HIV Microbicide Success

posted: 20/07/2010

A vaginal microbicide gel containing the anti-HIV drug tenofovir (Viread) reduces the risk to women of HIV infection by 39%, results of a study show. This is the most hopeful news in the years long search for something that women can use to protect themselves from HIV risk. There was a recent flurry of hope about another microbicide which showed some signs of working but further study showed it wasn't good enough.

Women who used this new gel more reliably, during four out of the last five times they had had sex saw their risk of HIV infection reduced by 54%. The microbicide also had another useful sexual health benefit, halving the risk of infection with genital herpes.
 

Other reports about this microbicide explain that women must apply the gel 12 hours before sex and once again as soon afterwards as possible.

There is more work to be done before this microbicide can supplied publicly, but this was a top-notch scientific study, a randomised, placebo-controlled trial – called CAPRISA 004 – in South Africa. 889 HIV-negative women were randomly divided into two groups, one was given the tenofovir-containing gel and the other group was also given gel that looked exactly like the first but without any tenofovir in it. No-one (neither women nor the clinic staff) knew who was getting what. Both groups of women got advice about safer sex and free condoms. The women were monitored for two and a half years.
 

Results from the study will be officially presented to the AIDS 2010 conference in Vienna today, but they have already generated a lot of excitement.
“This is an important day,” said Yasmin Halima, director of the Global Campaign for Microbicides. “We now have evidence that a vaginal gel can help prevent HIV. This is good news for women, good news for the field and a good day for science.”
 

Next Steps

To stimulate and prioritise rapid action, WHO and UNAIDS announced that they will convene an expert consultation in August with women’s health and HIV prevention advocates, scientists, microbicide research teams and product developers, and public health experts to discuss the next steps with the product.

A webcast of this session and interviews are available on the Kaiser Family Foundation website

More information from NAM/aidsmap.com

Image - Prof. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA, explains how to use an applicator with gel       from blogs.timeslive.co.za

AIDS Conference e-newsletter

posted: 12/07/2010

Sign up now for the latest news on HIV from the 18th International AIDS Conference. This major international conference opens in Vienna, Austria, on Sunday 18 July, with more than 20,000 people. This conference happens every two years and is the first place for news of the most important developments – news about progress on microbicides is expected, which is important for women. There will be much more to find out on every HIV topic under the sun.

Daily e-newsletter

NAM / aidsmap have a daily email newsletter you can sign up for now.

The conference promises interesting and varied presentations and sessions, covering a broad range of subjects in the HIV field, including new treatment, prevention and practice research.

Rights Here, Rights Now

This year's theme is ‘Rights Here, Right Now’, and the conference will have a big focus on human rights, and especially the need for science and evidence based policies for injecting drug use and HIV prevention which respect human rights.

Microbicide News

This conference will also feature keenly awaited results from the first major efficacy study of a microbicide that uses an antiretroviral drug to prevent HIV infection in women.

NAM’s team of writers will report all the conference news you need in the conference news pages of aidsmap.com every day, with links to abstracts and webcasts where these are available. During the conference NAM will send an email summary bulletin each day, presenting a round-up of news, with links to full news reports and webcasts. Sign up now for the daily conference email.
 

Budget Pain Worse With HIV

posted: 24/06/2010

Low income is a major problem already for many people living with HIV. The emergency budget and service cuts will now make a bad situation even worse.

Here we try to pick out how the budget that is claimed to be ‘tough but fair’ will affect people living with HIV in NW England. We find out how tough and unfair it will be on many people living with HIV.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis shows that the poorest 10% of the population (typically people on benefits and workers on the minimum wage) will face the worst financial pain of the whole population. Excluding cuts in Disability Living Allowance, Housing Benefit and funding for important public services like social care, over the next five years they worked out that the spending power of the poorest 10% of the population will fall by 2.6%.

Add in the affect of changes in disability living allowance, housing benefit cuts and cuts to public services and the poorer part of the population will suffer even more than this.

The budget will cut the incomes of the richest 10% of the population by just 0.6% compared with over 2.6% for the lowest income tenth of the population. How fair is that?
 

What we have to tell you below makes for depressing reading.

We think people with HIV have a right to know how the planned changes over the next five years could affect them.

These changes are not all cast in stone. They have to go through Parliament and you can tell your MP what you think.
 

Disability Living Allowance
Many people with HIV receive Disability Living Allowance (DLA), a benefit paid at different rates to compensate for disability and mobility problems. The budget announced that people on DLA will have a strict new medical examination; these medical examinations will start in 2013. Some people will lose DLA, others will go onto a lower rate. The government aims to cut spending by £1.4 billion within two years of these medicals starting.

