Kaisernetwork.org (Washington, DC)
4 April 2008
(Page 2 of 2)
HIV is rising rapidly in women older than age 50, according to a report from the AIDS Research Institute at the University of California-San Francisco. In 2005, people older than age 50 accounted for 19% of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses, 29% of people living with HIV/AIDS and 36% of deaths from AIDS-related causes, according to CDC (Garriga, New Haven Register, 4/2).
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Global Challenges
Ethiopia Launches HIV/AIDS Workplace Policy
[Apr 04, 2008]
Ethiopia recently launched a policy that provides a framework for addressing HIV/AIDS in the workplace, the Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com reports. According to the Monitor/AllAfrica.com, the policy was developed during a three-year project, called "HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy Project for NGOs in Ethiopia," which was hosted by the Jerusalem Children and Community Development under the slogan Stop AIDS Now!, or SAN!
The campaign emphasizes building the capacities of more than 35 local and international nongovernmental organizations in the country to create, implement and manage the impact of HIV/AIDS workplace policies. The campaign also addresses the high rate of new HIV cases projected for 2008, projections that the majority of cases will occur among people ages 15 to 45 and the virus' effect on Ethiopia's working population. Speaking at the launch of the project on Saturday, Dereje Alemayehu, steering committee member of SAN! Ethiopia, said the campaign was designed to address the realization by organizations in the country that a response to HIV/AIDS is needed in the workplace. He added that the project will address some of the major difficulties that organizations in Ethiopia face by providing support to implement the policies. The project also aims to increase awareness and knowledge of how to effectively address the disease in the workplace by using various tools and techniques, Alemayehu said. According to the Monitor/AllAfrica.com, SAN! has implemented similar workplace policies in India and Uganda (Tesfaye, Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com, 4/2).
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IRIN/PlusNews Examines Global Campaign Aimed at Reducing HIV/AIDS-Related Stigma Among Youth
[Apr 04, 2008]
IRIN/PlusNews on Wednesday examined a global campaign, called "Does HIV Look Like Me?", that aims to reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination among youth. The campaign is organized by the U.S.-based organization Hope's Voice International, which partners with groups in other countries such as Cambodia, South Africa and Swaziland. The campaign operates in six countries and uses posters that feature the pictures of young people with the campaign slogan in an effort to reduce stigma associated with the disease. Adam Garner of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which works with Hope's Voice on the campaign, said that a key component of the campaign is that local partners adapt the project to specific cultural contexts. "The epidemic is very different in all countries in the world in the way stigma manifests itself and in the way the virus is predominantly transmitted," he said. Sedumedi Soke, an ambassador for the campaign from South Africa, said that when he became aware of his HIV-positive status, it was "very difficult because of the environment I am in. There's more than the virus -- there are hate crimes, discrimination, stigma, people being labeled like they were the virus itself." He added that since becoming an ambassador, he "found that for the first time, I was looking at myself in the mirror and speaking openly to a broad group of people. It helped me get back the confidence, hope and self-esteem I had lost" (IRIN/PlusNews, 4/2).
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Opinion
Use of Antiretrovirals as 'Alternative' to HIV/AIDS Vaccine 'Goes Unchampioned,' Opinion Piece Says
[Apr 04, 2008]
The HIV/AIDS vaccine "establishment continues its taxpayer-funded, repeatedly unsuccessful search for a preventive AIDS vaccine while an alternative many have seen work on multiple levels -- successful antiretroviral treatment as both treatment and prevention -- goes unchampioned," AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein writes in a Los Angles Times opinion piece in response to a recent Times editorial. The Times editorial "took issue" with AHF's position "without fully understanding it," Weinstein writes. He adds that the group's position is that in "light of over 20 years of failed AIDS vaccine research on which billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money have been spent, [AHF believes] it is simply unconscionable for the U.S. government to continue such wasteful funding while millions worldwide die for want of access to the AIDS research breakthrough that occurred more than 10 years ago -- lifesaving antiretroviral treatment."
While "AIDS vaccine candidates repeatedly fail," a "consensus continues to build that successful antiretroviral treatment offers a vaccine-like effect -- rendering most HIV-positive people noninfectious," Weinstein writes, adding, "This treatment offers a far more enduring benefit than anything that AIDS vaccine research has or will offer." More than 33 million "people worldwide continue to live with and die from HIV/AIDS," Weinstein writes, adding that about two million people "in the developing world have access to the treatment that we know works to save lives" and "reduces the likelihood of transmission." Antiretroviral treatment costs "as little as $300 per patient per year in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world," according to Weinstein, who adds that the "$700 million or so the U.S. currently spends annually on fruitless AIDS vaccine research could save an additional 2.3 million lives around the world each year."
AHF "believes it is time to pull the plug on U.S. taxpayer financing of the search for a vaccine and leave it to private donors to back what has been and continues to appear to be a fruitless goal," Weinstein writes. He concludes that to "continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a government-funded search for an AIDS vaccine in the vain hope of success someday while millions worldwide suffer and die is simply unacceptable when other currently available strategies offer practical and effective alternatives" (Weinstein, Los Angeles Times, 4/4).
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