Staying Alive with HIV during the long wait for ARVs
While international attention remains focused on "scaling up" the response to HIV/AIDS, in particular on increasing access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, the epidemic is outpacing both prevention and treatment efforts. In the first three months of 2005, more people died of AIDS-related conditions than the total number of people who are on ARVs.
In the Asian region, the number of people receiving ARVs has increased three-fold in the past year, from 55,000 to 155,000. Despite such progress, this is a small fraction of the number of people who need ARVs in order to survive. The numbers speak for themselves: The overall proportion of people in the region with advanced HIV infection receiving ARVs remains low, mirroring the global average of around 15%. This means that one million Asians with HIV who currently need ARV treatment do not get them.
Globally, it is estimated that 6 million people currently need ARV treatment, compared to only one million currently taking the life-saving medicines.
More than 250 non-government organisations in the Asia-Pacific region have joined forces in the AIDS-Care-Watch campaign in an effort to draw attention to this "treatment gap" and to the people who are dying as they wait for ARV treatment. The campaign calls for a broader treatment and care strategy: In addition to ARV treatment expansion, there must also be greatly increased efforts to keep people alive until they receive ARVs.
A satellite session organised by the AIDS-Care-Watch campaign and its partner organisations during the ICAAP congress addressed these issues. The session brought to light an emerging regional crisis in care that means comprehensive approaches to care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS are being ignored.
"The AIDS-Care-Watch 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, ACW 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."
Erikson stressed that non-ARV treatments were not intended as a substitute or replacement for ARV therapy, and insisted that governments should speed up, not slow down, their ARV roll-out plans.
"Advocating for the provision of other HIV/AIDS prophylaxis and treatment options to keep people alive," she insisted, "is not an excuse for governments, international agencies, or communities to slow down or do less towards expanding ARV programmes."
Other treatment advocates are lining up behind the campaign. More than 250 organisations are also speaking out about the lack of access to basic health services, as well as ARV treatment.
Rajiv Kafle, a treatment activist from Nepal, who is himself living with HIV, says the lack of these basic services is a critical issue. He says people in his treatment and care project are dying unnecessarily because they do not have simple prophylaxis drugs for some of the most common opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis (TB) or pneumonia. Treatment for TB is cheap and effective, and can often extend the lives of HIV positive people by years – for about $10. Another drug, the antibacterial agent cotrimoxazole, is effective against a number of opportunistic infections and only costs about $6 for a year’s treatment.
"Those deaths could have been prevented or treated, and they could have lived for many more years," Kafle said. "If we had prioritised this agenda a few years ago, we could have prevented those deaths."
Bijan Nassiri, a doctor who runs a harm reduction program in Iran, said that the likely failure of the WHO-led "3by5" treatment plan to meet its target has brought into focus the need for NGO and community participation in treatment initiatives. "This is the time for some big organisations…to come forward and say "we have failed" and ask for help from civil society…It seems something like honesty, not a very technical point."
And if that sort of acknowledgment is not forthcoming, campaign members say they will step forward to put pressure on governments, funders, and other institutions to live up to their commitments to protect the basic health of people with HIV/AIDS.
"That’s part of what AIDS-Care-Watch is trying to do," said campaign coordinator Erikson, "to create avenues where treatment advocacy groups can come together and discuss comprehensive care…We are trying to form a critical mass of organisations that are asking these questions…we need voices, we need to have a groundswell from the bottom."
HDN Key Correspondent Team
Email: correspondents@hdnet.org
Web: www.hdnet.org
In the Asian region, the number of people receiving ARVs has increased three-fold in the past year, from 55,000 to 155,000. Despite such progress, this is a small fraction of the number of people who need ARVs in order to survive. The numbers speak for themselves: The overall proportion of people in the region with advanced HIV infection receiving ARVs remains low, mirroring the global average of around 15%. This means that one million Asians with HIV who currently need ARV treatment do not get them.
Globally, it is estimated that 6 million people currently need ARV treatment, compared to only one million currently taking the life-saving medicines.
More than 250 non-government organisations in the Asia-Pacific region have joined forces in the AIDS-Care-Watch campaign in an effort to draw attention to this "treatment gap" and to the people who are dying as they wait for ARV treatment. The campaign calls for a broader treatment and care strategy: In addition to ARV treatment expansion, there must also be greatly increased efforts to keep people alive until they receive ARVs.
A satellite session organised by the AIDS-Care-Watch campaign and its partner organisations during the ICAAP congress addressed these issues. The session brought to light an emerging regional crisis in care that means comprehensive approaches to care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS are being ignored.
"The AIDS-Care-Watch 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, ACW 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."
Erikson stressed that non-ARV treatments were not intended as a substitute or replacement for ARV therapy, and insisted that governments should speed up, not slow down, their ARV roll-out plans.
"Advocating for the provision of other HIV/AIDS prophylaxis and treatment options to keep people alive," she insisted, "is not an excuse for governments, international agencies, or communities to slow down or do less towards expanding ARV programmes."
Other treatment advocates are lining up behind the campaign. More than 250 organisations are also speaking out about the lack of access to basic health services, as well as ARV treatment.
Rajiv Kafle, a treatment activist from Nepal, who is himself living with HIV, says the lack of these basic services is a critical issue. He says people in his treatment and care project are dying unnecessarily because they do not have simple prophylaxis drugs for some of the most common opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis (TB) or pneumonia. Treatment for TB is cheap and effective, and can often extend the lives of HIV positive people by years – for about $10. Another drug, the antibacterial agent cotrimoxazole, is effective against a number of opportunistic infections and only costs about $6 for a year’s treatment.
"Those deaths could have been prevented or treated, and they could have lived for many more years," Kafle said. "If we had prioritised this agenda a few years ago, we could have prevented those deaths."
Bijan Nassiri, a doctor who runs a harm reduction program in Iran, said that the likely failure of the WHO-led "3by5" treatment plan to meet its target has brought into focus the need for NGO and community participation in treatment initiatives. "This is the time for some big organisations…to come forward and say "we have failed" and ask for help from civil society…It seems something like honesty, not a very technical point."
And if that sort of acknowledgment is not forthcoming, campaign members say they will step forward to put pressure on governments, funders, and other institutions to live up to their commitments to protect the basic health of people with HIV/AIDS.
"That’s part of what AIDS-Care-Watch is trying to do," said campaign coordinator Erikson, "to create avenues where treatment advocacy groups can come together and discuss comprehensive care…We are trying to form a critical mass of organisations that are asking these questions…we need voices, we need to have a groundswell from the bottom."
HDN Key Correspondent Team
Email: correspondents@hdnet.org
Web: www.hdnet.org
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 11:25 am
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