We do not know yet if people who have DLA ‘for life’ will have these medicals.
 

Housing Benefit
Housing Benefit / Housing Allowance will be cut after one year by 10% for people claiming Job Seekers Allowance. The amount of Housing Benefit will also be capped, depending on how many bedrooms you have.This and other changes will be cuts costing people on the benefit £1.8 billion a year.

People will either have to pay the extra for their rent from their other income, move somewhere cheaper or smaller, and if evicted for rent arrears are likely to be refused rehousing as a homeless person. Eviction for rent arrears is treated as making yourself intentionally homeless so people are not entitled to be rehoused.
 

Unemployment
There are around 2.5 million people unemployed and about 0.5 million job vacancies. Unemployment is higher in NW England than most other regions. The job vacancies are often low paid.

The budget alone will increase unemployment by another 100,000 and independent experts expect it to reach close to 3 million.

Job seeking prospects will worsen and it is already harder to find work with a condition like HIV.
 

Slow-burn cuts and taxes
Over the next five years people on benefits will slip further behind in what their benefits will be able to buy and with tax changes.

VAT rises at the beginning of January to 20% and VAT always hits people on low incomes hardest.

Most benefits will be uprated for inflation in a new way that will leave people increasingly worse off. This will cut £6 billion from benefits over the next five years.

Child Benefit is frozen for three years from next April – a £3billion cut. Parents who are working will be compensated by Tax Credits, but that doesn’t help parents who aren’t working.
 

Social Services
Local Government and other public services are most used by people who are on lower incomes. Social Services departments of local councils now face cuts of between 25-33%. Social Services provide essential services to people with HIV and they help fund HIV community services like George House Trust.

The AIDS Support Grant which is used to pay for extra support for people with HIV and community HIV services is no longer protected by a ‘ring-fence’. This means councils can now spend it on whatever they like.

We don’t know yet how cuts of between one quarter and one third will affect essential social services for people with HIV and community organisations but we should start to know more from October. We can expect some painful cuts and changes.
 

NHS cuts
The NHS in NW England has been told to save almost £1 billion within the next three years. We do not know whether this will affect people with HIV.
 

State Pension Age to rise sooner
Details are sparse but the government is planning to raise the age at which men and women will get a state pension sooner than was planned. Men who are now 59 will have to work one more year before they can claim a state pension. Pension age will be 66, not 65 as now, for men from 2016. It does not stop there.

They are consulting about raising the pesnion age to possibly 70. Pension ages for women and men could be raised by one year every five years until it reaches 70 for both sexes. If they start this in 2016 as they say they now plan to, men now aged 40 would not get a state pension until they reach 70. Three out of four people will have some disability by the age of 68. Many people with HIV (among many others) are not fit enough to work until the current pension age of 65, particularly in a region like NW England.

Benefit cuts and changes will make it harder for people with disabilities like HIV to live with a decent fair income before pension age.
 

Expect more pain
In October the government will publish its Public Expenditure Review. We can expect lots more cuts in government spending. The government is already saying that it will try to reduce cuts in education and some other public services (but it has not said that it wants to protect social services) by making even more cuts and changes to benefits.
 

Since the second world war, no government has managed to cut public spending for more than two years in a row. This government plans five years of cuts.
 

Some reputable economic commentators, and President Obama, are warning that European countries are behaving like a panicking herd, cutting spending harshly and that this has a high risk of plunging the world into recession once again. The harsh medicine of cuts could kill economic recovery and make the situation even worse.
 

Heath Inequality
The Marmot Review earlier this year was to help the government plan policies that will end harsh health inequalities. It showed that the poor die 7 years younger than the rich, and the poor become disabled 17 years sooner. Cuts to services and benefits in NW England will worsen the already bad record of ill-health, disabilities and early deaths in this region. More unemployment and low income harms people’s health and well-being.

Reductions in benefits, and those 25%+ public service cuts expected in the Autumn Spending Review are estimated to increase alcohol related deaths by about 2.8% and cardiovascular deaths by 1.2%. Both of these disproportionately affect people living with HIV. Every £80 cut in social welfare spending per person causes this, according to a Europe-wide analysis by Oxford University epidemiologist David Stuckler, reported in the Guardian on 25 June and in the British Medical Journal. There are likely to be between 6,500  and 38,000 more deaths in the next ten years. If the economy worsens, extra deaths rise steeply. Apart from benefits cuts, it is cuts to social services and health budgets especially that cause the most health harm. 

