HIV ATLAS

Posted by davidsmuk

On World AIDS Day, this week, I made a comment in Parliament which I later suspected may be misreported or misinterpreted by some elements in the media...

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

Batswana have been encouraged to take total control of their lives and avoid being infected by HIV/AIDS. Speaking during the Commemoration of World AIDS Day in Mantshwabisi yesterday, headmaster of Letlhakeng Junior Secondary School, Mr Phemelo Sejabosigo said Batswana should be accountable for the outcomes and consequences of their actions, adding that there are behavioral tendencies which may be attributable to intensions, mechanisms and/or challenges. The theme of the day was: "Leadership-Behavior Change is My Key Responsibility to Stop HIV and AIDS." Mr Sejabosigo said the theme touches on every individual because each person is a leader of his/her own life and advised everybody to be accountable for what they do without exception and at all times. Mr Sejabosigo called on Batswana to take stock of their actions and interventions and consequently ask a pertinent question: "How much have I done to stop HIV and AIDS?" He said if every person could positively change their behavior towards AIDS, the people of Botswana would be fighting a winning battle.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

Botswana President Lt. Gen. Ian Khama has expressed concern that the cost of providing the free anti-retroviral drugs (ARV) may become unsustainable due to the rising number of people on the programme. Botswana's Mmegi newspaper quoted the President as saying in a speech to commemo rate the World AIDS Day Monday in the mining town of Selibe Phikwe that the nation needed to understand the cost implication of the ARV programme. He said the only sustainable way to help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS was to cha nge the behaviour, reduce the infection rate and as a result, reduce the number of people who needed to get into the programme.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

TANZANIANS on Monday joined millions to mark the World AIDS Day. Vice-President Dr Ali Mohamed Shein threw a challenge at Kigoma where the day was marked at the national level, on the need for Tanzanians to change their sexual behaviour as a sure way to beat this silent killer. Statistics show that the number of new cases in Tanzania is falling from 7 per cent in 2003/04 to 5.8 in 2007/08. He is quoted by the media as saying that the war against this killer disease should go hand in hand with efforts to educate Tanzanians. We accept his advice that one of the effective ways to fight HIV/AIDS is the improvement of the economic status of Tanzanians whose majority are poor and most of whom live in rural areas. The falling number of new cases is a sure indication that the majority of Tanzanians are now aware that HIV/AIDS is a killer disease that has no cure yet. The majority of Tanzanians seem to be aware of how the disease is contracted. What is required now is the constant reminder, that because we know how the killer disease is spread, we should use this awareness to reduce the number of new cases.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

Civil society organizations mobilized hundreds of people in Dakar to stage a protest ahead of the 15th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) urging Western leaders to keep their promises on AIDS funding despite the global financial crisis.

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Posted by Babak Fakhamzadeh (MastaBaba)

This link contains information on joint Economics Social Research Council (ESRC)/DFID Scheme for Research on International Poverty Reduction awards. The ADaPT (AIDS, Demographic and Poverty Trends) project aims to: * improve the understanding of the impact of deaths of working-age adults on household welfare, households' responses, and the determinants of differential vulnerability and res...

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

The International Women’s Media Foundation, IWMF, has launched a toolkit for writing on HIV and AIDS.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

As the world marks Aids Day on December 1st 2008. A survey conducted by this paper shows that the youths working in barber shops are potential victims of HIV/Aids and Tuberculosis due to the fact that many of the facilities are substandard and there is no organ to regulate them. QUESTION: There are allegations that some barbershop workers like you, have contracted HIV/Aids and TB due to lack of protective gear, would you say that this is true? A: It is very true because many barbershops are substandard and they are not regulated by the government because of free market. Whoever gets enough money and feels like doing this business, he or she does it and employs youths without putting in place good working environment and hygiene measures first.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

The generations-long fight for family survival by women all over southwest Kenya includes leading the battle against HIV and AIDS, one house at a time, in a region that has been ravaged by the epidemic. About 50 percent of Kenya's 1.4 million annual HIV/AIDS cases originate in Nyanza province, home of Dago village. Health care here is rudimentary, and social services are practically non-existent. In past years, HIV and AIDS patients were more likely to be mocked or shunned than they were to be publicly cared for. Change has come slowly and only after great cost, but today the Dago Women’s Group, a grassroots group Adoyo helped found, is helping turn the tide. In a day that starts with the 5 a.m. cow milking and ends at 10 p.m., when her family has finished its dinner, Adoyo squeezes time from her home and family to manage the 45 local women who are caregivers to the sick. Separately, they fan out to 511 households to check on the 365 men and women in the area who are "down" with HIV/AIDS, and the nearly 2,000 AIDS orphans and other children affected by the epidemic.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

