Hidden health-care crisis denies effective, affordable HIV treatments to millions with HIV
ACW Campaign Announcement Comment here
A prevailing focus on the provision of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs is denying millions of people with HIV access to effective and affordable treatment options that could extend their lives.
In the first three months of 2005 alone, more people have already died from AIDS-related conditions than the total number taking ARVs throughout the world.
According to an unprecedented global campaign and civil society partnership being launched this week to coincide with World Stop-TB Day, this grim milestone is a stark reminder that as we grapple with the scale-up of global ARV access initiatives, we have to keep people with HIV alive in all possible ways.
The AIDS-Care-Watch (ACW) Campaign draws attention to the hidden healthcare crisis and leadership oversights that allow millions to die because other life-extending care options are being seriously neglected.
“The ACW campaign aims to raise awareness about all care and treatment options that are keeping people with HIV alive, particularly the vast majority who are waiting for antiretroviral treatment,” said Abigail Erikson, Campaign Coordinator. “The basic principle of the campaign is that humanity cannot let millions of people die from HIV-related conditions when life-saving care and treatment options exist.”
While AIDS-related deaths have fallen dramatically since the introduction of ARVs ten years ago, this has only happened where they are available and affordable, and that mostly means in wealthy nations. Today, only one-in-eight of the six million people who need them have access to life-saving ARVs. The vast majority of these people live in developing countries.
"Of course ARV drugs are critical to keeping us physically well - but without nutritious food, without additional therapies, and without the love and care of those who surround us, those drugs do little for us,” explained Alice Welbourn of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), one of the organisations partnering the new campaign.
Tuberculosis (TB) is the biggest killer of people living with HIV/AIDS (PWHA), who have a 50% lifetime risk of developing the disease. Without prompt diagnosis and treatment for TB, death can come within weeks to someone with HIV. Effective TB treatment can extend lives of PWHA by at least two to three years and carries a 10US$ price tag.
Studies conducted in four African nations have also shown that preventive treatment of AIDS-related opportunistic infections with a cheap and safe, broad-spectrum antibiotic called ‘cotrimoxazole’, can reduce HIV-related death rates by up 50%. The evidence is so compelling that it prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to recommend – five years ago - that the antibiotic should be given to Africans with symptomatic HIV infection. The annual cost of cotrimoxazole treatment is 6US$.
Despite being one of the areas of public health where we know the most, latest estimates to be released on World Stop-TB Day this week are expected to confirm that TB incidence in Africa is climbing sharply, especially in countries heavily impacted by the HIV epidemic, and that only about half of all TB cases in Africa are even detected. Similarly, the routine use of cotrimoxazole in developing countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, remains minimal despite explicit UN recommendations.
A doctor consults with TB patients at Ignace Dean Hospital, Guinea
Photo credit: WHO/TBP/Davenport
“People living with HIV/AIDS continue to die before their time because of a lack of appropriate treatment and a lack of understanding and information” said Greg Gray, Regional Coordinator of the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+). “We know only too well the importance of promoting prevention for opportunistic infections, yet still even this most basic and cost effective treatment is out of reach for many who desperately need it. APN+ is pleased to be a partner in this campaign and hope this can be a timely reminder to governments in making them accountable to the UNGASS declaration commitments and the ‘significant progress’ they have promised.”
The AIDS-Care-Watch Campaign stresses that advocating for the scale-up of such care services is not an excuse for governments, international agencies or communities to slow down or do less in their ARV expansion efforts – it must be additional to those efforts.
The campaign receives strong endorsements from entities such as the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We strongly support the goals of the ACW campaign because a holistic approach to care for all HIV-infected people is essential,” said Dr Paul Nunn, of the WHO Stop TB Department. “There is no point in getting people onto ARVs at great expense, only to have them die for lack of TB treatment with a fraction of those costs.”
During the course of this year, AIDS-Care-Watch is working with country-based partners to monitor whether previous commitments have been translated into care services at the local and national levels. The campaign uses a backbone of country-based reporting, documentation and analysis to hold relevant institutions and organisations accountable against their previous HIV/AIDS care commitments.
2005 is a benchmark year for a related prior commitment by over 180 governments. Four years ago, the UN General Assembly held an unprecedented special session on HIV/AIDS – the first time the assembly had ever addressed a specific health issue. The resulting Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, signed by all Member States of the UN, made explicit pledges to “make significant progress in implementing comprehensive [HIV/AIDS] care strategies” by 2005.
***
The AIDS-Care-Watch campaign is a global initiative with the goal of reducing the number of HIV-related deaths in 2005. The campaign has over 100 non-governmental and civil society partners. For more information about the campaign and its partners, please go to http://www.aidscarewatch.org/
Abigail Erikson, Global Campaign Board member
Email: info@aidscarewatch.org
A prevailing focus on the provision of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs is denying millions of people with HIV access to effective and affordable treatment options that could extend their lives.
