God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

07/20/2010 • 6:02 pm Comments Off on Bill Clinton speaks at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna

Bill Clinton speaks at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna

Former US president Bill Clinton has called for more efficient use of funding in the fight against Aids to ensure that people who need it actually get it. Clinton made the comments on Monday at an international Aids conference in Austria’s capital, Vienna.
He said that in many countries, money for Aids is misspent and that funding should go directly to local organisations and national plans in developing countries that can deliver services well at a lower cost and less overhead than established organisations.
On Sunday, the head of the conference said world leaders lack the political will to ensure that everyone infected with HIV and Aids gets treatment. Julio Montaner – the president of the International Aids Society and chairperson of the Aids 2010 conference – said the G8 group of rich nations has failed to deliver on a commitment to guarantee universal access and warned this could have dire consequences.
Montaner’s comments to reporters appeared to foreshadow one of the key topics for the weeklong gathering, which organisers say has drawn 20 000 policymakers, experts and advocates to take stock of efforts to fight the disease and generate momentum for the future.
Reflecting the emotional nature of the debate, protesters carrying banners and shouting slogans such as “broken promises kill, show us the money!” and “treat the people!” delayed the start of the opening session.
In 2005, G8 leaders committed in a communiqué to developing and implementing an Africa-focused package for HIV prevention, treatment and care with the aim of getting “as close as possible to universal access to treatment for all those who need it by 2010.” They reaffirmed and broadened their commitment a year later in Russia with more detailed financing pledges.
But a G8 accountability report from the most recent summit of world leaders in Canada last month acknowledged that the “universal access targets with respect to HIV/Aids will not be met by 2010.”
Among the issues to be discussed by participants through to Friday are the decriminalisation of drug users, as well as the growing Aids epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Montaner accused governments from some Eastern European states of indifference to the acute situations in their countries and said their absence at the Vienna meeting was “irresponsible to the point of criminal negligence”. According to the World Health Organisation, 33.4 million people were living with HIV in 2008. While the numbers of deaths declined to two million in 2008 from 2.2m in 2004, about 2.7m new infections still occur each year.

Source: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/AidsFocus/Clinton-speaks-at-Aids-conference-20100719

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Politics and Society, , , , , ,

07/19/2010 • 6:01 pm 1

SA Medical Council fast-tracks 65 AIDS drugs now…

The Medicines Control Council (MCC) has fast-tracked the registration of 65 antiretroviral drugs, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Monday. The anti-Aids drugs were given priority while the MCC tried to clear a backlog of more than 4 000 medicines which had been awaiting registration since 2007 and longer, he said in response to a parliamentary question.

Motsoaledi said the MCC currently still had 1 503 applications on its backlog, which he blamed on personnel, financial and structural problems at the council.  All registration applications for ARVs had been reviewed and those still unregistered either did not meet requirements, or the companies had failed thus far to respond to the MCC’s recommendations.

South Africa has the world’s biggest Aids treatment programme.

Source http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/MCC-fast-tracks-65-Aids-drugs-20100719

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Politics and Society, , , ,

07/16/2010 • 8:47 am Comments Off on Aids fund cuts a death sentence

Aids fund cuts a death sentence

Vienna – Cutbacks in rich-world funding for Aids treatment could sentence millions of sufferers to death for lack of access to anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday. “Donors have started to shift their support away from HIV/Aids, and funding is not keeping up with the need,” the medical charity warned in a report ahead of a major Aids conference in Vienna next week.

“If nothing is done, most of (those infected with HIV) will die within the next few years,” it said, in a study based on fieldwork in eight African countries. According to MSF, many donors have frozen their contribution to the fight against Aids – partly due to the financial crisis – with the United States planning to cut its support for ARV drugs in Mozambique by 15% over the next four years.

The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria is trying to raise $20bn for the next three years. So far it has received just a few hundred million dollars, the author of the report, Mit Philips, told journalists. “It is a very frustrating feeling to see that in spite of the achievements that have been made… the international donors, for the moment, show less interest and less resolve to continue to support the fight against HIV/Aids,” she said.  “It’s as if they want to give up the fight halfway through. We want to tell them: ‘you cannot turn back now on Aids treatment, it’s too important’.” While some three million HIV patients now have access to anti-retroviral drugs in Africa, the continent worst affected by the virus, another six million were still without treatment, MSF warned. By reducing funding, donor countries would ensure that even less patients received care, or received it too late, it added in its report. Turning people away from clinics, for lack of staff or resources, would also destroy the sense of trust that took years to build with local communities and make people less willing to come forward and get tested in a region where HIV still carries a strong stigma.

MSF’s study showed that early and sustained treatment of HIV patients had born fruit in several regions, including Malawi’s Thyolo district where the overall death rate dropped by a stunning 37% between 2000 and 2007, thanks to universal access to ARVs. Where patients get treatment, “there is an overall reduction of mortality in the community, there is also less tuberculosis and we start to see, where there is a high coverage of ARV, also a reduction in the number of new cases (of HIV/Aids),” said Philips.

