HIV/AIDS is threatening subsistence agriculture in Mozambique, with "ominous implications" for the country's food supply, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. By 2020 the country will have lost over 20 percent of its agricultural labour force to HIV/AIDS, according to FAO. Mozambique and Namibia feature among the nine hardest-hit African countries, all in southern and eastern Africa, where FAO predicts a loss of agricultural labour to the disease.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS threatening subsistence agriculture in Mozambique
South Africa AIDS drug giant tackled over high prices
The US-based NGO, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), has lodged a complaint with South Africa's Competition Tribunal against leading anti-AIDS drug producer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), saying Glaxo's high drug prices are preventing the treatment of more HIV-positive South Africans. A local newspaper, Business Day, quoted AHF president Michael Weinstein as saying: "We have had to turn people away from our clinic because we simply don't have the funds to treat all the people who need treatment. If the price of GSK's AIDS drugs had been lower, we might have been able to save their lives."
Zambians urged to use free AIDS drugs
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has urged people living with HIV/AIDS to make use of anti-AIDS drugs, which are freely available at healthcare sites throughout the country. Mwanawasa was quoted by a local newspaper, The Times of Zambia, as saying: "The answer does not lie in sitting back with your disease but in presenting your case to authorities ... so that you can get treatment." He noted that antiretroviral treatment would improve their health.
Zima Resolves to Lobby HIV/Aids Global Fund
Doctors have resolved to lobby the Global Fund to give Zimbabwe funds for use in HIV/Aids initiatives. At the Zimbabwe Medical Association congress, which took place in Victoria Falls from August 19 to 22 under the theme "New Horizons in the Health Sector", the doctors said it was grossly irresponsible and a violation of human rights for Zimbabwe to be denied money from the fund. Zima secretary-general Dr Paul Chimedza said doctors suspected that the reason the country was denied the money was political.
Aids conference: 'Virus' of free trade fatal for those with HIV/AIDS
The rapidly spreading virus of free trade has proved as fatal to those living with HIV/AIDS as the disease itself according to Health NOW!, a global alliance of activist groups fighting the patenting of life-saving medicine by drug multinationals. Speaking at the XV international AIDS conference in Bangkok a Health NOW! spokesperson argued that millions of lives could be saved if developing world nations were not forced to sign unfair trade agreements by developed countries. Multilateral as well as bilateral free trade pacts he said were devastating the lives of the poor, contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS and compounding the devastation caused by the pandemic.
Further details: /newsletter/id/30520
Aids Conference: 3 by 5 goals can be met, says report
Although the objective of the World Health Organization's 3 by 5 Initiative - treating three million people with antiretroviral drugs by 2005 - is behind schedule, it is still possible, according to the first progress report for the initiative. The report - released in advance of the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand - estimates that 440,000 people currently are receiving treatment under the program.
Aids conference: Access for all includes access by civil society to global bodies
In an unprecedented gesture, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan invited 11 HIV/AIDS activists from diverse civil society organizations for a frank dialogue about the UN and international response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, facilitated the meeting. The 11 civil society organizations reached quick consensus on four key issues that need to be addressed immediately, by the Secretary General and UN bodies, in order to enhance and sustain comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Further details: /newsletter/id/30528
Aids conference: Bangkok - What did we learn?
The 15th international AIDS conference has come and gone, but what will we have hoped to achieve when the world meets again in Toronto in two years time? Unlike the international AIDS conference in Vancouver 1996 when Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) broke new scientific ground and Durban 2000 when equal access to medicines made centre-stage, Bangkok 2004 presented no revolutionary science, no dramatic breakthroughs. But it did get back to basics and the need for an holistic approach. There is no single strategy to address HIV/AIDS. It requires prevention and treatment, activist pressure and government commitment, advanced scientific research and community involvement, and above all, a human rights-based approach designed to support vulnerable individuals and groups.
Aids conference: Controversy over Nevirapine at Aids conference
Conference delegates at the recent International Aids Conference in Thailand witnessed top South African government officials facing off with leading civil society activists over the use of the antiretroviral drug Nevirapine for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The session eventually brought about a better understanding of this issue. The controversy followed a comment made by South African Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, at the opening of the South African stand at the Conference on Sunday. The Minister said that recent studies did not support the use of single-dose Nevirapine for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).
>>> Visit the website of the Health and Development Network (http://www.hdnet.org/home2.htm) and read The Correspondent, a daily newspaper produced at the International AIDS conference, for detailed news.
>>> Kaisernetwork.org conference page:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2004/kffsyndication.asp?show=portal.html
>>> XV International AIDS Conference
http://www.ias.se/aids2004/
>>> WHO site
http://www.who.int/3by5/bangkok/en/
Aids conference: Scaling up access to care in resource constrained settings: What is needed?
Address by Jim Yong Kim, Director, Department of HIV/AIDS, WHO, XV International AIDS Conference, Bangkok Plenary Address, 13 July 2004
"As we have learned from this epidemic, silence cannot be an option. "3 by 5" is our best chance to use time creatively and effectively to fight this epidemic. Those of us with power and responsibility are called to do everything possible over the next 18 months to make a difference, to finally dance with this epidemic at its own pace. For the activists, you must hold all of our collective feet to the hottest possible fire because large organizations and the powerful have a way of finding reasons to not take action. If you don’t continue to push us, we will falter. Bold and ambitious goals for AIDS prevention and care - and action to match – are our only options. Anything less is to miss the warning of Martin Luther King and to be guilty of an appalling and deadly silence."
* Interview with Jim Yong Kim
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/6/en/feature.pdf