In the first three months of 2005 alone, more people have already died from AIDS-related conditions than the total number taking ARVs throughout the world.
According to an unprecedented global campaign and civil society partnership being launched this week to coincide with World Stop-TB Day, this grim milestone is a stark reminder that as we grapple with the scale-up of global ARV access initiatives, we have to keep people with HIV alive in all possible ways.
The AIDS-Care-Watch (ACW) Campaign draws attention to the hidden healthcare crisis and leadership oversights that allow millions to die because other life-extending care options are being seriously neglected.
“The ACW campaign aims to raise awareness about all care and treatment options that are keeping people with HIV alive, particularly the vast majority who are waiting for antiretroviral treatment,” said Abigail Erikson, Campaign Coordinator. “The basic principle of the campaign is that humanity cannot let millions of people die from HIV-related conditions when life-saving care and treatment options exist.”
While AIDS-related deaths have fallen dramatically since the introduction of ARVs ten years ago, this has only happened where they are available and affordable, and that mostly means in wealthy nations. Today, only one-in-eight of the six million people who need them have access to life-saving ARVs. The vast majority of these people live in developing countries.
"Of course ARV drugs are critical to keeping us physically well - but without nutritious food, without additional therapies, and without the love and care of those who surround us, those drugs do little for us,” explained Alice Welbourn of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), one of the organisations partnering the new campaign.
Tuberculosis (TB) is the biggest killer of people living with HIV/AIDS (PWHA), who have a 50% lifetime risk of developing the disease. Without prompt diagnosis and treatment for TB, death can come within weeks to someone with HIV. Effective TB treatment can extend lives of PWHA by at least two to three years and carries a 10US$ price tag.
Studies conducted in four African nations have also shown that preventive treatment of AIDS-related opportunistic infections with a cheap and safe, broad-spectrum antibiotic called ‘cotrimoxazole’, can reduce HIV-related death rates by up 50%. The evidence is so compelling that it prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to recommend – five years ago - that the antibiotic should be given to Africans with symptomatic HIV infection. The annual cost of cotrimoxazole treatment is 6US$.
Despite being one of the areas of public health where we know the most, latest estimates to be released on World Stop-TB Day this week are expected to confirm that TB incidence in Africa is climbing sharply, especially in countries heavily impacted by the HIV epidemic, and that only about half of all TB cases in Africa are even detected. Similarly, the routine use of cotrimoxazole in developing countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, remains minimal despite explicit UN recommendations.
A doctor consults with TB patients at Ignace Dean Hospital, Guinea
Photo credit: WHO/TBP/Davenport
“People living with HIV/AIDS continue to die before their time because of a lack of appropriate treatment and a lack of understanding and information” said Greg Gray, Regional Coordinator of the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+). “We know only too well the importance of promoting prevention for opportunistic infections, yet still even this most basic and cost effective treatment is out of reach for many who desperately need it. APN+ is pleased to be a partner in this campaign and hope this can be a timely reminder to governments in making them accountable to the UNGASS declaration commitments and the ‘significant progress’ they have promised.”
The AIDS-Care-Watch Campaign stresses that advocating for the scale-up of such care services is not an excuse for governments, international agencies or communities to slow down or do less in their ARV expansion efforts – it must be additional to those efforts.
The campaign receives strong endorsements from entities such as the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We strongly support the goals of the ACW campaign because a holistic approach to care for all HIV-infected people is essential,” said Dr Paul Nunn, of the WHO Stop TB Department. “There is no point in getting people onto ARVs at great expense, only to have them die for lack of TB treatment with a fraction of those costs.”
During the course of this year, AIDS-Care-Watch is working with country-based partners to monitor whether previous commitments have been translated into care services at the local and national levels. The campaign uses a backbone of country-based reporting, documentation and analysis to hold relevant institutions and organisations accountable against their previous HIV/AIDS care commitments.
2005 is a benchmark year for a related prior commitment by over 180 governments. Four years ago, the UN General Assembly held an unprecedented special session on HIV/AIDS – the first time the assembly had ever addressed a specific health issue. The resulting Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, signed by all Member States of the UN, made explicit pledges to “make significant progress in implementing comprehensive [HIV/AIDS] care strategies” by 2005.
***
The AIDS-Care-Watch campaign is a global initiative with the goal of reducing the number of HIV-related deaths in 2005. The campaign has over 100 non-governmental and civil society partners. For more information about the campaign and its partners, please go to http://www.aidscarewatch.org/
Abigail Erikson, Global Campaign Board member
Email: info@aidscarewatch.org
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 2:49 pm
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