The unregulated supply of AIDS drugs in the developing world could accelerate the development of drug-resistant HIV strains, according to an expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom. Better regulation of private-sector providers of drugs in poor nations is needed to ensure that patients use antiretroviral drugs correctly, thereby reducing the risk that a strain of drug-resistant HIV will develop.
Equity in Health
LACK OF DRUG REGULATION 'SPURS HIV RESISTANCE'
NEW INITIATIVE TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOP DRUGS FOR THE WORLD’S MOST NEGLECTED DISEASES
The Nobel Prize winning Organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and four eminent public research institutes from around the world have joined forces to address the lack of research and development in drugs for neglected diseases. A mere 10% of global health research is devoted to diseases that account for 90% of the global disease burden.
QUESTIONS PROMPT REVIEW OF DIRTY NEEDLES' ROLE IN AFRICAN HIV INFECTIONS
Questions about what percentage of Africa's HIV infections are caused by dirty needles has prompted U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson -- who is also the chairman of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- to order a review of all research linking HIV/AIDS and medical injections, Associated Press has reported. The review could affect how funding from the $15 billion U.S. initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean is distributed, AP reported.
U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA 'AGHAST' AT CONNECTION BETWEEN HUNGER, HIV/AIDS
U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, during a speech at the Global Health Council's annual conference in Washington, D.C., said that he was "aghast" at the way in which "AIDS was deepening hunger and hunger was deepening AIDS" in Southern Africa. According to Lewis, Africa "reaps what the world sows, and with a vengeance."
World Health Assembly puts health over profit
The World Health Assembly, the policy-framing body that gives guidance to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the views of member states and sets global health policy, voted to support a resolution affirming that public health interests should remain paramount when framing policy on pharmaceuticals.
Zimbabwe state doctors' strike continues
Zimbabwe state doctors went on strike for the third day running in the last week of June, adding to the woes of a struggling healthcare system and the government of President Robert Mugabe. Doctors started strike action in the second city, Bulawayo, complaining that a recent evaluation and pay review of public sector jobs had whittled away their monthly salaries.
'Hyper on SARS, silent on WARS' - Will the new WHO DG break the silence?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) would need to broaden its analysis to include the socio-economic and political determinants of people's health and identify and address the impact of global neo-liberal economic policies on the health of the poor, among other things, if it was to truly remain a 'world' body and address the real 'health' needs of ordinary people. This is accroding to a statement by the People's Health Movement congratulating Dr. Jong-Wook Lee as he assumed his position as the new Director-General of the World Health Organisation. Dr Lee, noted the PHM, was taking over the organisation at a time when its relevance to the public health needs of the world's poor and marginalized were at its lowest point in recent history.
Further details: /newsletter/id/29812
31% of African TB now due to HIV epidemic
A new WHO study of the burden of tuberculosis has found that most of the world's largest and fastest-growing epidemics of TB, in Africa, are increasingly attributable to the effects of HIV. The researchers, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, use mathematical models to compile and assess information from published studies and a network of experts to estimate that 9% of the estimated 8.3 million new cases of TB in the year 2000 would not have happened, but for HIV.
ARV DRUG TREATMENT AFFORDABLE in south africa
Antiretroviral drugs are "affordable" and launching a program to deliver the medicines to HIV-positive people throughout South Africa is "feasible," according to a cost study completed by the country's national health and finance ministries.
Related Link:
* Health Minister cool to drug plan
http://allafrica.com/stories/200305140990.html
botswana's radical arv treatment becomes test case
The success of Botswana's "radical" antiretroviral drug program has made the country a "test case" for AIDS treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Botswana, which has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate - 38.5% of people between the ages of 14 and 49 are estimated to be HIV-positive - began offering treatment last year.