Comrades's blog

(CNN) -- The news of intense drug-related violence out of Jamaica is shocking and dreadful but entirely predictable. Wherever the war on drugs touches down, death and destruction result. A recent target is Kingston, Jamaica. When law enforcement attempted to smoke out Christopher "Dudus" Coke, wanted in the U.S. for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and cocaine and to traffic in firearms, scores of people died in the urban warfare. The death toll reached 73 civilians as Jamaicans were caught in the crossfire between police, soldiers and armed thugs. Rival drug gangs used the confusion to eliminate their enemies and further ratchet up the violence. Coke has since agreed to surrender to officials in New York, because he "feels it is in his best interest to be taken to the U.S. rather than to a Jamaican jail," sources told the Jamaican Observer, but not before scores of people died. Given that the scenes of violence between rival drug gangs are so common, people often fail to consider the factors that fuel this violence. The reality is that Jamaicans are just the latest victims in a misguided and expensive war that has taken countless thousands of lives, from the streets of New York to the slums and shantytowns of Colombia, Mexico and other third-world nations.
When law enforcement attempted to smoke out Christopher "Dudus" Coke ... scores of people died in the urban warfare.
In more than four decades since former U.S. President Nixon first declared America's "war on drugs," the battles against spreading disease, increasing violence and the ongoing destruction of families and neighborhoods have been lost.

Little boy Christian in Guatemala is one year and six months old. He is HIV negative. He desperately needs a kidney transplant. He lives in a rural area where there is no dialysis. His parents are both HIV positive but currently healthy on ARVs. They do farm work and live at the poverty level. They have lots of HIV negative relatives but all of these relatives have shunned the parents and Christian since they found out that the parents were HIV positive. None will donate a kidney. Waiting list for transplants in Guatemala is years long. Transplants are done at only one hospital, which is in the capital, and there is no cost to the family, but obviously there has to be a donor. There is no dialysis where he is, but Doctors are keeping him alive with some drainage technique but this will not last long. There is dialysis in the capital, but no way that the parents can afford to stay there with the boy. Parents want to donate but the hospital will not let them claiming, probably rightfully so, that he will get HIV. But without a transplant he will die very soon from kidney failure...... But with HIV and a new kidney, he could survive on ARVs and live a normal life. (If a strong cocktail were given before the transplant and for a couple of months after, would it act like PEP and possibly even prevent him from getting HIV? ) Obviously government would rather see him die of causes related to kidney failure than have him live a long life on ARVs which is expensive for them.

VULINDLELA, South Africa — With an AIDS vaccine still out of reach, two rigorous new studies have found different ways to sharply cut H.I.V. infections among women and schoolgirls, who make up a majority of the newly infected in sub-Saharan Africa. Women who used a vaginal microbicidal gel containing an antiretroviral medication were 39 percent less likely over all to contract H.I.V. than those who used a placebo. After two decades in which researchers searched fruitlessly for an effective vaginal microbicide to block H.I.V., South African scientists working in two AIDS-devastated communities of South Africa, one rural and one urban, say they have finally found something that shows real promise. Women who used a vaginal microbicidal gel containing an antiretroviral medication widely used to treat AIDS, tenofovir, were 39 percent less likely over all to contract H.I.V. than those who used a placebo. Those who used the gel most regularly reduced their chances of infection 54 percent, according to a two-and-a-half year study of 889 women by Caprisa, a Durban-based AIDS research center.

In Vienna, the AIDS 2010 Conference began with scientific sessions and activist demonstrations, with evidence and anger. A lively and stimulating beginning.
The World Care Council is supporting AIDS2010ForAll, and you can follow whats happening at the IAC by visiting http://www.imaxl.org or following on Tweeter at AIDS2010ForAll or on IMAXICOOP. See you there!

18th July: 2010. The participants of the satellite Session in Social Media Lab for Clinicians and health care workers held at the 17th International AIDS conference in Vienna, unanimously proposed to initiate a Global Alliance of Social Media responding to HIV. During the satellite meeting the speakers indentified, Social Media has carved out a unique space in HIV response. Alliances and partnerships for health promotion is an evidence based response towards complex public health challenge. To explore the full potential of the Social media in HIV response, warrants a global alliance of the social media practitioners.
To identify barriers and challenges to promote Social media in HIV response, to promote best practices in Social Media in HIV response, to promote a policy frame work for Social Media HIV response and to develop a peer group support structure for Social Media practitioners in HIV response. A working group was empowered to develop a work plan and a road map.

