The mainstays of South Africa’s efforts to fend off the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy provision and home based care. While vitally important, each in current form also expresses the kinds of prevailing inequalities that warp society. Today, of the estimated one million South Africans in need of ARVs, only about 200 000 are receiving such therapy -- half of them through the private health sector, which is accessible to a small minority of South Africans. This crisis demands nothing less than a new strategy (and struggle)for realising social rights.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
A plague of inequality
Mail and Guardian, 19 May 2006: Marais H
Abuja AIDS Summit - promises, promises?
IRIN PlusNews
African leaders meeting at a special summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, threw down a challenge to their governments by setting bold new targets to be achieved by 2010. At the end of the gathering to review progress in implementing the 2001 Abuja Declaration on AIDS, TB and Malaria, a major resolution was passed, declaring that at least 80 percent of those in need, especially women and children, should have access to HIV/AIDS treatment, including antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, care and support. Civil society organisations welcomed the ambitious continental targets, but it remains to be seen whether these will be met, particularly when considering how little progress has been made in implementing goals set in 2001. Of particular concern is that leaders reiterated their commitment to devote 15 percent of their national budgets to improving the health sector, while the African Union (AU) found that Nigeria, Burundi and Ethiopia scored worst in this respect, having set aside only four, three and two percent of their annual budgets respectively for health. Only a third of African countries spend 10 percent of their budget or more on health. African countries also pledged that at least 80 percent of pregnant women would have access to medication for preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) by 2010, and at least 80 percent of target populations would have access to voluntary testing and counselling services.
African Civil Society position paper on HIV and AIDS in Africa: Moving to action
World AIDS Campaign, 1 May 2006
Civil society groups from across African met in Abuja, Nigeria on April 10 to 12 2006 to develop a consolidated position for use during the review processes of the Abuja Declaration and Framework Plan for action, and the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) Declaration of Commitment (DoC), and to chart a way forward regarding access for all people requiring information and services related to HIV prevention, care, support and treatment. This statement reflects the outcomes of these deliberations, as well as the sentiments of the undersigned African Civil Society Organisations.
Antenatal HIV testing in rural eastern Uganda in 2003: Incomplete rollout of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programme?
BMC International Health and Human Rights 6(6), 3 May 2006: Karamagi CAS , Tumwine JK, Tylleskar T and Heggenhougen KH
Uganda began to implement the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV programme in 2000, and by the end of 2003 it had expanded to cover 38 of 56 districts including Mbale District. However, reports from Mbale Hospital showed that less than 10% of pregnant women accepted antenatal HIV testing. We therefore conducted a study to determine the proportion of pregnant women who tested for HIV and the gaps and barriers in PMTCT implementation.
Breaking the ties that bind us: A call for action against women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
People\'s Health Movement, 20 May 2006
There are 17.5 million women living with HIV in the world, a majority of them in developing countries. Over 13 million women are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and almost two million in South and South East Asia. This article explains the people's health movement's positions on why action needs to be taken now.
Children who live in communities affected by AIDS
The Lancet 367 (9511), 25 February 2006: Foster G
This short article examines the impacts that HIV and AIDS in a community has on children living in that community. The author reviews the different impacts that these situations have on children. The author also discusses Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in the context of children indirectly affected by HIV and AIDS, which states that children have a right to benefit from state-provided social security. Registration required (free).
Passing the test: Allocating antiretroviral therapy in Malawi
ID21 Health News, 30 May 2006
How can expensive antiretroviral therapy be best prioritised in under-resourced health systems? In Malawi, targeting laboratory-based tests that measure the progress of the disease may offer one solution to help target those most in need.
UN hosts major review of global response to AIDS
UNGASS
More than a dozen Heads of State and Government, over 100 Ministers, as well as more than a thousand representatives of civil society and the private sector gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York in early June for a major review of international efforts to fight AIDS in what officials at the world body said would be marked by unprecedented
action.
'Second line' ARVs too costly for patients, warns MSF
TRALAC: Kimani D (Nationmedia.com)
HIV-positive East Africans – and other people in the developing world on life-saving antiretrovirals may find themselves without effective medicines unless measures are taken to lower the cost of second-generation drugs, Aids activists have warned. According to the international humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a growing number of HIV patients on first-line ARVs will inevitably have to move to second-line drugs, which are more expensive and therefore harder to access.
A compact to end HIV/AIDS
Eldis/International Women\'s Health Coalition (IWHC)
This compact argues that sexual and reproductive rights are a pivotal but neglected priority in HIV and AIDS policy, programming and resource allocation. It claims that universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and education, and the protection of sexual and reproductive rights, are essential to ending it. The compact draws on issues in equity in health by calling on HIV and AIDS decision makers to redefine 'high risk' by recognising that women and girls are at serious risk and have the right to all services related to the prevention, treatment, care and support as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services.