1 December 2005 - CRINMAIL 735
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* NEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------------
- WHO apologises over missed "3 by 5" AIDS target
- Global number of infected people continues to rise
- Increase in services needed for pregnant HIV-positive women
- Lesotho government to offer free HIV tests
* CRIN MEMBERS' NEWS ---------------------------------------------------
- Save the Children USA: Teen HIV/AIDS advocates in Africa
- Terre des Hommes: Psycho-social support initiative for children
- Global Movement for Children: Lesson for Life Campaign
- World Vision Canada: Hope Initiative
* REPORTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- UNAIDS/WHO: AIDS Epidemic Update 2005
- CRIN: Key Readings on Children and HIV/AIDS
* CAMPAIGNS -----------------------------------------------------------------
- UNICEF/UNAIDS Global Action Campaign
- The World is Watching campaign
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Your submissions are welcome if you are working in the area of child rights. To contribute, email us at [email protected]. Adobe Acrobat is required for viewing some of the documents, and if required can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html If you do not receive this email in html format, you will not be able to see some hyperlinks in the text. At the end of each item we have therefore provided a full URL linking to a web page where further information is available.
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- WHO apologises over missed "3 by 5" AIDS target
[JOHANNESBURG, 28 November 2005] - Bureaucracy, poor management and inadequate funding have scuppered a global drive to put 3 million poor people on life-saving AIDS drugs by the end of 2005, activists said on Monday.
At least 4 million people still desperately need anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition said in a report on the failure of the United Nation's "3 by 5" AIDS initiative.
"In South Africa and in countless other countries, we have been working for more than a decade to ensure HIV treatment access," Zackie Achmat, founder of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, said in a statement. "In that time millions have died because of lack of access to drugs, and millions more will die if we do not achieve universal access by 2010."
The head of the World Health Organisation's HIV/AIDS programme on Monday apologised for its failure to meet the global target, but said he believed the programme had highlighted the need for expanding AIDS treatment. "All we can do is apologise," Dr Jim Yong Kim said in an interview with the BBC. "I think we have to just admit we've not done enough and we started way too late."
The UN AIDS body UNAIDS said last week that about 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with new infections increasing at one of the fastest rates since the first reported case in 1981.
The activists' report examined delays in HIV/AIDS treatment in six countries hit hard by the global pandemic: South Africa, the Dominican Republic, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Russia.
It said bureaucratic bottlenecks and poor political leadership were key factors in slowing provision of ARVs, citing as an example a struggle over funds between different agencies in the Dominican Republic. Lack of a national treatment protocol in Russia, which has one of the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world, hampered the response there, it said.
A lack of healthcare workers, inadequate funding and the pervasive stigma surrounding people infected with HIV/AIDS were also blamed for delays in treatment. The vast distances that HIV/AIDS patients must travel to obtain drug treatment in countries such as India were another factor, activists said.
South Africa's government, coping with the world's single highest HIV/AIDS caseload with about 5 million infections, "continues to drag its feet and fails to combat misinformation and pseudo-science," the report said. Practical problems and limited drug supplies were also slowing South Africa's treatment programme, it added.
The report said efforts to further broaden AIDS drug treatment, with a goal of universal access by 2010, were unlikely to be met without a new approach by policymakers.
"The 3 by 5 initiative failed to treat even 50 per cent of the people in need of antiretroviral treatment. If the organisations responsible for carrying out this programme are to accomplish an even greater goal in five years' time it will take courageous new leadership," the report said.
The activists' report said AIDS treatment could be speeded up if various UN agencies increased collaboration and national governments "honestly assessed" problems with drug delivery. It added that the fear surrounding AIDS was still the major factor preventing people from obtaining help.
"Every level - from individuals to village leaders to national legislators and international policymakers - must work systematically to end stigma," it said.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6695&flag=news
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- Global number of infected people continues to rise
[GENEVA, 21 November 2005] - There is new evidence that adult HIV infection rates have decreased in certain countries and that changes in behaviour to prevent infection - such as increased use of condoms, delay of first sexual experience and fewer sexual partners - have played a key part in these declines. Evidence also indicates, however, that overall trends in HIV transmission are still increasing, and that far greater HIV prevention efforts are needed to slow the epidemic.
