Truvada, a New HIV Prevention Pill

A new HIV treatment has recently been introduced to the public. The treatment, known as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and sold under the brand name Truvada, “involves taking a pill once a day to prevent HIV infections in populations that are at high risk.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently recommended that people who have a high risk of getting HIV should be taking the pill. In an interview with Michael Martin of NPR, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who attended the 20th annual International Aids Conference (IAC) that took place in Melbourne, Australia, seeks to explain the recommendation by the WHO and the sudden interest in the Truvada treatment. He told Martin that it is taken both as a treatment and as a precautionary and prevention drug.

Fauci explained that the WHO is now extremely interested in PrEp because “the clinical trials have incontrovertibly shown that if used properly and if people take the pill—and this is a pill that has two drugs in it, that are highly effective against HIV.”

He also commented that for people who do take the pill consistently, “the efficacy is greater than 90 percent,” and that because of this level of success, “the (WHO) and our own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here in the United States are recommending that people in a few subcategories who are at particularly high risk should seriously consider taking this pre-exposure prophylaxis.”

Dr. Robert Grant, who also attended the 20th annual IAC, commented on the success of the drug’s implementation. He said that a daily dose was necessary because it keeps people in the habit of taking the medicine. He explained to Medscape that “daily dosing creates the highest drug levels, which provides somewhat of a cushion in case people miss a few doses,” and helps to ensure and maximize the effective nature of the treatment.

While the drug is now being used more regularly and shows promise for future HIV research, it is important to remember that Truvada serves only as a treatment and as prevention method and not as an actual cure for HIV.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: NPR, Truvada
Photo: SheKnows

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Bolivia Legalizes Child Labor

In a legal decision, Bolivian officials have changed the legal working age from 14 to 10, thereby becoming the first nation to legalize child labor.

Despite provisions for children who are working at such a young age, including their being supervised by a parent if they are under the age of 12 or that they must continue school, the legalization of child labor still violates the minimum working age protocol declared by the International Labor Organization. It is still “‘an abandonment of a child’s right to a childhood.”

Moreover, the Guardian reports that there are only 78 child labor inspectors and over 800,000 currently working. The promise that the child protection requirements for these new labor laws will be consistently upheld is unlikely.

Co-sponsor of the bill and deputy Javier Zavaleta told Time Magazine that he supported the bill in the hopes that it would help decrease the amount of poverty in Bolivia. He said that “extreme poverty is one of the causes, not the main one, of child labor, so our goal is to eliminate child labor by 2020. While it is ambitious, it is possible.”

Human rights activists, however, find it suspect that these officials are trying to justify child labor by claiming it will ultimately end child labor.

Children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, Jo Becker, told Time Magazine that “child labor perpetuates the cycle of poverty” and that “the Bolivian government should invest in policies and programs to end child labor, not to support it.”

Becker also explained that when children from poor families are sent to work instead of school, they are more likely to end up with low-wage jobs later in life, thus continuing the cycle of poverty and the misconception that child labor will help end it.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: The Guardian, Forbes, TIME
Photo: VNews

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India in Extreme Poverty

India is home to the world’s largest population of people living in extreme poverty, totaling one-third of all extremely impoverished people globally according to the UN’s 2014 Millennium Development Goals report.

China trails right behind India in ranking but is praised in the report for their speedy progress to eliminate greater widespread poverty over the last two decades. Meanwhile, India’s improvements have lagged. China has reduced poverty in its population down from 60 percent to 16 percent between 1990 and 2010. India has only moved down from 49.4 percent to 32.7 percent between 1994 and 2010.

Najma Heptulla, the Minority Affairs Minister under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, spoke frankly about the UN’s report but remained optimistic about the outlook for India’s poor, insisting poverty continues to be one of the government’s main priorities.

“Good days will come… We don’t have to be proud of what we have done. Povery is the biggest challenge… I am sure when the next report comes, we will have done much better,” she said.

Heptulla has worked with the UN program to alleviate extreme poverty in India under multiple prime ministers and is a key player in current and future developments. Her honest recognition of India’s sluggish progress is a positive sign that more fruitful efforts can be expected from the country’s government.

Overall, the Southern Asian population living in extreme poverty has dropped steadily to 30 percent in the same time frame, but the region still houses two-thirds of the world’s poorest overall.

The health crises currently faced by India’s poor population are the result of multiple factors relating to poverty, culture and the unequal distribution of developmental improvements. Those residing in the poorest neighborhoods are disconnected from modern healthy lifestyle practices such as using a toilet, which is still culturally unacceptable in slums across the nation, that then pose serious health threats to communities without proper medical attention or council.

Human waste deposits in local water sources are linked to higher rates of water-borne diseases and disproportionately affect mothers and children. Almost 60 percent of the world’s open air defecators live in India according to the report, which connected the practice to 17 percent of global maternal deaths.

