The South African cabinet finally approved the provision of AIDS drugs to HIV-positive citizens through the public health system on 8 August. It instructed the health ministry to act "with urgency". This announcement came after months of a bitter row between South Africa's AIDS activists and the department of health, over the delay in implementing a treatment policy. The following is a chronology of events in the treatment access debate, from December 2001 through to the government's decision this month to introduce a treatment plan.
Equity in Health
Chronology of south african HIV/AIDS treatment access debate
Chronology of south african HIV/AIDS treatment access debate
The South African cabinet finally approved the provision of AIDS drugs to HIV-positive citizens through the public health system on 8 August. It instructed the health ministry to act "with urgency". This announcement came after months of a bitter row between South Africa's AIDS activists and the department of health, over the delay in implementing a treatment policy. The following is a chronology of events in the treatment access debate, from December 2001 through to the government's decision this month to introduce a treatment plan.
Church Supports Call for Cheaper AIDS Drugs
The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) has appealed for the provision of cheaper antiretroviral drugs for HIV -positive people. In a media statement, issued on Tuesday January 7, 2003, the AIDS Office of the SACBC said it "supports the cause of the National Association of People living with AIDS (NAPWA) in the calling of government and pharmaceutical companies to provide cheaper generic antiretrovirals to all people living with AIDS."
Climate change adaptation: Where does global health fit in the agenda?
Bowen KJ and Friel S: Globalization and Health 8(10), 27 May 2012
Human-induced climate change will have the greatest, and generally earliest, impact on the poorest and most disadvantaged populations, according to this paper. Climate change adaptation is receiving much attention given the inevitability of climate change and its effects, particularly in developing contexts, where the effects of climate change will be experienced most strongly and the response mechanisms are weakest. Financial support towards adaptation activities from various actors including the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations is increasing substantially. With this new global impetus and funding for adaptation action come challenges such as the importance of developing adaptation activities on a sound understanding of baseline community needs and vulnerabilities, and how these may alter with changes in climate. The global health community is paying heed to the strengthening focus on adaptation, albeit in a slow and unstructured manner. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of adaptation and its relevance to global health, and highlight the opportunities to improve health and reduce health inequities via the new and additional funding that is available for climate-change adaptation activities.
Climate change and family planning: Least-developed countries define the agenda
Bryant L, Carver L, Butler CD and Anage A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 852–857, November 2009
In the current climate change debate, the perspective of the developing countries that will be worst affected has been almost completely ignored by the scientific literature. This deficit is addressed by this paper, which analyses the first 40 National Adaptation Programmes of Action reports submitted by governments of least-developed countries to the Global Environment Facility for funding. Of these documents, 93% identified at least one of three ways in which demographic trends interact with the effects of climate change: faster degradation of the sources of natural resources; increased demand for scarce resources; and heightened human vulnerability to extreme weather events. These findings suggest that voluntary access to family planning services should be made more available to poor communities in least-developed countries. The paper concludes by calling for increased support for rights-based family planning services, including those integrated with HIV and AIDS services, as an important complementary measure to climate change adaptation programmes in developing countries.
Climate change and health (Part 2)
Reynolds L and Sanders D: One Million Climate Jobs Campaign, 2011
The World Health Organisation estimates that global warming and trends in rainfall due to human-induced climate change already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Diseases associated with climate change include heart and lung disease due to heat waves, increased spread of infectious diseases, and malnutrition due to crop failures. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions, especially its sprawling cities where the effects of urbanisation aggravate extreme climatic events. More people die from the effects of climate change in Africa than anywhere else. Given the devastating and growing impact of climate change on health, it is ironic that health systems themselves contribute substantially to climate change through their enormous greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the authors of this article note. While no data exist for South Africa, estimates from the United Kingdom indicate that the country’s National Health Service contributed 25% of public sector emissions in 2004. The authors emphasise that the parallel policy initiatives of South Africa’s proposed National Health Insurance and ‘Re-engineering Primary Health Care’ initiative could, if thoughtfully implemented, address three crises simultaneously: the health crisis, the employment crisis and the carbon emissions crisis.
Further details: /newsletter/id/36408
Climate change and health: What's the problem?
Anstey MH: Globalisation and Health 9(4), 9 February 2013
The corroboration of scientific evidence across disciplines has confirmed that global warming is occurring and that this will have potentially negative consequences for health, such as respiratory diseases from polluted air, the spread of tropical diseases and increased malnutrition due to drought and floods. The author of this paper argues that it is time for public health advocates to draw on their past successes in tackling the health consequences of pollution, and to draw the link between the causes of global warming and pollution. In addition, strategies that link stakeholders and current development goals and provide feedback data from climate change adaptation and mitigation approaches are needed as we move forward to face the health consequences of global warming.
Climate change, innovation and health equity: Innovation for climate change adaptation and mitigation
Walpole S, Teran-Reyes J, de Souza DK and Mantilla G: Global Forum for Health Research, November 2009
This is one of the session reports from Forum 2009, convened by the Global Forum for Health Research on 17–20 November 2009. The issue was finding synergies in policy between environmental health and equity agendas. Climate change has had a negative effect on health equity since it affects the most vulnerable populations. However, climate adaptation policies can sometimes make the situation even worse. For example, biofuels policies were intended to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. In the past few years though, farmers have abandoned crop production in favour of growing biofuel crops, exacerbating the food crisis. Understanding the geographical components of the link between climate change and health is crucial. Data from geographical information systems (GIS) should be integrated with health information systems to provide a cohesive look at changes in disease spread, for example. Health researchers who study the effects of climate change cannot be content with just understanding the changing epidemiology of disease – they need to stay familiar with the latest technologies of monitoring climate change.
Climate change: A creeping catastrophe
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 410–411, June 2010
In this interview, Dr Colin Summerhayes, president of the Society for Underwater Technology, talks about how the world’s climate is changing and the expected consequences on health. He predicts that, as the rise in temperatures as a result of global warming will be quite slow over the next 30 years, we should not expect an instant change in health factors. He refers to the change as a ‘creeping catastrophe’. As well as increased morbidity and mortality from extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts and floods, Summerhayes anticipates that climate change is likely to increase the burden of malnutrition, diarrhoea and infectious diseases. There is also likely to be a rising frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases because of changes in air quality and in distribution of some disease vectors. All of this could impose a substantial burden on health services. He notes that some scientists now believe there will be both contractions and expansions in the occurrence of malaria, with changes in transmission seasons.
Clinics in three Zimbabwe provinces lack water access
Only half of the health clinics in three Zimbabwean provinces have access to safe water and the majority of districts face shortages of essential drugs, according to an NGO monitoring group, the Food Security Network (FOSENET). Based on information drawn from 52 districts, FOSENET noted that clinics spread across central Zimbabwe - in Mashonaland West, the Midlands and Masvingo - had the poorest access to safe water out of the country's eight provinces.