-When you dream about Human Rights alone, it is just a dream, when you dream with others, it pre-empts reality. (R. Pereira G.)
-Martin Luther King did not say “I have a nightmare”. (L. Stoddard)
-Our future may be beyond our vision, but not beyond our control. (Senator Edward M. Kennedy)
1. History is not a good predictor of the future. Our institutions and our ethics come from a different historical era and have not yet been updated to knit together a globally stable society. (J. Sachs) So I’d say that, for human rights (HR), we can safely conclude we find ourselves at a watershed of history.
2. Moreover, since in politics one should never let a serious crisis go to waste, this is the (belated) time to take bold steps. It is not by pushing for more control, more purity of intentions or more money that deepening HR violations will be avoided; to pretend being able to do more through these ‘pushes’ is to commit a sin of ignorance. (N. Boesen)
3. But is there the needed sense of urgency to take the necessary much bolder steps? If so, who feels it and who does not? Who cares about the serious HR problems affecting us the world over? Only a creative anger about the world crisis we have just lived through will lead to a renewed commitment to work towards change in the HR direction.*

(PlusNews) - Janet "China" Mpalume led Zimbabwe's ARV Swallows to a decisive victory in the Halftime Football Tournament in Johannesburg on 2 July 2010. She wasn't playing for the FIFA World Cup, but for something potentially far more important.
As the battle for the World Cup heats up, HIV-positive soccer players were waging their own fight for AIDS funding. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the global medical charity, brought together six teams of HIV-positive footballers from Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe as part of a drive to draw attention to falling international HIV/AIDS funding.
"Can you imagine the massive outcry if someone stopped the World Cup after the semi-finals? Or if the referee just allowed the final match to be played until halftime?" asked Dr Giles van Cutsem, coordinator of MSF projects in Khayelitsha, one of Cape Town's largest townships.

I support the Vienna Declaration because, in most countries, approaches to drug use focus overwhelmingly on criminalization and the imposition of harsh penalties rather than public health measures. As a result, people who use illegal drugs worldwide continue being denied harm reduction services, have poor and inequitable access to antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection, suffer abuse and sometimes torture at the hand of law enforcement officials, and are often incarcerated for lengthy periods of time simply for using or possessing drugs.
These human rights abuses are reported from all regions of the world. They are abhorrent in themselves and we must fight them for this reason alone. Furthermore, they increase people’s vulnerability to HIV and negatively affect the delivery of HIV programmes. Much more needs to happen to fight these abuses.
As the Vienna Declaration highlights, one of the priorities is to stop wasting resources on the failed “war on drugs” that has turned into a war against people and communities. This war must end. Resources should instead be devoted to providing, to everyone who needs them, evidence-based and human rights–based interventions that prevent problematic drug use, treat drug dependence and ensure harm reduction services for people who use drugs.

After lending a hand to the start-up of the IMAXI Cooperative's pilot studies at the WHA (World Open Health Assembly) in May and UNAIDS PCB Meeting (UNAIDS for ALL) in June, the World Care Council is now hands-on Component 5 of the WHO/ Stop TB Strategy, "Empower People with TB and Communities'". It's time to move Component 5 from words to action, and a clear understanding of what has been achieved, or not, in recent years is required to move forward.

We are pleased to announce that the Stop TB Partnership has just engaged the World Care Council to conduct a in-depth study of the 'State of the Stakeholding' in this important Component 5, and specifically to understand the present lack of data on the promotion of the Patients' Charter for Tuberculosis Care and Community Care in the 10 highest burdened countries. By reaching out and getting the inputs of hundreds of the 'key actors' from the public and private sectors, civil society leaders and community activists in these countries, a better understanding on advocacy and social mobilization will be gained, efforts to forge partnerships among the respondents will be strengthened, and more People with TB and their communities empowered.

Stayed Tune for further details, or contact us to lend a hand or a brain to this innovative initiative.

Ten months ago, the Global Fund put on hold about $95 million in potential disbursements under four grants to the Zambia Ministry of Health, because of fraud within the ministry that was first reported by a whistleblower. Seven current or former ministry employees were charged by the Zambian government in relation to the fraudulent appropriation of about $350,000 from one of the grants. The funding is still on hold except for payments for life-saving drugs, which are now bypassing the ministry and being sent direct to procurement agents or suppliers. The Fund later decided that the role of principal recipient (PR) for these grants would be taken away from the Ministry of Health and handed over to UNDP, and the ministry was asked to return $8 million in unspent funds. Grants with non-governmental PRs were not affected. The Global Fund Board was informed of these developments. But the public was told nothing; no press release was issued, and no information was placed on the Zambia pages of the Fund's website.