compiled by Bruce Wainwright and Martin Flynn
Russia ‘lacks will to tackle HIV epidemic’
Russian Aids activists remembered those who have died from Aids in Russia
as experts warned the epidemic in the country could claim tens of thousands
of lives within the next few years.
Russia has 300,000 officially registered HIV positive people but the Russian
Aids Center says the real number is closer to 1.5 million - about 2 per cent
of the adult population.
The virus used to spread in Russia primarily through intravenous drug use,
but more than 40 per cent of new cases last year were among young women infected
by their permanent partners, Natalie Ladnaya told a conference in Moscow last
month.
Vadim Pokrowsky, head of the Federal Aids Center, warned that as many as one
million people may die of Aids in Russia by 2008 if the government fails to
take action.
“It is only when high-level officials support the fight against HIV
that it becomes effective,” he said.
Russian Duma members visiting the UK last month told MPs in Westminster that
a third of HIV positive people in the country were now receiving antiretrovrials.
But activists said there was still terrible corruption in Russia with little
of the HIV funding reaching those in need.
One UK MP commented that if Russia spent as much on tackling HIV as Roman
Abramovitch spent on Chelsea Football Club the country could solve its problems
with HIV in a very short time.
Chinese response ‘too little and too late’
China’s state television service recently devoted half of its midday
news bulletin to showing President Hu Jintao visiting a Beijing Aids ward.
Wearing a red Aids awareness ribbon on his jacket, he was seen shaking hands
and speaking with one patient.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that central government has distributed
100,000 Aids education pamphlets to local officials.
“They may have limited knowledge of the disease and feel scared,”
the agency reports: “But it is hoped that by educating them on realistic
policies and dispelling their concerns, the state policies can be followed
and implemented locally.” However, in many parts of China, local officials
are still reluctant to embrace such efforts for fear of acknowledging drug
use and prostitution in their areas.
And UNAIDS is predicting that China will face the biggest Aids crisis of any
country in the world over the next 10 years unless it does something very
quickly.
Aids activists have been arrested and imprisoned in the country and the central
government has yet to act against illegal and dangerous buying and selling
of blood products that has led to localized outbreaks among thousands of poor
peasants in Henang province.
In discussions with senior Chinese officials, Richard Feachem, executive director
of the Global Fund, praised China’s recent response to its growing HIV/Aids
problem and its actions against tuberculosis.
At present, the Global Fund has committed $113 million to China, including
$56 million to tackle HIV/Aids. If these grants yield agreed results in their
first two years, another $160 million will be made available. But a UNAIDS
report states that HIV/Aids has now spread to all of China’s 31 provinces.
Why women are so vulnerable to HIV
Poverty and limited education, violence and denial of property rights are
among some of the inequalities fuelling the spread of HIV in the developing
world, a recent UNAIDS report suggests.
“Advice to abstain from sex, be faithful and use condoms (ABC) are missing
the point when it comes to women and girls,” said Dr Kathleen Cravero,
deputy chief of UNAIDS.
Amnesty International agreed that mass rape and sexual violence in conflicts,
combined with collapsing healthcare systems in countries like the Congo put
women at a much greater risk of becoming infected.
In addition, studies suggest that, in some areas of the world, the first sexual
experience of a girl will be forced.
“Traditional practices such as genital mutilation, early marriage and
the practice of newly bereaved widows being ‘inherited’ by other
male relatives also increased women’s exposure to the virus,”
Amnesty said.
“Current prevention programmes in developing countries are failing women
as they focus on promoting abstinence, faithfulness and condoms, but young
married women often do not have the power to enforce these practices.”
Microbicides and vaccines offer the best chance for developing an alternative
prevention method to condoms that could be used and controlled by women,”
said Deborah Jack of the National AIDS Trust.
Research carried out by ActionAid revealed cases of teachers subjecting girls
to sexual abuse, and the hazards faced by girls on the journey to school range
from kidnapping in India to sexual harassment in crowded taxis in Kenya. Girls
often regard violence as inevitable and feel powerless to complain.
‘The face of Aids is now young and
female’
Almost half the 37.2 million adults living with HIV across the world are
now women, UNAIDS announced on World Aids Day.
During the past two years, the number of HIV positive women has risen in every
area of the world - particularly in eastern Europe and east and central Asia.
“Increasingly the face of Aids is young and female,” said UNAIDS
deputy executive director Dr Kathleen Cravero.
Women in sub-Saharan Africa were particularly affected in a region where three
quarters of all 15 to 24-year-olds are female.
“Young women are almost an endangered species in southern Africa,”
Dr Cravero said, citing lack of education and employment and domestic violence
as major reasons for their vulnerability.
“Male to female transmission of the virus is twice as likely as female
to male.
“In some places, the main HIV risk factor for a woman is the fact that
she is faithful to a husband with previous or current sex partners.”
The UN report estimated 39.4 million worldwide were now living with HIV, compared
to 36.6 million two years ago.
Less than one in five people have access to HIV prevention in low and middle
income countries and less than 10 per cent of people who need treatment, predominantly
in sub-Saharan Africa, are receiving it.
“We know prevention works best when it is linked with the promise of
treatment,” said executive director of the WHO Dr Jong-Wook Lee.
Hollywood actress and Global Fund supporter Emma Thompson told a London press
conference HIV/Aids was “the greatest catastrophe facing the human race”.
“Woman are in the frontline in this battle... I know a girl who gave
her body to a man for an apple... I’ve met Aids orphans who are so traumatised
they can’t speak. One child told me ‘It wasn’t Aids that
killed my mother - it was stigma’.”
* 39.4 million Number of people living with HIV/Aids
* 28.1 million Number of people have died from Aids
* 4.9 million Number of people infected in 2004
* 3.1 million Number of people have died last year
* 0 Number of people have been cured
