A dramatic 41% decline in HIV prevalence has been reported in pregnant women in Zimbabwe, according to the latest survey done in this population. The results were reported in a poster presentation at the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago this week. Previous studies have suggested that HIV prevalence is on the decline among adults in Zimbabwe. This study only looked at pregnant women presenting to the Salvation Army Howard Hospital in the Mazowe district of rural northern Zimbabwe, but dramatically confirmed this decline in prevalence among these women.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
Sharp decline in HIV prevalence reported in pregnant women in rural Northern Zimbabwe
Thaczuk D, Carter M: Aidsmap, 20 September 2007
UNAIDS head puts the spotlight on children and teens
Appel A: Inter Press Service News Agency, 30 September 2007
The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) urged action on the transmission of HIV to children through sexual abuse, incest and early teenage sex. Many outreach programmes target HIV-positive pregnant women and young children, and progress is being made in this arena, Peter Piot told IPS during a recent conference at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.
Contaminated, fake AIDS drugs flood black market in Zimbabwe
Advocate, 11 September 2007
AIDS drugs, some of them contaminated, diluted, or faked, are being sold at flea markets and hairdressing salons in the face of growing shortages in clinics linked to Zimbabwe's economic crisis, the health ministry said. State media quoted Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa on Monday appealing to people living with HIV or AIDS to buy their medicines from registered pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals only. "These fake drugs increase chances of one becoming resistant to treatment, and it becomes even more expensive for that person to remain on treatment," he was quoted as saying by the official Herald newspaper, which said that the "prohibitive" cost of antiretroviral drugs at private pharmacies had fueled the illegal market.
Informal settlements as spaces of health inequality: The changing economic and spatial roots of the aids pandemic, from Apartheid to neoliberalism
Hunter M: Centre for Civil Society Research Report 44: 1-24
Between 1990 and 2005, HIV prevalence rates in South Africa jumped from less than 1% to around 29%. Combining ethnographic, demographic and historical insights, this article addresses the important question posed recently by prominent South Africanist scholars: Was Aids in South Africa ‘an epidemic waiting to happen?’ To date, important responses to this question have forefronted the legacy of colonialism and apartheid in order to challenge cultural models that reify an ‘African system of sexuality’ supposedly characterised by sexual permissiveness (for instance as contained in Caldwell, Caldwell and Quiggin, 1989, for a direct critique see Heald, 1995). In particular, the work of social historians has brought to attention the ways in which racial segregation and male migration fuelled an earlier epidemic of syphilis only partially quelled by the introduction of penicillin in the 1950s; moreover, they note how the forces of urbanisation, industrialisation, and Christianisation have long been argued to have destabilised African family structures.
Lost to follow up – contributing factors and challenges in South African patients on antiretroviral therapy
Maskew M, MacPhail M, Menezes C, Rubel D: South Africa Medical Journal 97(9), September 2007
Patients who do not return for follow-up at clinics providing comprehensive HIV/AIDS care require special attention. This is particularly true where resources are limited and clinic loads are high. Data on a sample of patients who failed to return for follow-up were analysed to identify the causes and to plan strategies to overcome the problem.
Missing the Target : A report from HIV and Aids treatment access from the frontlines
AIDS Treatment Access, 19 September 2007
The latest version of the Missing the Target report on AIDS treatment scale up offers a "no spin" assessment on treatment access -- the successes, challenges, and what needs to change at the national and global levels. The report points out that AIDS treatment delivery represents the best hope to build broader health systems -- but that we are in a new phase of treatment scale up where critical issues beyond simple delivery of ARVs require urgent attention. Governments and global institutions must act on the recommendations in our report to accelerate treatment delivery and address critical challenges in scale up. Without improved efforts, the world will fall short of new G8 AIDS commitments to deliver lifesaving HIV treatment and prevention services.
South African babies infected with HIV in public hospitals
Agence France Presse, 17 September 2007
South African medical experts and activists on Monday warned that poor infection controls in public hospitals have caused dozens of babies to become infected with HIV. Treatment Action Campaign spokesperson Mark Heywood said he was aware of more than 40 such infections. 'The overall lack of inspection control policies, procedures, and budget means that the problem is probably more widespread,' he said. Shaheen Mehtar, head of infection prevention and control at Cape Town's Tygerberg Academic Hospital, said she personally knows of 24 infections in newborns. According to a report in the Cape Times daily newspaper, doctors blame the infections on HIV-tainted expressed breast milk being given to hospitalized babies, the re-use of syringes, and poor sterilization.
Towards universal access: scaling up priority HIV/AIDS interventions in the health sector
UNAIDS, UNICEF: World Health Organization, 2007
This progress report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows a steady increase in the global levels of access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV. However, it shows less improvement in other priority areas of HIV treatment. The coverage rate for access to prophylactic ART by pregnant women, to prevent mother to child transmission of the virus, continues to be low. Similarly, the coverage of HIV counselling services and of interventions directed at intravenous drug users (IDUs) also remain at a low level. The report shows some improvement in the effective monitoring of HIV prevalence.
Falling HIV rates tell complex story
PlusNews, 2 August 2007
When it comes to sub-Saharan Africa's devastating AIDS crisis, there is an understandable tendency to latch onto any scrap of good news. Figures suggesting the epidemic is waning in some countries are being trumpeted by governments and international donor agencies as evidence that their prevention efforts are succeeding. But the real story behind increases and decreases in HIV prevalence is far less clear.
In the wake of the LRA: HIV in Uganda and Sudan
Integrated Regional Information Network, 27 August 2007
In Uganda, the areas worst affected by the violence were close to the border with Sudan, far from the urban centres around which most camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) grew. It is the urban areas, such as Gulu in northern Uganda and Yei in southern Sudan, which have the highest HIV prevalence rates. Years of encampment and dependency on relief handouts have had a profound effect on the traditionally conservative Acholi. Alcoholism and sexual violence have become particular problems, and the heavy presence of soldiers, with money in their pockets, has also helped give rise to a sex industry. Many areas of southern Sudan and northern Uganda are rapidly opening up to trade, and health workers are worried that unless information about HIV reaches these populations early enough, they will be unprepared for the possibility of a rapid spread of HIV.