Where's Our HIV Strategy?

posted: 02/11/2010

NAT has just launched a petition for a national strategy on HIV - its campaign for 2010 World AIDS Day.

There will be more than 100,000 people living with HIV in the UK in one years time, but the national strategy for HIV and sexual health in England runs out this December. There are no plans yet for a new one.
 

However the UK made a promise to the UN to have a HIV strategy which:

• demonstrates political leadership
• is properly financed
• is genuinely multi-sectoral and cross-departmental
• promotes human rights
• confronts stigma and discrimination
• effectively meets the need for high quality HIV prevention, testing, treatment, care and support.

This World AIDS Day, NAT is calling on the Prime Minister to keep this promise and create a new national strategy to combat HIV and link this to those agreed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Petition to keep the HIV promise
Please add your voice to the HIV promise campaign here

And for other action ideas visit the World AIDS Day site 
 

Thanks and please Share

We and NAT are grateful for your support for UK-wide leadership and action on HIV. Please spread the word about the e-petition.

National HIV strategy for England

Broken Treatment Promises for Africa

posted: 27/05/2010

International aid organisations are breaking their promises to Africa, to provide universal HIV treatment. This risks undermining years of positive achievements and will cause many more unnecessary deaths, warns humanitarian aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in their new report.

Effects in 8 African countries

Their report No time to quit: HIV/AIDS treatment gap widening in Africa looks at eight sub-Saharan countries. It shows how major international funding institutions such as PEPFAR, the World Bank, UNITAID, and donors to the Global Fund, have decided to cap, reduce or withdraw their spending on HIV treatment over the past year and a half.

9 Million Still Need Treatment
“How can we give up the fight halfway and pretend that the crisis is over?” said Dr. Mit Philips, Health Policy Analyst for MSF and one of the authors of the report. “Nine million people worldwide in need of urgent treatment still lack access to this lifesaving care - two thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa alone. There is a real risk that many of them will die within the next few years if necessary steps are not taken now. Also, the current donor retreat will prevent more people from accessing treatment and will threaten to undermine all the progress made since the introduction of ARVs.”
 

USA cuts and others planned
The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, PEPFAR, reduced its budget for the purchase of ARVs in 2009 and 2010, and also introduced a freeze on its overall HIV/AIDS budget. Other donors, such as UNITAID and the World Bank, have announced reductions over the coming years in the funding for antiretroviral drugs in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Global Fund is short of cash
The Global Fund, the largest funding institution in the fight against HIV/AIDS, faces a major funding shortfall. The US, the Netherlands and Ireland have already announced that they will be providing lower contributions to the Global Fund. In 2009-2010, contributions to already approved country grants were reduced by 8 to 12 percent.

6 times fewer treated
Overall funding cuts have translated into a reduction in the number of people able to start their ARV treatment, as seen in South Africa and Uganda, and in DRC – where the number of new patients able to start ARV treatment was cut six-fold. Fragile health systems become increasingly strained by an increasing number of patients who will now need more intensive care.

Drug stock-outs and disruptions in drug supply are already a reality, and will become more frequent without enough funding. MSF has been asked by governments and others to help with emergency drug supplies in Malawi, Zimbabwe, DRC, Kenya and Uganda.

More deaths and orphans
“If there is reduced funding, then it will mean more people will die, and we will have more orphans,” said Catherine Mango, an HIV patient from Kenya. “The ones that are positive often need to assist others, like their children. People will lose hope and die. It will be the end. If there are no drugs there is no future.”

ARV treatment is lifesaving but also lifelong. This means that the number of patients under treatment increases cumulatively each year, thus requiring incrementally growing and sustainable funding.

“The HIV / AIDS crisis remains a massive emergency that still requires an exceptional response. MSF calls for a sustained and renewed commitment by donors and national governments in the fight against HIV/AIDS, so that this disastrous public health crisis can be addressed appropriately,” concluded Dr. Philips.

Source
 

G8 - HIV Election Action

posted: 30/04/2010

With the general election under a week away, what do your parliamentary candidates feel about the HIV pandemic? Will they take the action that’s needed?

2010 is the deadline for meeting the G8’s pledge to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

However, 10 million adults and children are still waiting for life-saving HIV treatment.
 

G8 – why are 10 million still waiting for HIV treatment?

We need our politicians to end this injustice and we need you to do two things to make sure they do.
 

