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.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
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.
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 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.
Scientists at The WorldFish Center reported today that an innovative project to encourage fish farming among families affected by HIV/AIDS in Malawi has doubled the income for 1,200 households and greatly increased fish and vegetable consumption among rural communities. The findings were released in a review of a multi-year initiative by the Malaysia-based WorldFish Center, one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and World Vision, an international humanitarian aid organization, to promote aquaculture among “vulnerable populations” in Malawi.
The 4th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention concluded on 27 July 2007 with a call for anti retroviral drugs developed specifically for HIV-infected children.
Frequent antiretroviral therapy (ART) switches in HIV-infected Kenyan urban adults might limit the efficacy of ART. The authors sound the alarm that this is a potentially serious threat to the sustainability of HIV treatment programmes in Kenya and other developing countries.
International medical and public health journals contain a growing body of writing on the practical and ethical implications of the rationing of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment around the world. The brief title of one important article neatly encapsulates the dilemma facing health professionals: “Which patients first?” Medics in most developing countries talk about “targeting priority patients” in order to emphasise that universal access to ARVs is their ultimate ambition. Campaign groups also avoid the language of rationing because they believe it undercuts their campaigns for ARVs and allows governments to retreat from universal treatment commitments.The truth, however, is that only a small proportion of those who could benefit from ARVs around the world are receiving them.
Treating HIV-infected infants with antiretroviral therapy (ART) as early as possible, within the first six to 12 weeks of life — rather than waiting until they show signs of immunological or clinical deterioration — dramatically decreases their risk of early death, according to findings from the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial, a South African study presented today at the 4th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Treatment and Pathogenesis in Sydney.
Delegates at a major international conference on HIV and AIDS urged developed countries to help guarantee the supply of affordable drugs to combat the virus and the syndrome. Over 5,000 delegates from 130 countries were in Sydney to attend the Fourth International AIDS Society (IAS 2007) conference featuring the latest developments in HIV biology, pathogenesis, treatment and prevention science. It explored how the gap between research and practice can be bridged, particularly in developing countries that bear the brunt of the HIV pandemic.