Source: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Aids-fund-cuts-a-death-sentence-20100715

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Politics and Society, , , , , , , , ,

07/14/2010 • 3:00 pm Comments Off on HIV figures around the world

HIV figures around the world

A major international conference on AIDS starts in Vienna on July 18, when thousands of scientists, health workers, activists, and government officials will gather to discuss the latest advances against the disease.

An estimated 33.4 million people worldwide are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, according to figures issued by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Here are some AIDS figures from around the world:

THE GLOBAL PICTURE:

* Global deaths from AIDS reached an estimated 2 million in 2008, the same number as in 2007. Since the AIDS pandemic started in the early 1980s, almost 60 million people have been infected with the virus and 25 million have died of HIV-related causes.

* In 2008, around 430,000 children were born with HIV, bringing to 2.1 million the total number of children under 15 living with HIV. Young people account for around 40 percent of all new adult (those aged 15 and over) HIV infections worldwide.

* The annual number of new HIV infections remained the same in 2008 as for 2007 at 2.7 million. This is down from 3.0 million in 2001.

* Although 33.4 million people had the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2008, more of them are living with HIV than ever before, at least in part due to the beneficial effects of AIDS drugs known as antiretroviral therapy. There are currently 26.3 million adults over 25 living with HIV.

AFRICA & ASIA:

* Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected by HIV, accounting for 67 percent of all people living with the virus worldwide, 71 percent of AIDS-related deaths and 91 percent of all new infections among children.

* An estimated 1.9 million people were newly infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2008, bringing to 22.4 million the number of Africans living with HIV.

* The nine countries in southern Africa continue to bear a disproportionate share of the global AIDS burden. Each of them has an adult HIV rate of more than 10 percent.

* With an adult HIV prevalence of 26 percent in 2007, Swaziland has the most severe level of infection in the world. Lesotho’s epidemic seems to have stabilised, with an adult HIV rate of 23.2 percent in 2008.

* South Africa continues to be home to the world’s largest population of people living with HIV — 5.7 million in 2007. More than 250,000 South Africans died of AIDS-related diseases in 2008 and almost 2 million children there have lost one or both parents to the epidemic.

* Asia, home to 60 percent of the world’s population, is second only to sub-Saharan Africa in terms of people living with HIV. An estimated 4.7 million people were living with HIV in Asia in 2008.

* India accounts for roughly half of Asia’s HIV cases. With the exception of Thailand, where HIV affects 1.4 percent of adults, every country in Asia has an adult HIV infection rate of less than 1 percent.

OTHER REGIONS:

* Rates of HIV in eastern Europe and Central Asia are on the rise, with severe and growing epidemics in the Ukraine and Russia. With an adult HIV prevalence of 1.6 percent in 2007, Ukraine has the highest prevalence in all of Europe. In eastern Europe 1.5 million people were living with HIV.

* In Latin America, new HIV infections totalled an estimated 170,000 in 2008 bringing to 2 million the number of people living with HIV there. An estimated 77,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses there last year.

* There were 2.3 million people living with HIV in 2008 in North America and western and central Europe.

Sources: Reuters/UNAIDS
yahoo news: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100713/tsc-uk-aids-figures-factbox-011ccfa.html

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, Politics and Society, , , , , , , , ,

07/11/2010 • 12:29 pm Comments Off on POZ: Newly Discovered Antibody Kills Up to 91 Percent of HIV Strains

POZ: Newly Discovered Antibody Kills Up to 91 Percent of HIV Strains

U.S. government scientists have discovered three potent new antibodies, one of which can neutralize up to 91 percent of all HIV strains. These discoveries were published online July 8 in Science and were reported by The Wall Street Journal. Though the scientists acknowledge that their findings represent a hopeful step forward, they caution that it will take a lot of time and effort before they can be translated into something that will prevent or treat HIV infection.

Antibodies are a key element in the immune system that our body uses to defend itself from bacteria and viruses. Antibodies kill these microbes directly or flag the foreign invaders for destruction by other immune cells. Unfortunately, HIV’s outer surface is so easily changeable that antibodies—most of which can neutralize only a few strains—fail to keep it in check. This has made designing a vaccine, which works by provoking the body to produce antibodies, such a frustrating endeavor.

Following a string of failures in vaccine science, researchers have turned in recent years to a search for broadly neutralizing antibodies, which can kill multiple strains of HIV. Several have been identified, but none have been able to neutralize more than 40 percent of HIV strains, and all were quite difficult for the body to produce naturally.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, “The [new] antibodies were discovered in the cells of a 60-year-old African-American gay man, known in the scientific literature as Donor 45, whose body made the antibodies naturally. Researchers screened 25 million of his cells to find 12 that produced the antibodies.”

It’s not yet clear whether or how these new antibodies can be used to prevent and treat HIV. Researchers will focus on several possibilities. One approach entails giving the antibodies directly to people, specifically in cases to prevent transmission from mothers to their babies. Other approaches range from building traditional vaccines with the antibodies, to the developing gene therapies.
Whichever strategy is most promising, it will likely take some time before it is available. Gary Nabel, MD, PhD—one of the leaders of the studies and a director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland—told the Journal, “We’re going to be at this for a while” before any benefit is seen in the clinic.

Source: http://www.poz.com/rssredir/articles/HIV_neutralizing_antibody_761_18701.shtml

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Prevention, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, , ,

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