The European Union has proposed that the World Health Organisation serve as an objective third party in an attempt to stop the "impasse" in negotiations among 144 World Trade Organisation members about how to improve developing nations' access to drugs used to fight public health crises, including HIV/AIDS, the AP/Nando Times reports. The United States' position that only certain types of diseases should be covered under the deal "blocked" ambassadors from meeting a self-imposed deadline of Dec. 31, 2002, according to the AP/Nando Times. The negotiations focus on how to allow developing nations to import generic versions of patented drugs to fight diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Equity in Health
who may intervene over drugs debacle
WORLD fails to grasp impact of Hiv/Aids, feachem says
The world "has still not grasped" the full "devastation" and threat of HIV/AIDS, which has killed 24 million people worldwide and is "still nowhere near its peak," Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said in December.
AFRICA: AIDS - WORST YET TO COME, BUT POSITIVE SIGNS EMERGING
For many African countries the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still to come, according to a new UN report. "In the absence of massively expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, the AIDS death toll on the continent is expected to continue rising before peaking around the end of this decade," the UNAIDS/World Health Organisation AIDS Epidemic Update 2002 said.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29480
African Epidemics of Famine and HIV/AIDS Must Be Fought Together
Africa's twin epidemics of HIV/AIDS and famine must be fought together because they are intertwined, Alex de Waal, director of Justice Africa and an adviser to the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, writes in a New York Times op-ed. HIV/AIDS is crippling African nations' ability to resist famine because the disease is killing young people who make up the majority of farmers and other laborers, de Waal says. Meanwhile, famine and malnutrition destroy health, making people more susceptible to disease, more likely to quickly progress from HIV to AIDS and less likely to respond well to existing treatments, de Waal states, adding that the epidemics have disrupted social structures and made it more difficult for affected populations to recover.
AIDS Leading Cause of Death in South African Women
AIDS-related illnesses are now the leading cause of death among South African women ages 15 to 39, accounting for nearly 10% of deaths among South African women, according to new figures released by Statistics South Africa, SABCNews.com reports. In addition, the proportion of South African deaths due to AIDS-related causes almost doubled from 4.6% in 1997 to 8.7% in 2001.
CONFERENCE DISCUSSES POVERTY AND AIDS
The United Nations held a two-day conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November to discuss the relationship between Africa's severe food shortages and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Xinhua News Agency reports. More than 50 people, including U.N. delegates and representatives from local and international non-governmental agencies, were scheduled to meet at the conference.
IRIN WEBSPECIAL ON WORLD AIDS DAY
AIDS threatens our very raison d'etre; our ability to live and our instinct to create life. Little wonder, therefore, that HIV and AIDS are so feared. As the articles in this IRIN World AIDS Day web special(http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/aids/) illustrates, fear is at the heart of much of the stigma and discrimination that surrounds HIV and AIDS: fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, and, as Eric Nachibanga, an HIV-positive Zambian points out, "fear of helplessness".
MALAWI: HIV/AIDS project reaches out to prisoners
HIV/AIDS education and prevention campaigns often ignore prisoners but a project in Malawi is reaching out to educate them about the disease and treat those with sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Malawi prisons are considered fertile grounds for transmission of HIV/AIDS and yet little has been done to prevent the spread of the virus or treat patients already infected, Walker Jiyani, programme director for the Health in Prisons (HIP) project, told PlusNews.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29447
MOZAMBIQUE: Living positively
People living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) in Mozambique are learning how to live longer and more productive lives under a new programme currently being rolled out in the country. The Vida Positiva/Positive Living programme is a "social education" project targeting those infected and affected by the disease, national coordinator for Vida Positiva, Nyeleti Mondlane, told PlusNews.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29448
mozambique: msf launches arv pilot plan
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) plans to launch a five-year pilot programme in collaboration with the Mozambican government to provide free antiretrovirals (ARVs) to a selected group of HIV-positive people in the northern province of Tete and in the capital, Maputo. The programme, to be introduced before the end of December, would begin with 350 people in Maputo and 350 in Tete during the first year, and gradually increase to 1,500 people by the end of the second year. The MSF programme follows an announcement last month that an Indian manufacturing company, approved by the UN's World Health Organisation, would begin supplying Mozambican pharmacies with cheap generic ARVs.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29438