Kenya, Zimbabwe and some countries in the Caribbean region all show declines in HIV prevalence over the past few years with overall adult infection rates decreasing in Kenya from a peak of 10 per cent in the late 1990s to 7 per cent in 2003 and evidence of drops in HIV rates among pregnant women in Zimbabwe from 26 per cent in 2003 to 21 per cent in 2004. In urban areas of Burkina Faso prevalence among young pregnant women declined from around 4 per cent in 2001 to just under 2 per cent in 2003.
These latest findings were published in the "AIDS Epidemic Update 2005", the annual report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The joint report, which this year focuses on HIV prevention, was released last week in advance of World AIDS Day, marked world-wide on the first of December.
Several recent developments in the Caribbean region (in Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Dominican Republic and Haiti) give cause for guarded optimism - with some HIV prevalence declines evident among pregnant women, signs of increased condom use among sex workers and expansion of voluntary HIV testing and counselling.
Despite decreases in the rate of infection in certain countries, the overall number of people living with HIV has continued to increase in all regions of the world except the Caribbean. There were an additional five million new infections in 2005. The number of people living with HIV globally has reached its highest level with an estimated 40.3 million people, up from an estimated 37.5 million in 2003. More than three million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2005; of these, more than 500000 were children.
According to the report, the steepest increases in HIV infections have occurred in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (25 per cent increase to 1.6 million) and East Asia. But sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the most affected globally - with 64 per cent of new infections occurring here (over three million people).
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6692
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- Increase in services needed for pregnant HIV-positive women
[ABUJA, 30 November 2005] - The number of children who become HIV positive every year could be more than halved if pregnant women living with HIV received comprehensive services including anti-retroviral drugs, UNICEF said yesterday. But less than 10 per cent of women who need these services are getting them.
Currently, more than 600,000 children are estimated to become infected with HIV each year, over 90 per cent of them because they are born to mothers infected with the virus.
On World AIDS Day UNICEF, WHO and other partners called for far greater access to preventive services for pregnant women living with HIV. Key allies in the battle against AIDS are meeting in Nigeria this week to jump start efforts toward achieving the global target of 80 per cent of pregnant women in need of services receiving them by 2010. At the current rate of progress this target, set by the UN at the General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in 2001, will not be met, hampering efforts toward achieving the millennium development goal of halting and reversing HIV/AIDS by 2015.
The High Level Global Partner Forum, convened by UNICEF and WHO, will bring together 140 experts from international organisations and delegations from 27 countries to share best practices and define future directions for accelerating expansion of coverage in countries that most need it. The forum will also share the latest science on the effectiveness of different delivery approaches, the efficacy of anti-retroviral drugs in reducing the transmission of HIV and the feasibility of providing long-term anti-retroviral treatment to keep mothers healthy.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6694&flag=news
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- Lesotho government to offer free HIV tests
The government of Lesotho is to offer free HIV testing to all its citizens in a bid to reverse the spread of AIDS. In what is believed to be the first programme of its kind in the world, every villager in the tiny, mountainous kingdom will be offered a test. Under the scheme, local leaders will be consulted on how best to offer HIV tests to everyone.
Current estimates show 30 per cent of adults in the southern African country are infected with HIV but very few know it. Knowledge of HIV status is considered key to preventing the spread of the disease but - as in most countries of the world - until now Lesotho's testing facilities have waited for people to come to them. This programme wants to reverse that, taking the tests to the people.
One of the most innovative options is door-to-door testing where health workers will visit every house armed with an HIV kit. The government plans to employ 7,500 additional health care workers to administer the tests.
