The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) call on the Eastern Cape Premier to follow the example of his Kwa-Zulu Natal counterpart and provide the anti-retroviral drug, nevirapine, to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in the province. This joint call is made after careful consideration of the resources available to the Department of Health in the province. Research published by the Eastern Cape Department of Health, in the journal Epidemiological Notes, recognises that over 20% of women attending antenatal clinics in the province tested HIV positive in 2000. As a result it is estimated that in excess of 10 500 babies are born HIV positive in the Eastern Cape each year. TAC/PSAM believe that on the strength of the pilot studies conducted in Kwa-Zulu Natal, which delivered a 100% success rate, the lives of these infants could have been saved through the provision of nevirapine to pregnant mothers in the Eastern Cape.
Governance and participation in health
The first global campaign to end the Catholic bishops' ban on condoms has been launched in Zimbabwe with a billboard in Harare and ad in The Herald carrying the message "Banning Condoms Kills" and "Catholic People Care-Do Our Bishops?" The prominently placed advertisements are part of an unprecedented worldwide public education effort aimed at Catholics and non-Catholics alike to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the Catholic bishops' ban on condoms in preventing new HIV/AIDS infections. The campaign is being sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC).
Community Working Group on Health and TARSC. Editors: M. McCartney and R. Loewenson. November 2001
The story of the first years of the Community Working Group on Health in Zimbabwe, describing how the CWGH surveyed and met with over 20 membership-based community groups across Zimbabwe in 1997, to identify the major community concerns about health, and to devise effective strategies for dealing with them. Providing a concise and comprehensive overview of the issues facing the health sector in Zimbabwe, problems associated with community participation, and a discussion of the best strategies for community based advocacy and action.
We are organizing a People's Summit, the G6B Conference to be held just prior to the G8 meeting in June, 2002 in Calgary, Canada. The People's Summit will address issues of global importance. In researching HIV in Africa for the People's Summit, we are requesting information regarding the following:
* What are the areas of interest for your organization?
* Can you provide us with specific information in the areas of your work regarding HIV in Africa?
* Are you interested in collaborating with the People's Summit Conference?
* Can your organization join the Conference? Are you able to fund the participation of a delegate to the Conference? We are looking for experts in this area to join a Health Committee Panel during the Conference. Do you know of any such persons who would be suitable for this?
More information on the G6B Conference can be found at the website.
EThis report shares the highlights and lessons learned from the third year of "Community Lessons, Global Learning", a collaboration between the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Positive Action, GlaxoSmithKline. The report includes approaches to the HIV/AIDS pandemic over the past twenty years that work. It highlights applications for moving from successful small scale projects that reach relatively few individuals to effective strategies that really make an impact on the pandemic is the challenge. Posing the question, “How can individual NGOs/CBOs scale-up their own contribution to effective responses.”
Africa Action will fight for the following goals:
1. unconditional cancellation of Africa’s illegitimate foreign debt, 2. equal access to drugs and treatment, 3. an end to IMF/ World Bank colonialism, 4. an end to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and HIV status, and 5. promotion of a public discourse on reparations (the need for the West to invest in Africa’s health care as an obligation— not charity). For a wide range of campaign resources, visit the Africa Action website.
Every day 37,000 people die from preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.* Most of these deaths are in the developing world where many life-saving drugs are unaffordable because they are patented under rules set by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). There is now a strong movement of governments, charities, churches, activist groups and health bodies urging the WTO to change these rules to allow countries the right to make vital medicines more cheaply. However a few rich WTO members - particularly the United States - are blocking these moves, and pressurising developing countries to apply even more restrictive rules at national level. Oxfam, Third World Network and Health Gap Coalition are part of a global alliance which is urging WTO members, in particular the US, to demonstrate their commitment to put people's health before the profits of powerful drugs companies. Will you help us change the WTO rules? Add your name to our petition which we will present to the WTO at its forthcoming summit.
The book is a review of the June 1999 democratic elections in South Africa and has extensive chapters on the role of civil society and voter education and election monitoring of the elections as well as a 25 page chapter on the role of the media in the election process.
Is tobacco control a development issue? How will the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) affect developing countries? What new research is needed to explore these issues? What do YOU think? id21 Health's email discussion aims to bring a broader development perspective to the tobacco control debate. Participants will include international and national policy-makers, health professionals, tobacco control agencies, NGOs and researchers from diverse academic disciplines. A summary of the discussion will be distributed to participants at the next round of negotiations on the FCTC in late November. To join the discussion, send an email to lyris@lyris.ids.ac.uk, with the message: ''subscribe tobacco Firstname Lastname", e.g. "subscribe tobacco Emily Smith".
This Worldview International project is a youth Internet forum on global issues. Every fortnight, they cover pertinent issues, chosen by youth themselves through an offline and online poll. Recent discussions have included Sexuality Education: If Not Now, Then When?