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HIV/AIDS 25 Years, 25 million dead
In the 25 years since HIV/AIDS was discovered 25 million has died. Real progress is being made with the use of condoms as reported in The Australian.
However there is much more in the full report at UN AIDS.
From the executive summary:
Stigma and descrimination is pervasive in over 30 countries against people living with HIV. p5
33.4% of adults in Swaziland are HIV positive and it’s prevalance 24.1% in Botswana. p9
Men who have sex with men appear to be having more unprotected sex in the West with a resulting rise in HIV infections within that group p10
Interventions to change behaviour reduces the frequency of sexual risk behaviours. This includes reduced comercial sex in Thailand and Cambodia, delayed sexual debute in Zimbabwe, monogomy in Uganda and an increase in overall condom use p11
Education of young people was only 50% not the 90% target. p11
Need to increase Sexual Transmitted Infection treatment to reduce HIV risk.
Need for 3x increase in public funding for male condoms. As less then 50% of the condoms needed is being supplied.p11
Increase between 2001-2005 from 240,000 to 1.3 million on anti-retrovials and a 10x increase in 2004-2005 from 500 sites providing anti-retrovials to 5000. p12
250,000-350,000 deaths avoided in 2003-2005 due to these anti-retrovial treatment. p12
Only 1 in 5 who need anti-retrovials can get them. p12
Need to integrate HIV/AIDS treatment with TB treatment. p12
Ugandan children who drop out of school are 3 times more likely to be HIV positive in their 20’s. p13
21 out of 25 sub-Saharan African nations have reduced school fees and have comunity programs in place for at risk children.p13
Only 20% of people who inject drugs received HIV prevention services. In some countries drugs like methadone are still prohibited. Malyasia stands out for introducing harm reduction programs despite their hard line on drug use. p13
Sex workers very poorly covered by HIV prevention services. p13
Funding has increased over recent years to $US8.3 Billion for 2005. The Global Fund distributed 1.1 in 2005.
TB was mentioned 4 times in the executive summary which is quite low considering it states on page 23 that TB is the cause of the largest proportion of AIDS related deaths. The report calls for more integrated treatment.
There is a lot more in this report, but I don’t have the energy to go through it all now. The four most at risk groups are sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and prisoners. I think this says a lot about our world. Yes these people engage in risky activities but if we really loved them there are so many things we could do to help them reduce their risks. I have the honour of knowing people who are working with some of these groups.
I think that if anyone is into letter writting there could be some fun letters to politicians out of some of this stuff. Perhaps we could give all the MPs condoms.
-UPDATE-
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Mother-Child infection. With the right drugs the risk of mother to child infection of HIV can be dramatically reduced. Sadly there is no where near enough being done in this area, with only 9% of mothers getting access to the required services well under the target of 80%.
I also forgot the Millenium Development Goals.
The goal of halting and begining to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS which is part of the 6th MDG and other agreements is still far off.
HIV/AIDS and TB, Social Justice
It really is the biggest and most disturbing tragedy.
Kofi Annan says that prejudice and discrimination are still massive factors in the spread and deadly effects of AIDS.