This UNAIDS report, from the Secretary-General’s Task Force on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa, presents empirical data on the scale and character of the pandemic in nine countries in Southern Africa with the highest HIV prevalence rates. As the majority of young people aged 15-24 living with AIDS in these countries are women, the report calls for an end to gender inequality, which is key to the spread of HIV among women.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
Facing the future together
Report of the Secretary-General\'s Task Force on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa
Manufacture of anti-AIDS drugs set to begin in Zambia
A Zambian government initiative to begin the local manufacture of cheap generic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs has been welcomed by AIDS activists. "We have been lobbying for affordable drugs for 10 years. This is a dream come true," said coordinator of the Network of Zambian People Living with HIV/AIDS (NZP+), Clement Mfuzi. "As NZP+, our hope has not only been accessibility, but also affordable drugs. We also hope the supply will be sustainable, because once you take these drugs, it is for life."
Budgeting for HIV/AIDS in South Africa
This report from the South African Budget Information Service (IDASA) analyses budget allocations and funding flows from the national fiscus for HIV/AIDS interventions. It investigates the best way to deliver funds to the provinces of South Africa to tackle HIV/AIDS. Analysis of official budget documents and interviews with national and provincial social service and treasury officials reveals that provinces are generally improving their spending on the HIV/AIDS conditional grants and beginning to allocate significant funds from provincial budgets to tackling HIV/AIDS.
Cash released for free anti-AIDS treatment in Tanzania
People living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania will soon have access to free antiretroviral drugs under the government's four-year treatment programme. More than US $1.8 million was recently released by the Treasury Department for the Ministry of Health to purchase anti-AIDS drugs, a local newspaper, The Guardian, reported.
Food security, livelihoods and HIV/AIDS
This paper is intended both for managers and technical staff working either in food security and livelihoods or in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health who require an introduction to the linkages between the two areas, and as a guide to the many issues that need to be considered when carrying out assessments (or reviewing others’ assessments) and when planning interventions. The focus is specifically on economic impacts of AIDS, and does not address important emotional, psychological and social impacts.
HIV/AIDS threatening subsistence agriculture in Mozambique
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.
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