Blogs

The International AIDS Society admits it has governance problems after the sudden departure of its Executive Director Robin Gorna. Pamela Das of The Lancet reports.
On July 18—23, the International AIDS Society (IAS) convened its biennial conference in Vienna, Austria. A notable absence at the meeting was the society's Executive Director, Robin Gorna, who less than a year after her appointment, and weeks before the Vienna AIDS 2010 conference, suddenly stepped down from her position giving no explanation because of a legal gag rule agreed by both parties. The IAS is the world's leading independent association of HIV professionals, with 14 000 members from 190 countries working at all levels of the global response to AIDS.

BEIJING (AP) -- Plainclothes officers detained a Chinese activist for sex workers' rights Monday, a few days after she publicly called for prostitution to be legalized, her sister said. Ye Haiyan was nabbed at the offices of her community group, the China Women's Rights Workshops, and told she would be held for two or three days of ''studies,'' her sister, Ye Sha, told The Associated Press.
Dissidents in China are often detained by authorities with the explanation that they are ''going for studies'' or ''taking a vacation.'' Usually, they are kept at a guesthouse to prevent them from moving about freely during sensitive dates. Last week, Ye Haiyan and a few supporters asked people in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where she is based, to sign a petition in support of legalizing prostitution, according to an account on her group's website. She also called for Aug. 3 -- Tuesday -- to be marked as ''Sex Workers' Day.'' Ye Haiyan argued that making prostitution legal would afford sex workers better protections.

DHAKA, 2 August 2010 (IRIN) - The tuberculosis (TB) prevalence rate in Bangladesh has plummeted to 79 per 100,000 people from 800 in the 1990s, with the majority of cases among the rural, poor and uneducated, according to the Nationwide Tuberculosis Disease-cum-Infection Prevalence Survey 2007-09 released in July. "The association between poverty and TB is well recognized, and the highest rates of TB are found in the poorest section of the community," said K Zaman, an epidemiologist with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICCDR, B), who led the survey with the National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP). "TB occurs more frequently among low-income group people living in overcrowded areas and persons with little schooling."

After almost three months of non-stop work to begin to 'open' three global health institutions, the WHO, UNAIDS, and the IAS AIDS Conference, the iMAXi Cooperative and the World Care Council are pleased with the results, yet need to catch our limited breaths. We are all volunteers, mostly all living with HIV and/or TB, and advance by focusing collective energies for the benefit of the wider community. The last 90 days has been an intensive learning experience, rolling out new 'i-tools' and organizing the World Open Health Assembly (WOHA) in May, the UNAIDS4All at the PCB meeting in June, and recently, AIDS2010forALL so PLHIV far away could 'be' in Vienna, virtually. Over 600 hundred 'new' peers and comrades from the communities affected by issues discussed at these meetings have participated through our online and mobile phone platforms - new tools for many hands to hold.

The Medicines Transparency Alliance has recently launched some videos explaining its concepts by interviewing its members in several countries. Have a look at the MeTA Global documentary (7 minutes) at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BacktoEarthFilms
Back to Earth Films directed and produced this short promotional film for the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA), a global health initiative that works to increase access to medicines for the poor in developing countries. The film explains how MeTA works and why, combining voxpop style interviews with MeTA stakeholders with footage of patients and health workers in Ghana, Peru and the Philippines. The film
was first aired at the World Health Assembly in May 2010 and at the MeTA Global Forum in June 2010.
http://www.hera.eu