Lesotho - with a population of about 1.8 million - is entirely landlocked by South Africa. The devastating AIDSs epidemic in that country has spilled over into its tiny neighbour, brought primarily by migrant workers returning from South Africa's gold and diamond mines.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6691&flag=news
Read about soaring rates of HIV infections in Botswana:
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6693&flag=news
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- Save the Children USA: Teen HIV/AIDS advocates in Africa
Around the world, AIDS has a child's face. Some 15 million children under 17 have lost one or both parents to the disease, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa. These children, especially the girls, must often leave school to earn money to care for their siblings and the sick. They usually lack access to basic health care and are at serious risk for exploitation, poverty and discrimination.
To resist the trend, Save the Children's HIV/AIDS programmes in four African countries help youngsters stay in school, get health care and food, cope with their grief and trauma, and learn skills to earn an income. In return, many of the children help educate their peers about the disease and volunteer to visit those sick from the disease in their homes, doing for them what they may have trouble doing for themselves.
In Ethiopia, teens who have volunteered to become "advocates of hope" are demonstrating what World AIDS Day really means by making a difference in their communities. Fourteen teens were given digital cameras for a week in August and asked to document their lives and ways they were keeping the promise of fighting AIDS by caring for one another, their families, their communities and themselves.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6690&flag=news
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- Terre des Hommes: Psycho-social support initiative for children
HIV/AIDS has become a world pandemic threatening social and economic stability in the most affected areas, and spreading rapidly into new regions. More than 2 million children live with HIV/AIDS; the number of children orphaned by the disease (having lost one or both parents) has already reached 15 million and is growing rapidly. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is depriving children of many of their fundamental rights, and is undermining years of progress in human development as never before.
In close co-operation with the Regional Psycho Social Initiative (REPSSI), Terre des Hommes Switzerland is providing assistance to strengthen the capacities of children affected by HIV/AIDS to cope with their situation, and help to build the self esteem and resilience of these children in an environment of stigmatisation. Terre des Hommes Switzerland is a founding member of REPSSI, a regional programme networking with more than 40 institutions in Eastern and Southern Africa, the region in which the pandemic has had the highest impact.
Terre des Hommes calls for the mobilisation of governments and civil society to enable families and communities to provide for the psycho-social well-being of children affected by HIV/AIDS, poverty and violence.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6676
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- Global Movement for Children: Lesson for Life Campaign
Over 10 million children from 60 countries world-wide have joined a giant simultaneous lesson on HIV/AIDS this World AIDS Day. Tens of thousands of schools and youth groups in countries from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe have participated in the Lesson for Life, learning about HIV/AIDS and mobilising children and their communities to work together to change the destiny of children affected by HIV and AIDS.
Organised by the Global Movement for Children and the World AIDS Campaign, the Lesson for Life involved children urging their governments to take as much action on HIV/AIDS as children themselves are taking.
'In the Lesson for Life, children from across the world are tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis head on,' said Miquel De Paladella, from the Global Movement for Children. 'Our leaders must sit up and take notice of these children - their innovation and energy puts our governments to shame.'
Children are missing from global awareness, budgets, and action on HIV/AIDS, and do not have the services, care, support, and knowledge that they need. Fewer than 5 percent of HIV-positive children have access to treatment. Less than 10 percent of children who have lost parents to AIDS get public support or care.
'Empty promises cost lives,' continued Miquel De Paladella. 'Every year that governments fail to meet their commitments is another year that the millions of children affected by HIV/AIDS are without the care, support and treatment that are their need and their right. '
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6698&flag=news
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- World Vision Canada: Hope Initiative
[MISSISSAUGA, 29 November 2005] - World Vision Canada is calling on Canadians to bring hope to 2,000 of the children orphaned in East Africa this World AIDS Day - just one of the regions in sub-Saharan Africa devastated by the global HIV/AIDS emergency. The agency is asking Canadians to pick up the phone, or go online on Thursday 1 December 2005 to sponsor a HopeChild, with the ultimate aim of bringing hope and assistance to the orphaned and vulnerable children in Africa affected by the disease.
