies forms the basis of a complaint lodged last year at the Competition Commission by a group of people living openly with HIV/AIDS, health workers, labour and civil society.
Putting equity in health back onto the social policy agenda: experience from South Africa
Over the past decade, international health policy debates have been dominated by efficiency considerations. There has been a recent resurgence of interest in health equity, including consideration of the notions of vertical equity and procedural justice. This paper explores the possible application of these notions within the context of South Africa, a country in which inequities in income and social service distribution between ‘racial’ groups were systematically promoted and entrenched during four decades of minority rule, guided by apartheid and related policies. The South African experience since 1994 provides useful insights into factors which may facilitate or constrain health equity progress. In particular, the constitutional entitlement to health and civil society action to maintain health equity’s place on the social policy agenda are seen as important facilitating factors. This paper concludes that health equity goals are critically dependent on the central involvement of the disadvantaged in decision-making about who should receive priority, what services should be delivered and how equity-promoting initiatives should be implemented.
RESTRICTIONS IN TB CONTROL STRATEGY LEAVE THE POOREST UNTREATED
Whilst the World Health Organisation-embraced strategy for controlling tuberculosis (TB) has been successful in treating and curing TB, its current format restricts the extension of this success to the poor: although TB treatment is free, diagnosis is not, and so the first gateway to treatment is often shut to the poorest. The restrictions, caused primarily by lack of funds, are outlined in a specially commissioned id21 report by Dr Bertie Squire of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, which points to the tasks ahead if the WHO target to halve TB deaths by 2010 is to be achieved.
Treatment preparedness summit closes
At the closing of the first International Treatment Preparedness Summit (ITPS) in Cape Town, South Africa, last month, participants detailed a number of priority actions to address the inequalities that prevent millions of people living with HIV/AIDS from securing access to treatment. At the end of the four-day meeting attended by over 120 representatives of treatment advocacy groups from 67 countries across the world, delegates agreed that current treatment efforts were insufficient. One of the things they called for was for national governments to develop treatment plans detailing how they intend to implement the World Health Organisation's goal of ensuring ARV treatment for at least 3 million people in the developing world by 2005.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29651