HIV, the AIDS virus, not only infects adults, but also affects many children. Millions have become orphans, and many are infected at birth. One of the organizations dealing with pediatric AIDS is the Elizabeth Glaser Foundation. Dr. Denis Tindyebwa is the foundation's regional director of pediatric care and treatment. From Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, he spoke to VOA English to Africa reporter Joe De Capua. "There are more than two million children living with HIV/AIDS globally and over 90 percent of those children live in Africa and specifically sub-Saharan Africa. Those children really are not getting the treatment that they should be getting. Only about 20 percent of the children are getting the life saving anti-retroviral drugs. But the issue is that these children in actual fact should not be getting HIV in the first place. And yet, every day, approximately 1,000 children become newly infected with HIV, the majority of them through mother-to-child transmission, and the majority of them, over 90 percent of them, in Africa," he says. Dr. Tindyebwa says the drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the AIDS virus are available, but are still not reaching many pregnant women who need them. Weaknesses in the health system are the first problem. "The mothers live far away from the health facilities. And the second reason is that there are not an adequate number of health workers to provide these services to the mothers," he says.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced Monday that the United States has fulfilled its commitment early to support treatment for two million people.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

While stigma and discrimination may still be killing Kenyans by preventing them from accessing treatment, bureaucratic challenges and lack of strong accountability mechanisms may equally be contributing to unnecessary deaths.

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Posted by Muliyunda Lilembalemba (Lilembalemba)

Kabwe residents from all walks of life and professions joined the rest of the nation and the world in commemorating the annual international World AIDS Day which falls on first December.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

The Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management at Stellenbosch University is proud to present the third annual gala concert at the Artscape Opera House to mark World AIDS Day on 1 December. The event is a celebration of the excellent work done regarding HIV/AIDS prevention and management. The concert will commemorate the 20th World AIDS Day globally, with the Western Cape provincial government as the Africa Centre's partner. The concert is seen as the anchor event of the provincial government, and will be attended by Premier Ebrahim Rasool. It is also supported by UNAIDS, globally the main advocate for accelerated action regarding HIV and AIDS, and will be attended by Mr Michel Sidibe, director of country and regional support.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

The All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) has today joined the rest of the world in observing World AIDS Day on 1st December 2008. This is the 11th time since the day was first dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

Today, Monday, 1 December 2008, over 130 media houses in 11 countries in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) have publicly launched HIV and AIDS policies as part of commemorations to mark World Aids Day. The climax of a three-year Media Action Plan (MAP) on HIV and AIDS and Gender, simultaneous launches will take place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Zambia. Following public events in each country, media managers, journalists, people living with HIV, care workers, and others from across the region have connected in cyber space to discuss issues around HIV and AIDS and gender policy, and the funding of care work. Led by the Southern African Editor's Forum (SAEF), MAP's goal is for 80% of SADC media houses to have HIV and AIDS and Gender Policies by the end of 2008, recognising the importance of media in the regional response to the pandemic.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

We, the people living with HIV and AIDS in malaria endemic countries, and the organizations and individuals that stand alongside us in unwavering support, demand access to long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, other preventative interventions and effective malaria treatment as a vital part of our health care.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

As the world marks a decade since the first World AIDS Day, the economic impact of the disease continues grip daily livelihoods of both the affected and the infected. Following the recent economic recession, no sector has been spared. People living with HIV/AIDS continue to carry the heaviest burden since they are forced to dig dipper into their pockets to cater for their medical fee. With a shoot-up in the price of energy, water and food, people living with HIV/AIDS are anxious about how long they would hold on to life and ensure that their children get established even as they get ARVs, albeit rarely.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

In a sign of hope on a continent ravaged by AIDS, a South African fertility clinic has started a service allowing couples infected with the virus to have a healthy baby.

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Posted by Henry Neondo (henry)

Prior to the advent of HIV, the healthcare system in Malawi was severely challenged; with its arrival, it has been brought to its knees due to a shortage of health workers TWENTY YEARS after the first World Aids Day, Aids seems to have gone off the radar in the West due to developments in drugs and treatment. But it is still the disease claiming most lives in the developing world. We just don’t see it because it is not on our doorstep. Last week, in one of the worst-affected countries in the world, Malawi, I sat with a young woman who gave birth to her baby, on to a stone floor, unassisted. The baby was stillborn. A few hours later this woman gathered up her small bundle of belongings and headed home, a two-hour walk. The staff, all three, were so overburdened that no one had time to talk to her. She was gone before anyone noticed. There is no facility for these women to grieve. They just walk home and life, in whatever form, continues. In addition, these working conditions are utterly demoralising for the staff and are partly responsible for the 60 per cent midwife vacancy level at this hospital. In the same maternity hospital it is estimated that 30 per cent of the women presenting for delivery are HIV positive and have not had access to treatment. HIV is major contributory factor to maternal death.

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