HIV/AIDS has accounted for huge reversals in human development in Southern Africa, which could impact on the region meeting some of the UN's poverty-slashing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a new report. The UN's '2005 Human Development Report' released on Wednesday noted that 12 of the 18 countries that have suffered development reversals between 1990 and 2003 were in sub-Saharan Africa, with Southern Africa "hit hardest".
Equity in Health
HIV/AIDS eroding region's development, says UN report
HIV/AIDS FUNDING STILL FALLS SHORT OF PROJECTED NEED, UNAIDS REPORT SAYS
Governments, international organisations, foundations and nongovernmental organisations in 2003 will spend an estimated $4.7 billion to address the AIDS epidemic in low- and middle-income countries, but that amount is less than half of the more than $10.5 billion that will be needed each year by 2005 to fight the epidemic in those countries, according to a new UNAIDS report.
HIV/Aids in Africa: Rethinking Current Strategies
According to the UN agency coordinating the HIV/AIDS epidemic (UNAIDS) at least 28.1 million Africans are living with the disease. Since the beginning of the epidemic in early 1980's, more than 19 million Africans have perished from AIDS. Largely due to AIDS, the average life expectancy in Sub-Sahara Africa is only 47 years instead of 62 years, if the disease were not a factor. Without any doubt, HIV/AIDS is a serious threat to the future well being of the continent. The specter of 14 million AIDS orphans, and counting, complicates an already dicey situation.
HIV/AIDS: Pfizer Drops Vaccine Partnership, More Research Threatened
After reviewing results from a clinical trial, pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. Friday pulled out of its partnership with research company Immune Response to produce an AIDS vaccine. More than a decade of research failed to yield convincing evidence that the vaccine known as Remune helps patients.
HIV/AIDS: Women and girls carry the heaviest burden
When Mariah's husband died late last year of AIDS, she decided not to tell anyone for fear of isolation. "I first knew of my HIV status when my husband got ill. We both went for HIV testing and we were counseled and given our results. We were both found HIV positive,'' recalls the 35 year-old mother of three. "My husband got worse and finally died late last year. His relatives insisted that I should be inherited by one of his brothers. This is when I decided to tell them that I was HIV positive and that my husband had died of AIDS.'' Then all hell broke loose.
Hospitals in Africa are getting worse, says WHO
Shortages of essential medicines and medical equipment, a staffing crisis and inadequate infrastructure are undermining the quality of hospital care across sub-Saharan Africa. This could jeopardise plans to provide anti-AIDS drugs to people living with the HI virus, delegates attending the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional committee meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, heard this week.
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How decentralisation, insurance schemes, privatisation and priority setting in health can affect gender equity
Östlin P: Health Evidence Network
This review article, published by the World Health Organization, assesses the impact of four key health care reforms – decentralisation, financing, privatisation and priority setting – on gender equity in health. It reports that, in many low income countries, rapid decentralisation has led to difficulties in providing affordable, accessible and equitable health services, and may also inadvertently support a more conservative reproductive health agenda. Other findings include that: taxes and social insurance schemes provide the most equitable basis for health care financing; privatisation may worsen gender equity; and some priority setting methods incorporate gender biases, and so underestimate the burden of disease on women.
How does Africa tackle cervical cancer?
Miranda D: The Guardian, 20 June 2011
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women in Africa, according to David Kerr, president of the European Society of Medical Oncology, yet there is a profound lack of reproductive health information for women and delayed access to treatment in rural areas in Africa. He notes that, in many parts of the continent, cancer is stigmatised as a death sentence, and he calls for a long-term strategy for vaccination, screening, treatment and awareness building. Although cancer is slowly receiving attention in Africa, the article notes that other diseases such as AIDS still absorb much of the health funding. The author also argues that many of the strategies aimed at preventing HIV could also help prevent the spread of the human papillomavirus too, which may play a role in the development of cancer. New research tackling AIDS and cancer simultaneously has shown that the anti-retroviral, lopanivir, can kill cells infected by HPV, while leaving healthy cells relatively unharmed. This might prove a useful way to prevent cervical cancer. Also, the drug could be used after a HPV infection, whereas vaccination is only effective prior to it – and is currently more expensive.
How have global health initiatives impacted on health equity?
Hanefeld J:Promotion and Education 15(1): 19-23, 2008
This review examines the impact of global health initiatives (GHIs) on health equity, focusing on low- and middle-income countries. It is a summary of a literature review commissioned by the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. GHIs have emerged during the past decade as a mechanism in development assistance for health. The review focuses on three GHIs: the US President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the World Bank’s Multi-country AIDS Programme (MAP) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
HOW MEDICAL GIANTS HOODWINK JOURNALS
Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles - then put doctors' names on them. Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals. The journals, bibles of the profession, have huge influence on which drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide. But The Observer has uncovered evidence that many articles written by so-called independent academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive huge sums from drug companies to plug their products.