Activists from ACT-UP bared all outside the Republican party convention at Madison Square Gardens in New York last month to protest about President Bush’s lack of action over HIV and Aids. They called on the US administration to drop the debt owed by African countries and for more federal funding to provide cheap antiretroviral drugs for all the people in the world that need them.
ITV screened a documentary about the impact of Aids in the southern African state of Lesotho this month. ‘The Forgotten Kingdom: Prince Harry in Lesotho’, shows the prince working at Aids projects and includes interviews with doctors, aid workers and the brother of Lesotho’s king. The prince spent eight weeks in the kingdom earlier this year.
About one third of Lesotho’s 2 million people are HIV positive.
Using its massive financial power, the US is seeking to lever funds from other donor nations who have failed, so far, to meet financial pledges to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. US Global Aids coordinator Randall Tobias said Washington will hold back $120 million of this year’s promised donations to the fund, because other donors have failed to give their share. “The rest of the world’s donations fall short... by about $243 millions,” he said.The US is the largest contributor to the Global Fund and has appropriated $554million for it, but Congress has passed a law limiting US contributions to 33 per cent of total gifts to the fund. However, Tobias announced a ‘grace’ period of six weeks to allow other donors to catch up. Without being specific, Tobias said that he may use the withheld funds for other Aids programmes.The Global Fund recently acknowledged that donations have fallen far short of pledges and US law requires the two-thirds threshold for other donor gifts be met with funds received, not merely promised. A Global Fund spokesman said that the fund’s executive director Richard Feacham has “reached out to Ambassador Tobias,” suggesting a two-month extension “to accommodate other European governments’ budgetary schedules that don’t necessarily conform to the US deadline”.
“There should be no conditionality placed upon donations to the Global Fund,” said Gregg Gonsalves of Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York. “In the end, this won’t hurt the European Union,” he added, “It only hurts people with Aids.”
Phir Milenge (We’ll Meet Again) is Bollywood’s first mainstream film to tackle a subject taboo for most Indians. Featuring some of the industry’s biggest stars, including action hero Salman Khan, the film tackles the stigma of Aids and workplace discrimination. But enthusiasm amongst India’s film goers, more familiar with frothy romances and lavish production numbers, appears muted. One theatre manager said the response had been lukewarm. “Salman’s role only lasted 20 minutes and was quite disappointing. There were no fights. We thought that a big star like Khan would have drawn huge crowds, but that was not the case.” The movie follows the launch of a 13-episode television chat show produced in 2001, called Khamoshi Kyon (Why Silence) for rural areas and an English version, Talk Positive, for urban populations. Costing $500,000 and broadcast through a small, privately owned satellite channel, a 2002 study reported poor viewing figures.
But BBC World TV programmes, including a documentary by PN’s news editor on the battle for cheap generic HIV drugs, as well as radio soaps on BBC World Service have reportedly reached audiences of over 100 million in the subcontinent. Meanwhile, at a truck stop outside Delhi, in 43 degrees, a grease-stained man called Akash holds up crude, brightly painted boards to a small group of India’s six million truck drivers. One shows a helmet, one a raincoat and the other a condom. “The helmet protects you when driving, the raincoat in the monsoon. The condom protects you during sex.” Akesh talks in an easy, jocular style and has the lorry drivers lapping it up. Funded by Population Services International of Washington DC, the programme does not try to convince the drivers that they should not visit prostitutes; only that they should protect themselves and their wives.
Following the illegal collection and sale of blood products in many parts of China, the Aids epidemic there is now showing every sign of escalating out of control. In Henan, one of the worst affected provinces, more than 14,500 HIV carriers, most poor farmers, became infected after selling blood in the 1990s to a group of blood stations which used unsanitary instruments. Other estimates of HIV in the province put the figure much higher. Throughout China, the official estimate of people living with HIV is only 840,000, but experts think it more likely to be between 1 and 1.5 million. Guilty of profiting from blood sales and trying to cover up the scandal, officials in Henan, seen by many as a serious obstacle to change, are now charged with the task of implementing new anti-HIV/Aids measures. This follows the introduction of new laws to target the spread of Aids and outlaw discrimination against victims of infectious diseases, and a grant of $32 million from the Global Fund to provide antiretrovirals. The attitude of provincial authorities, however, was further highlighted when Li Dan, a leading Chinese Aids activist was arrested in August without warrant and thrown into a Henan jail. This followed attempts to attend a rally protesting against the government’s treatment of the Aids epidemic. Despite an apparent new found openness among China’s leaders in dealing with the epidemic, activists believe the arrests prove harsh tactics are still being used to silence Aids protesters.
“They’ve built special jails in the counties affected by HIV to house Aids patients,” said Wang Guofeng, arrested in July in Shangqiu city. “This is central government policy.” A similar reluctance to address issues is also apparent in the treatment of Aids orphans in Henan and other provinces, where the government has discouraged charities that might have been able to help.
The Orchid school for Aids orphans, founded by Li Dan, in Shangqiu city, was closed and sealed in July by the authorities. According to UNICEF, around 78,000 children have lost parents to Aids in the country.