2 Quick actions

• Click to complete a quick online action that will email all your general election candidates demanding they support action on HIV
   
• Get ten other people to do it too – just forward this email to friends and family, so we maximise the impact. Tell them why you took action.

We need to remind politicians how important the international response to global HIV is. Supporters like you all across the country are taking action – emailing their parliamentary candidates to tell them about the Stop AIDS Campaign and asking them to meet with the campaign and join Parliament’s HIV/AIDS group.

Your emails will go to all of the people standing for parliament in your local constituency.

Got a reply? Forward it

If they email you back please forward these to the campaign so the campaign knows what each candidate says. Please forward any candidate replies to diarmaid@aidsconsortium.org.uk

You can find out more about the Stop AIDS Campaign here

Universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support is possible. But this won’t happen without your help. Please, take action and spread the word.
 

Ask Candidates about Free Prescriptions

posted: 13/04/2010

One and a half years after Gordon Brown promised, here in Manchester, free prescriptions for people with long term conditions including cancer, the government has still not prepared new rules for Parliament to approve, apart from for cancer. There are many people with HIV who have to pay prescription charges. Some people are destitute, such as some migrants, and other people are on very low incomes. Some people are forced to choose between basics - eating and heating, and paying for treatment.

Help make sure all the election candidates know people care about free prescriptions are for people with long term conditions like HIV. Politicians are busy trying to win our votes, so it's the perfect time to make sure they know you want this pledge met by the next government - whoever they are.

Here are three easy things you can do to keep up the pressure:

Tell them on the doorstep - local candidates will be knocking on doors asking what matters to you in this election and aiming to convince you that they'll represent your views. Not many people will be talking about the unfair prescription charges for people with conditions like MS, Parkinsons disease and arthritis. Be original and tell them that you care about this issue. If you or a member of your family is directly affected by a long-term condition, you could tell them about it - that will really leave an impression.

Go to an election meeting - There will be question and answer sessions, known as hustings, in your area. There could even be a health-specific hustings. Ask the candidates whether they will support free prescriptions for people with long-term conditions. Promises of support that candidates make will be a matter of public record so make sure you take notes so we can hold them to their promises after the election. Check your local papers for details of election meetings with candidates.

Influence the leaders' TV debates - You can suggest a question for the three TV debates between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Why not ask them whether they will support the health of millions of people with long-term conditions by scrapping charges for the prescriptions they need to stay well? Click on these links to submit your questions to ITV News , Sky News and BBC News.

Tell us what happens

Please tell the campaigners at THT if you get any commitments from candidates by emailing
Visit for more information the Prescription Promise campaign 

 

Religions Pledge End to HIV Stigma

posted: 25/03/2010

People from the main world religions have promised to prevent HIV stigma, in a public declaration, welcomed by a senior U.N. official, as a sea change in attitudes.
 

40 Personal Pledges

Representatives of some 40 religions and faith groups including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, ended a two-day event in the Netherlands by signing a "personal commitment to action." Each vowed to "be clear in my words and actions that stigma and discrimination towards people living with or affected by HIV is unacceptable."
 

Canon Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican priest from Uganda, said the way his church treated him after he discovered he had HIV should be an example. "They reacted with support and understanding. There were sections who were annoyed and disappointed I was HIV positive, but a big number opted to give me the love, care and support I needed." Byamugisha’s first wife died with HIV and he has now remarried - a woman with HIV. He told church officials in 1992 that he had HIV and was one of the first African clerics to reveal he has HIV.
 

UN welcomes religions’ promises
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the United Nations Population Fund's executive director, called Tuesday's statement "a sea change. There is no talk about sinning or repentance," she said. "It is more about acceptance of people living with HIV."
 

Remorse and regret
The delegates acknowledged that some church and faith groups had played an active role in the stigmatisation they now have committed to end. "With remorse we regret that those living with HIV have at times been at the receiving end of judgment, rejection ... ," they wrote in a statement. "We need to make greater efforts to ensure that all people living with HIV find a welcome within faith communities."
 

The statement came after two days of discussions in which Byamugisha said that delegates sometimes struggled "with how to balance between communicating the religious messages that talk about morality and spirituality (and) public health challenges on the ground."
Rev. Richard Fee of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, which helped organise the meeting, said that religious groups can now join the front line in challenging HIV.
"If we are going to deal with this pandemic, the way we are going to get the message to every village in the world through education is through faith-based groups which do touch every village in the world," he said.
 

Source