HIV/AIDS has accounted for huge reversals in human development in Southern Africa, which could impact on the region meeting some of the UN's poverty-slashing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a new report. The UN's '2005 Human Development Report' released on Wednesday noted that 12 of the 18 countries that have suffered development reversals between 1990 and 2003 were in sub-Saharan Africa, with Southern Africa "hit hardest".
Equity in Health
HIV/AIDS eroding region's development, says UN report
Poor funding hampers AIDS vaccine research, says Lewis
The global pursuit of a vaccine against HIV/AIDS is failing due to a lack of funds and commitment, a delegation of researchers heard on Tuesday. Addressing the '2005 AIDS Vaccine International Conference' in Montreal, Canada, Stephen Lewis the UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa urged scientists to emerge from their laboratories to become champions for the cause.
The Power Of Growth To Reduce Poverty: World Development Report 2006
Equity, defined primarily as equality of opportunities among people, should be an integral part of a successful poverty reduction strategy anywhere in the developing world, says the World Bank's annual 2006 World Development Report. "Equity is complementary to the pursuit of long-term prosperity," said François Bourguignon, the Bank's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, who guided the team that produced the report. "Greater equity is doubly good for poverty reduction. It tends to favor sustained overall development, and it delivers increased opportunities to the poorest groups in a society."
Treating severe malnutrition: implementing clinical guidelines in South African hospitals
According to the World Health Organisation malnutrition is associated with about 60 percent of deaths in children under five years old in the developing world. The WHO has developed guidelines to improve the quality of hospital care for malnourished children in order to reduce deaths. The guidelines suggest ten steps for routine management of severe malnourishment. These will require most hospitals to make substantial changes.
UN summit gridlocks
The 2005 World Summit, a “high-level plenary meeting of the 60th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations”, was the grand title of a dreary and lacklustre meeting held in New York on Sept 14–16, reports the 24 September issue of The Lancet. The summit has been widely derided, mainly for its watered-down outcome document, which was painfully agreed on the eve of the summit. For those most concerned about the fate of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with their aim to halve world poverty by 2015, there were one or two potentially bright spots. UN delegates committed an additional US$50 billion to the MDGs over the next 5 years, with every developing country agreeing to create a national plan by the end of 2006 for achieving the MDGs.
An overview of the 2005 MDG summit
The World Summit is expected to bring together more than 170 Heads of State and Government: the largest gathering of world leaders in history. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations. Proposals in the area of development call for breakthroughs in debt relief and trade liberalization, and increases in aid to revitalize infrastructure and improve health and education services, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015 (www.un.org/millenniumgoals ).
Anti-AIDS medication still too expensive, says MSF report
As the prices of first-line anti-AIDS medication continue to fall, newer antiretrovirals (ARVs) can cost up to 12 times more in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report by Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF). Paediatric formulations were also more expensive than adult ARV drugs: treating a child for one year could be as much as US $816, while the same triple-drug regimen for adults was only $182.
Health and the MDGs
World Health Organisation
The report, Health and the Millennium Development Goals, presents data on progress on the health goals and targets and looks beyond the numbers to analyse why improvements in health have been slow and to suggest what must be done to change this. The report points to weak and inequitable health systems as a key obstacle, including particularly a crisis in health personnel and the urgent need for sustainable health financing.
Meeting of WHO regional committee adopts six resolutions
The fifty-fifth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa ended August 26 in Maputo, Mozambique, with the adoption of six resolutions, including one declaring tuberculosis (TB) a “regional emergency” and the other, proclaiming 2006 as the “Year for Acceleration of HIV Prevention.” The resolution declaring TB a regional emergency called on Member States to undertake “urgent, extraordinary and intensified actions” to bring the epidemic under control.
Mozambique/South Africa sign health deal
Mozambique and South Africa are to sign a health cooperation agreement, allowing the exchange of knowledge on diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido and his South African counterpart, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, met in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, to finalise details of the agreement.