Compiled by Martin Flynn & Bruce Wainwright
Minister braves Aids activists
UK International Development Secretary Hilary Benn met demonstrators outside
the Global Fund
replenishment conference (see story below). Protesters held a banner saying
that during the meeting 35,616 people had died of Aids, TB and malaria. Benn
said six million people died each year from these largely preventable diseases.
One demonstrator, Michael Podmore of ActionAid, told PN: ‘They had the
chance to put their money where their mouth was after G8 and again they haven’t
come through.”
Global Fund faces funding gap next year
The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria faces a funding shortfall of
more than $3 billion for next year, a conference held in London heard this
month. European nations have provided over 60 per cent of the $3.7 billion
so far pledged to the Fund for 2006-2007 but this is well short of the
$7.1 billion the Fund says it needs. Funding will cover existing projects
but leaves little for new treatment and prevention expansion. “The current
funding gap will have devastating effects,” said Fund board member Anandi
Yuvaraj, “depriving poor women, men and children from the hope of accessing
life-saving prevention and treatment services.” The UK has doubled its
Global Fund contribution to $200m for 2006/7, but France has now pledged $640m
compared to the US commitment of $600m. The US has capped it contribution
to one third of any total hoping to encourage the generosity of other nations.
But now the US share of new pledges stands at just 16 per cent of the total.
David Bryden of the US-based Global Aids Alliance said the contribution was
paltry. “Bush made a commitment to one third of the fund; by breaking
that promise he is letting down the world’s most vulnerable people.”
At the conference, France proposed an airline tax where a small amount levied
on every air ticket sold would go directly to the Fund. A tax of $6 per ticket,
$20 for business class, would generate $12 billion a year according to a French
government spokesperson. Germany, Spain, Brazil and Chile supported the plan
which will be pushed at a future UN summit. Meanwhile fears have been raised
by the Global Fund that $45 million already donated to Uganda has been mismanaged
to such an extent that the effectiveness of the programme has been reduced.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has promised an immediate enquiry and has
said any corruption will be severely dealt with.www.theglobalfund.org
JHurricane Katrina victims with HIV at immediate risk
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, now has the highest rate of HIV positive people per
capita in the US due to the influx of New Orleans hurricane victims. Many
of the 32,000 people with HIV/Aids affected are at risk of serious illness
caused by interruptions in their antiretroviral treatment as well as by exposure
to water-borne pathogens. The US National Aids Fund has now set up an emergency
fund for HIV positive Katrina survivors.
www.aidsfund.org
Saudi migrant workers with HIV abused
One of the world’s richest countries stands accused of treating thousands
of HIV positive migrant workers “like animals”. The oil-rich kingdom
of Saudi Arabia has come under attack for locking up and then deporting around
4,200 foreign nationals living with the virus. One doctor spoke out against
the treatment, or lack of it, handed out to HIV positive migrant workers.“They
get no medicine, no care, nothing. I tried my best; I talked to the director
of the hospital about this many times. He told me: ‘These are
the rules of the country. You cannot chance this.’” Foreign nationals
who test positive are thrown into secure hospitals with little or no treatment
and, often after long bureaucratic delays, deported. Workers from countries
with little or no diplomatic presence in the kingdom are repatriated slowly
and often left to die in hospital.
Saudi Arabia is heavily reliant upon foreign workers from Asia, who make up
about a quarter of the country’s 26 million population, and treats them
as an underclass with few rights. Foreign workers often only discover their
HIV status after a traffic or work accident, when they are taken to hospital
and given a
compulsory test. The wealthier expatriate population of teachers and oil industry
specialists,
meanwhile, can access private health care and, therefore, avoid the attention
of the Saudi
health service. Mohammed, speaking to Mark Mackinnon, a reporter from the
Toronto Globe and Mail, said: “We are prisoners here. They treat us
like animals. They say we’re dangerous, so we can’t go out. We
get no medicines at all.”Christoph Wilcke, Saudi Arabia researcher for
the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said this was the first time he had
heard about the practice of jailing and withholding medication from the country’s
foreigners with HIV and Aids. He called the practice “despicable”.
Ashley Judd campaigns across Kenya
Actress Ashley Judd (centre right) joined Grammy winner India Arie in an emotional
journey around Africa to tell the stories of lives changed forever by the
HIV pandemic. A VH1 documentary Tracking the Monster, to be screened this
autumn, shows Judd, YouthAids Global Ambassador, and Irie talking about safer
sex
to prostitutes in Madagascar and comforting people affected by the virus in
poverty-stricken parts of Kenya. www.vh1.com
Russians with HIV segregated by doctors
The organization Human Rights Watch has highlighted the widespread discrimination
and abuse directed against HIV positive women and their children in Russia,
often by healthcare providers. According to the report, people with HIV are
often segregated for no medical reason and mothers and their children are
often subjected to verbal abuse by doctors and nurses and may be denied treatment
altogether. “The stigma of HIV/Aids is with them everywhere: in the
workplace, at school, at the neighbourhood clinic, even in their own homes,”
said Lois Whitman, children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.
A Russian Health Ministry official quoted in the report admitted segregating
children with HIV was a violation of their rights and “enforces the
stigma society attaches to the disease.” According to government data,
there are officially only 300,000 HIV positive people in Russia, but UNAIDS
says a truer figure is closer to a million. Nearly 10,000 HIV positive women
are reported to have given birth since 1997 and of these, 20 per cent abandoned
their babies. The resources available to fight HIV/Aids are described in the
report as “meagre” and little has been done to educate the public
or half the spread of the epidemic.“Russians think the virus did not
originate in their country and therefore anyone who contracts it becomes an
outcast,” said Transatlantic Partners Against Aids director Alec Khachatrian.
words
“The G8’s aid increase could save the lives of five million
children by 2010, but 50 million children’s lives will still be lost
because the G8 didn’t go as far as it should have done.”
Jo Leadbeater, Head of Policy, Oxfam International
“We have some aid, but not enough; some debt relief, but not enough,
and virtually nothing on trade. Once again, Africa’s people have been
short-changed.”
Caroline Sande Mukulira, Action Aid’s Southern Africa programme
“Efforts to develop an Aids vaccine are faltering due to a lack of funds
and global commitment.”
Dr Stephen Lewis, UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa
“There are herbs that can treat opportunistic infections like skin rashes,
vomiting and diarrhoea but so far there is no HIV/Aids cure.”
Dr Hussein Mwingi, South African deputy health minister
“On average, physicians are not aware they need to be thinking about
HIV as a possible diagnosis in their older patients.”
Dr Nathalie Casau, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City
“Many South African men are bigger and complain condoms are too small.”
Stuart Roberts from Durex South Africa speaking at the launch of extra
large condoms