World Vision Canada's Hope Initiative extends tangible hope to those affected by HIV/AIDS and aims to stop the spread and impact of the disease through Prevention, Care and Advocacy. Through its HIV/AIDS Hope Initiative, World Vision is committing itself to expanding and enhancing its response to HIV/AIDS world-wide. It interlinks people affected by HIV/AIDS and the on-the-ground support in affected communities with national and global advocacy strategies on HIV/AIDS to end stigma and mobilise research, resources and policies for treatment, care and prevention.
The Hope Initiative is an international campaign that focuses on four key areas:
- Strengthening care for orphans and vulnerable children
- Reducing the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS
- Increasing access to treatment and care
- Mobilising resources for expanded HIV/AIDS response
Surviving orphans and vulnerable children need comfort, guidance and financial help. In many cases, these orphans and vulnerable children are the head of their household and lack the life lessons passed down from parents and grandparents. HopeChild sponsorships gained during this campaign will help World Vision Canada provide life essentials, and HIV/AIDS prevention education, special health care, orphan care and advocacy to help rebuild communities.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6683
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- UNAIDS/WHO: AIDS Epidemic Update 2005
The annual AIDS epidemic update reports on the latest developments in the global AIDS epidemic. With maps and regional summaries, the 2005 edition provides the most recent estimates of the epidemic's scope and human toll, explores new trends in the epidemic's evolution, and features a special section on HIV prevention.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=6692
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- CRIN: Key Readings on Children and HIV/AIDS
The Child Rights Information Network (CRIN) recently published a reader on "Children and HIV/AIDS" containing key resources designed to support the work of child rights professionals, i.e., CRIN members, students and NGO staff looking for recent thinking and best practice in this area.
This reader contains selected resources relating to children and HIV/AIDS. This includes basic texts that provide an overview on how HIV/AIDS affects children; key legal instruments for HIV/AIDS; best practice documents by thematic areas; and key resources for child rights and HIV/AIDS. Each document featured is accompanied by its summary, publication details and URL.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=5931&flag=report
For additional resources on children and HIV/AIDS, search CRIN's online publications catalogue at: http://www.crin.org/resources/publications/index.asp?catName=Reports&fla...
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- UNICEF/UNAIDS Global Action Campaign
In October this year, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman and UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot launched the global campaign "Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS".
"It is a call for united action against an AIDS epidemic that is increasingly hurting children and young people," said Mr. Annan. "Millions of children and young people are already affected by the pandemic - including those infected through the most heart-rending form of transmission: mother to child. The number is multiplying every day. Youth make up half of all new HIV infections world-wide, with a young person contracting the virus every 15 seconds."
"The needs are urgent. The goals are ambitious. And with our collective effort, they are also reachable," said Ms. Veneman, describing the four key result areas of the Campaign:
- Prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. By 2010, offer appropriate services to 80 per cent of women in need.
- Provide paediatric treatment. By 2010, provide either antiretroviral treatment or cotrimoxazole, or both, to 80 per cent of children in need.
- Prevent infection among adolescents and young people. By 2010, reduce the percentage of young people living with HIV by 25 per cent globally.
- Protect and support children affected by HIV/AIDS. By 2010, reach 80 per cent of children most in need of public support and services.
Visit: http://www.unicef.org/uniteforchildren
To read the official press release for the launch of the campaign, go to:
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_29392.html
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- The World is Watching campaign
The Stop AIDS Campaign is an unprecedented initiative of the UK Consortium on AIDS and International Development, bringing together more than 70 of the UK's leading development and HIV/AIDS groups. Launched on World AIDS Day 2001, the campaign works to raise awareness in the UK about global HIV/AIDS epidemic and to campaign for urgently scaled up international action.
G8 leaders made a commitment this summer, to make AIDS treatment available for all who need it by 2010. The Stop AIDS Campaign has its eyes on them to make sure the promise is kept. It recently launched the "World is Watching" campaign where participants are asked to take a close-up photo of their eyes with their phone or digital camera, and put it on the Stop AIDS Campaign online gallery with their name, location and message.
Visit: http://www.stopaidscampaign.org.uk
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