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Africa: Daily HIV/Aids Report


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Kaisernetwork.org (Washington, DC)

12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008

Politics and Policy

CDC Director Gerberding Calls for Increase in HIV Prevention Efforts for Black Community

Drug Access

Canadian Drug Company Awarded Rwandan Contract To Provide Combination Antiretroviral

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Global Challenges

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Science & Medicine

Increased Research, Determination Needed in HIV/AIDS Vaccine Efforts, HIV Vaccine Enterprise Head Says

Politics and Policy

CDC Director Gerberding Calls for Increase in HIV Prevention Efforts for Black Community

[May 12, 2008]

CDC Director Julie Gerberding on Friday at a forum in Oakland, Calif., said that more money is needed to fight HIV/AIDS in the black community, particularly among black men who have sex with men, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

"We have not succeeded in our prevention efforts," Gerberding said at the meeting, which was hosted by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). She added, "You have to scale the money to the scope of the problem. The pie is only so big right now. What we need is a bigger pie."

Although 13% of the U.S. population is black, the group makes up about 50% of people living with HIV, the Chronicle reports. Among young people newly diagnosed between 2001 and 2005, 61% were black, and 48% of cases among black men were linked to sex with other men. HIV/AIDS rates among black men were seven times higher than those among white men in 2005, according to CDC.

The Bush administration has proposed reducing CDC's budget request for HIV prevention and surveillance funding by $1 million to $691 million in the upcoming fiscal year. According to the Chronicle, Gerberding often testified before Congress that she wanted more money for CDC than was requested by her superiors in the administration. She requested $7.2 billion for the agency last year, but the budget was reduced to $5.9 billion.

In response to HIV/AIDS in the black community, Lee said that she is again calling on the federal government to declare a "national public health emergency." She added, "We need to make sure not only that resources are increased, but are targeted to where they are needed most."

George Lemp, director of the Universitywide AIDS Research Program at the University of California, said studies from the early 1990s repeatedly found that HIV was spreading twice as fast among black MSM than among white MSM but that prevention programs were not reaching young black men. "Our interventions are targeting the wrong people, in the wrong places and at the wrong time of day," he said (Russell, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/10).

Link to this story.

Drug Access

Canadian Drug Company Awarded Rwandan Contract To Provide Combination Antiretroviral

Relevant Links

HIV-Aids and STDs
Health and Medicine

[May 12, 2008]

Rwanda recently accepted a bid from the Toronto-based generic drug company Apotex to supply its fixed-dose combination antiretroviral drug Apo-triAvir to the country, the Toronto Star reports (Toronto Star, 5/9). According to the CP/Google.com, securing the contract was the final legal step the company had to take in the process of receiving approval from Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. Apotex is the first company to complete CAMR's approval process, which has been criticized by some HIV/AIDS advocates and generic drug manufacturers, the CP/Google.com reports (CP/Google.com, 5/8).

The World Trade Organization in October 2007 announced it had received notification from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office authorizing Apotex to manufacture the drug. GlaxoSmithKline in August 2007 announced that it had given consent to Apotex to use two of GSK's patented antiretroviral drugs, lamivudine and zidovudine, to manufacture Apo-triAvir -- a combination of lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine. Boehringer Ingelheim agreed in July 2007 to allow Apotex to use nevirapine in the combination.

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