Of all the heart-wrenching scenes I witnessed at last week’s 18th International AIDS Conference, the most disturbing had to be on the last day when the Conference volunteers went about the exhibition halls rounding up mountains of abandoned books, brochures and flyers.
“It’s all rubbish now,” I gasped to myself as I watched whole piles of materials disappear into vast recycling bins. The chatty teenage volunteers, donned in bright yellow T-shirts, probably thought nothing of it. But I thought differently.
What a waste. The amount of money spent in producing and shipping those things to Vienna is a figure I don’t want to even try to imagine, lest I become even more upset than I already am. I was a culprit too, leaving a tall stack of books on my hotel room bed as I tried to weigh out (figuratively and literally) which would be most useful to take back home. Feeling horribly guilty about abandoning the materials, I considered leaving the housekeeper a note to say not to throw away the books and instead hand them out to friends and family.
But something told me that a ‘first world’ country with a decimal HIV prevalence figure might not take too much interest in books around reforming sexual and reproductive health rights policy in the patriarchal global south. Maybe they might. But I thought against the idea and did what many people did in hotel corridors, lobbies and at airport check-in desks these past few days. I dumped the books.

VIENNA — The best AIDS-prevention news in years was released here last week at a world conference on the disease: a vaginal gel, called a microbicide, that can be used without a man knowing it, gave women a 39 percent chance of avoiding infection with the deadly virus. Thirty-nine percent is, obviously, not perfect, though the women in the South African trial who used the gel most faithfully did better, achieving 54 percent protection. After more than a dozen microbicide failures, it was a huge relief, and led to cheering and standing ovations for the researchers here. “This is a field that’s known a lot of pain,” said Catherine Hankins, chief scientific adviser for Unaids, the United Nations’ AIDS-fighting agency. There was general relief that the data was not as shaky as that of an AIDS vaccine trial released in September.

Three decades into the AIDS pandemic, HIV-positive patients continue to experience disease-related stigma, depression, and isolation, according to an international survey of more than 2000 people presented at AIDS 2010: XVIII International AIDS Conference. Nearly half of all the respondents said they had encountered someone who was afraid to have casual contact with them because of their infection with HIV or AIDS, and 1 in 4 reported that someone would not kiss them or share food or drink with them. These reactions to people with HIV/AIDS reflect still relatively widespread beliefs in many countries that HIV or AIDS is easily transmitted through everyday activities, and that people with HIV or AIDS should be avoided, researchers noted. Although 96% of the respondents said they had disclosed their HIV or AIDS status to at least 1 other person, 17% in a long-term relationship admitted they had not told their spouse or partner.

The UN has declared that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. About 1.5m children under five die each year from water and sanitation-related diseases. The resolution was passed with 122 nations in favour, none against and 41 abstentions. Abstaining countries said the resolution could undermine a process in the UN's Human Rights Council in Geneva to build a consensus on water rights.
The text of the resolution said that 884m people have no access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6bn lack access to basic sanitation. It "declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life". It urges the international community to "scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable water and sanitation for all".

Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and Botswana were among the countries which abstained from voting.
China, Russia, Germany, France, Spain and Brazil were among those supporting the resolution.
Portuguese lawyer Catarina de Albuquerque is due to report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva next year on countries' obligations related to water and sanitation.
US delegate John Sammis said the resolution "falls far short of enjoying the unanimous support of member states and may even undermine the work underway in Geneva".

Some countries said the resolution did not clearly define the scope of the new human right and the obligations it entailed, says the BBC's Barbara Plett, at the UN in New York.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10797988

Six months after the earthquake, Haiti’s situation has barely improved. Rubble still clutters the streets of Port-au-Prince; over a million residents remain homeless and without access to basic services; and only 28,000 semi-permanent shelters have been built. Despite the slow recovery, United Nations officials are also quick to add that “what hasn’t happened is worth noting.” Haiti has not seen an outbreak of disease or a breakdown in security. Unfortunately, equally noteworthy is the absence of the Haitian government’s leadership in the reconstruction process and the billions pledged by the international community that have not yet materialized.
When major global donors met in New York in March 2010, they not only made long-term financial commitments to Haiti, they also promised to work with Haitian institutions instead of working through the myriad international NGOs that have driven Haiti’s development assistance. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the time, “The leaders of Haiti must take responsibility for their country’s reconstruction” and encouraged donors to break away from their old habit of working “around the government rather than to work with them as partners…”