The Treasury is ending the public sector agreement with the NHS to raise the life expectancy of the poor. Marmot presented the government with a vision and plan to make sure everyone has a ‘healthy income’, enough money to live healthy lives and improve life expectancy.

The budget and cuts to come make it even more likely we will go backwards and poorer people and people with disabilities, like many people with HIV in NW England, will face worsening life expectancy and poorer health.

Sit back or act?
These changes are not all cast in stone. They have to be passed by Parliament and you can tell your MP what you think. With your postcode you can contact your own MP here.

Help for people on Low Incomes on our website

Keep HIV in Focus - Crusaid-THT

posted: 16/06/2010

The chief executive of National AIDS Trust urges a continued focus on HIV welfare, following Crusaid's merger with Terrence Higgins Trust, which was announced on Monday.
Deborah Jack expressed her sadness at seeing Crusaid come to an end after 20 years and voiced her worries for the future, in an interview with the PinkPaper.
 

“My main concern is that we’ve lost a charity solely focused with HIV into an organisation which covers all aspects of sexual health. Crusaid always supported those in the greatest need.

The important thing now is making sure … people [living with HIV] are still given the focus they require. Tensions may arise …. as Crusaid staff are used to working on more specific issues around HIV. I am, however, pleased THT have made a public commitment to continue the hardship fund which provides a valuable lifeline for … people living in poverty with HIV."
 

AIDS Support Grant risks
The merger comes just after Communities Secretary Eric Pickles’ announced that the AIDS Support Grant (ASG) will no longer be ring-fenced. This means that this £25.5 million grant (almost £2 million is for NW England) does not have to be spent on social care for people living with HIV. Deborah Jack believes it is important to hold local authorities to account for how they spend this money, otherwise there could be major repercussions, highlighted in a recent report that NAT produced with Crusaid into the need for the Crusaid HIV hardship fund.
 

“In the report we found that 1 in 6 people being treated for HIV applied for help from Crusaid with an average income of just £42 per week. One of the main problems is that many charities rely on contracts from central or local government and without the [AIDS Support Grant] money it might put lots of the smaller charities supporting people on the ground into financial difficulties. A lot of charities use the money they get from the AIDS Support Grant to provide counselling and peer support for people living with HIV. If this money isn’t being spent [on HIV anymore] then these services will be cut and then people in the greatest need will not have the same emotional support, which may lead to … [people living with HIV] becoming isolated and depressed.”
 

Source PinkPaper

AIDS Support Grant Latest

posted: 11/06/2010

The ring-fence protecting the AIDS Support Grant (ASG) has been removed immediately, the Communities and Local Government department announced today. AIDS Support Grant is paid to local councils to meet the additional costs of social care support for people living with HIV. The ring fence was supposed to stop councils using the money for anything other than HIV. Councils could now spend this grant on anything from libraries to schools.

However councils should already have planned how they would spend this year’s grant. Some councils use some of their AIDS Support Grant to fund services provided by organisations like George House Trust. We hope that removing the ring fence will not have an impact this year.

Worth £2 million in NW England

Across NW England AIDS Support Grant to councils is worth around £2 million. Manchester gets the largest share with the greatest number of people living with HIV – around £620,000. Tameside received about £40,000, but Knowsley in Merseyside received the least - under £10,000.

The National AIDS Trust has now written to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to request a meeting to discuss how social care services for people living with HIV can be safeguarded.

Show the evidence
Lisa Power, head of policy at Terrence Higgins Trust told PinkNews.co.uk: "We're very concerned. We are talking to our funders ... and showing them the evidence for these services and urging other agencies to do the same.

Often, mainstream services don't cater for people with HIV. Our upcoming research shows older people are very worried about using mainstream services. We've heard stories of nurses refusing to do home visits when they realise someone is HIV-positive. It's about other things too, such as social interaction and benefits advice." She continued: "If it is not ring-fenced, we need to make a very clear case.”
 

Tell your council
"If people with HIV are worried, they need to contact their local authority as a taxpayer and say 'I hope you will continue this'. It's about people power now."
 

Contacting your Councillors     Using your postcode, you can send a message to your local councillors - you have three councillors.

Contacting the head of Social Services - we have weblinks to the social services pages of all councils with Social Services departments in NW England here in alphabetical order

Other Recent news on our site about the grant here

NW England
AIDS Support Grant 2009-2010 and total HIV population by social services district
download our handy guide for NW England here

Here is the official document announcing the disappearance of the ring-fence protecting how the grant is spent

The government’s press release 

How the press reports the cuts