Differential Treatment: Restricted Access to Newer Antiretrovirals
World Health Day, observed on 7 April 2011, focused on antimicrobial resistance including drug resistance issues related to HIV/AIDS. Antiretroviral treatment has been rapidly scaled up in many developing countries in the past decade without major emergence of HIV drug resistance as initially feared. WHO recommends a minimum resource strategy for prevention and assessment of HIV drug resistance in resource limited countries, and works with a global network of individuals, institutions, and countries to implement the strategy.
The Imperative for Faith Communities: Overcoming the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Through Stigma Reduction
The world faith community has made some good progress against the spread of HIV/AIDS by using individually-focused, informed messages, such as the ABC strategies, Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condom Use, as well as policies, programmes and budgets that are simple, morally appealing, politically convenient, financially lenient and scientifically relevant. For greater and more sustainable success against HIV/AIDS, these messages and programmes must be expanded, and the epidemic tackled with a multi-sectoral, multi-level, and multi-dimensional ethic that simultaneously reduces the Stigma, Shame, Denial, Discrimination, Inaction and Mis-action (SSDDIM) still attached to HIV, while promoting the SAVE model: Safer practices, Available medicines, Voluntary testing and Empowerment through education, at the individual, family, local community, national, regional, and global level. This must be accomplished if we are to significantly halt, reverse, and eventually overcome new infections related to AIDS before the virus triumphantly and devastatingly celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in 2031.
Interfaith Response to HIV/AIDS
The story of interfaith response to HIV/AIDS is one that moved from initial doubt, denial and moral hesitation -- even direct denunciation -- to one of global reach and scale. This is a story that demonstrates both the power and challenges that come from specific beliefs, morals, and theology. It also points to greater possibilities for bridging divides in faith and culture through the power of common action on so great an issue of shared concern.
Individual Global Responsibility
My primary impulse to write an article on HIV/AIDS came from my fundamental desire to contribute and to collaborate. I realize that my behaviour is founded upon a deeply-rooted sense of duty, a strong commitment, and a profound necessity. Psychologists refer to attitude as the disposition of a person confronting the world (the psychological view), which, once transported to a social setting, becomes values (the sociological view).
In this respect, therefore, allow me to coin the term individual global responsibility: a concept which embodies the attitude of an individual who, as a global citizen, demonstrates a profound sense of respect for human rights and dignity. Indeed, acting with individual global responsibility implies feeling an intense ethical and moral obligation to take positive action, starting with the understanding that in the world there are fellow human beings who are suffering and who have a right to be helped and supported. To be a global citizen means being aware of this obligation and this right.
Asleep at the Wheel
The world has been living with the HIV/AIDS epidemic for some thirty years, and prevention methods have been scientifically proven and disseminated to the public for nearly as long. Yet, there are, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) High Level Commission on HIV Prevention, at least 7,000 new HIV infections every day -- an alarming number that indicates HIV/AIDS awareness is at an unacceptable level of neglect by governments, civil society, and the private sector. There was a strong worldwide effort towards HIV prevention when the disease began spreading rapidly throughout the developing world in the early 1990s but, more recently, a disproportionate amount of funding has been directed towards treatment, rather than prevention. Obviously, prevention is the most effective method in slowing down the spread of this terrible disease, but decision-makers still view HIV prevention as a health problem, not a societal one.
A Decade of Fighting for our Lives
A group of South African activists founded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on 10 December 1998, International Human Rights Day. It was no accident that TAC was formed exactly fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The backbone of TAC is its use of advocacy to fight for the realisation of the right to health, which is enshrined both in international treaties and in the South African Constitution.
The 4th Decade of AIDS: What is Needed to Reshape the Response
The international community has reached the first part of Millennium Development Goal 6: halting and reversing the spread of HIV. At least fifty-six countries have either stabilized or reduced new HIV infections by more than 25 per cent in the past ten years, and this is especially evident in sub-Saharan Africa, the region most affected by the epidemic. New HIV infections among children have dropped by 25 per cent, a significant step towards achieving the virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission by 2015. In addition, today more than five million people are on antiretroviral treatment, which has reduced AIDS-related deaths by more than 20 per cent in the past five years. However, with more than 33 million people living with HIV today, 2.6 million new HIV infections, and nearly 2 million deaths in 2009, the gains made in the AIDS response are fragile.
In the Beginning
In the beginning, the AIDS epidemic struck like a thief in the night -- suddenly, terrifyingly, and deadly. At first, there were a few cases of a rare malignancy, Kaposi's sarcoma; then came the appearance of Pneumocystis pneumonia; and finally a plethora of opportunistic infections including systemic candidiasis, cryptococcal meningitis, and Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare -- all rare diseases associated with this new mysterious, unknown, and unnamed spectre.
Labour, HIV and the Workplace: Working to Get the Job Done
Maria's world started collapsing around her when the clinic nurse told her she was pregnant and HIV positive. She had been faithful, so it meant that Josef, her husband, had given her the virus. She felt the fear rise within her as she recalled how others in the village were treated when their tests came back positive. She was furious at Josef -- not just for infecting her with HIV, but also because he would be fired when the trucking company he worked for learned of his HIV status. She, too, would lose her factory job in the export processing zone because being pregnant or HIV positive was enough to get you fired -- labour laws did not apply in this zone. Employers knew that firing people for having HIV was illegal, but with little enforcement, some always managed to find ways to do so, without repercussions. It seemed like only yesterday that Josef had mentioned to Maria that his union was trying to start an HIV prevention programme, but was struggling due to lack of funds.
Achieve a Balanced Life, with Sports
When I was a child, the neighbourhood children would gather on the street in front of my house to play dodgeball. With the hot summer sun blazing down on our backs, we raced from side to side, bending and twisting, to avoid getting hit by the ball. I enjoyed every second of those games.
Saving Water, Saving Lives
Water is a basic necessity of life, and it may seem inconceivable to imagine living without it. But the stark reality is that many people around the world do. The availability of fresh water for drinking and sanitation poses an urgent and challenging problem, particularly in many developing countries.
What About People Whose Concern Is their Next Meal not Internet Connectivity?
The ripples from the invention of the Internet in 1989 continue to spread, with industrialized countries at the centre and developing countries at the periphery. But, an information gap remains between the two groups of countries. As a consequence, the term digital divide has entered everyday language, describing the disparity between those who have access to the latest information and communication technologies and those who do not. However, it is important to explore the nature of the digital divide and of a social divide within each country between the information rich and the information poor.
The Gross Divide Between the Rich and the Poor
I could not believe my eyes when I walked through the narrow dirt pathways between the hundreds of rickety tin shacks in the township of Khayalitisha in South Africa. A beautiful African girl, not much younger than me, wearing a pale pink skirt that casually hung below her hips and a white, dirt-stained tank top, led me to Sekwamkele's hut.
Are Twittering Youth Agents of Positive Change?
The United Nations World Youth Report 2007 stated that there are approximately 1.2 billion people -- 18 per cent of the entire world population -- between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four living in the world. Youth is a powerful force for change and youth activism is on the rise, with a lot of young people taking action for social transformation. Youth are engaging with their communities and making their voices heard. This activism is being carried out through a variety of media and is conducted differently in nearly every country in the world. Young people can choose to hold rallies and protests on the streets, attend public hearings, or even organize grassroots movements within their communities. Since the Internet is used by 30 per cent of the world's population, as some estimates have it, it has also become a preferred tool for young people to foster positive change.
Water, Our Life
A team of girls from Gayaza High School in Kampala, Uganda, sat down to discuss water issues within the school and the surrounding communities with the deputy head teacher, Mr. Ddungu Ronald.