These statistics are just a few among various unflattering rates detailed in the 2014 Millennium Development Goals report for India, including the country’s number one rank among deaths of children under five, a total of 1.4 million in 2012. According to the World Health Organization, most child deaths in India are the result of pneumonia, diarrhea and prematurity, all of which stem from unsanitary living conditions and malnourishment of women and children living in slums.

One positive highlight for India and all of Southern Asia outlined in the report notes the increase in literacy rates for the region, upped from 60 to 80 percent between 1990 and 2011.

There is a long way to go for those living in extreme poverty in India, and it is up to the government to issue the necessary policies and resource allocation for its citizens in its self-proclaimed philosophy of “sabka saath sabka vikas”–“With all, development for all.”

– Edward Heinrich

Sources: Daily Mail, Financial Express, Times of India
Photo: UN.org

Global Impact: Forming Partnerships

Global Impact is a group dedicated to forming partnerships and aiding both nonprofits and private sector organizations. By providing both secretariat and advisory resources, Global Impact has helped over 100 international charities, 100 private sector entities and 300 public sector entities flourish.

Global Impact was established in 1956. Since its inception, over $1.6 billion has been raised in order to help the world’s most impoverished people. Global Impact helps charities like Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and World Vision.

The organization seeks to develop effective strategies for giving, from the donors to the charities they want to support. More recently, Global Impact decided to team up with CollaborateUP. Global impact explains the CollaborateUP as “a boutique consulting firm advising businesses and nonprofits on how to work together to solve big problems.” According to Global Impact, CollaborateUP will “co-host an executive education program for creating shared value and maximizing strategic philanthropy.”

The program will take place between August 20 and August 22 and will act as a three-day training session for leaders of major companies dedicated to supporting nonprofits, as well as the leaders of the nonprofits themselves.

Global Impact has also been responsible for providing aid to the mass number of children who are coming to the U.S. from Central America in order to escape the poverty and violence of their homelands. The organization has been consistently working with World Vision to address the problem. Global Impact has helped World Vision organize and execute their plan to provide clothing, school supplies and shelter for these incoming children.

Global Impact has also been working with the Seattle International Fund to help alleviate issues that cause children to flee in the first place. According to Global Impact, the fund plans to invest over $1 million in the next five years to “support young adult leaders in Central America and help them to implement innovative projects within their organizations that are designed to demonstrate measureable impacts on girls’ equality and/or adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights.”

Global Impact’s primary mission is to help these nonprofit organizations effectively accomplish their goals in order to provide support to people facing extreme poverty and oppression.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: CollaborateUP, Charity.org 1, Charity.org 2
Photo: Charity.org

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France Grants Asylum to Iraqi Christians

Ever since ISIS tore through the northern portion of Iraq, the historic Christian community that called the area home for decades was forced out in a mass exodus due to an ultimatum issued by the organization to either leave, pay a tax or die.

This threat was certainly not empty, as ISIS went on to destroy multiple Christian holy sites in the area. The hate and vitriol coming from the militant Islamic organization has drawn the ire of the international community both within and outside the Middle East. Outside countries and organizations have been helping out on the ground, but a recent move by France has demonstrated their commitment to those who have fled the area by offering asylum to Iraqi Christians on French soil.

A recent joint statement released by Laurent Fabius and Bernard Cazeneuve, the foreign and interior ministers respectively, indicated their condemnation of ISIS and their maneuvers in the strongest terms possible.

“The ultimatum given to these communities in Mosul by ISIL is the latest tragic example of the terrible threat that jihadist groups in Iraq…pose to these populations that are historically an integral part of this region,” they articulated. “We are ready, if they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil.”

This statement demonstrated France’s increased solidarity, as the opposition party echoed these sentiments in support of the Iraqi Christians.

The recent situation in Mosul has gotten increasingly worse, and has only been amplified by the inaction of Iraqi military and government. The U.N. Security Council has already condemned the persecution of Iraqi Christians by ISIS.

Efforts from the Security Council, when combined with this recent move from France, have demonstrated an incredibly strong international solidarity against the militant Islamist organization. While significant efforts have been launched to help those in need of humanitarian assistance, ISIS still remains entrenched in the area.

– Andre Gobbo

Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC, Reuters, The Borgen Project
Photo: BBC

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First Ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit 

From August 4 to August 6, the White House is hosting the first ever United States-Africa Leaders Summit. During the summit, U.S. President Barack Obama aims to strengthen ties with Africa’s leaders and engage in conversation on investing in the future of the continent.

The summit, hosts 50 African leaders in good standing with the U.S. and is focused on trade and investment in Africa. They are also discussing food security, availability of clean water and sustainable housing.

With the continent in the midst of a serious Ebola outbreak, some gears may be shifted toward providing reliable healthcare facilities to the millions who suffer from health problems due to impoverished conditions throughout rural Africa.

Healthcare is a hopeful topic of discussion for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, as the healthcare inequality gap proliferates in both countries. In South Africa, healthcare for the impoverished is increasingly difficult to attain, as no one seems to be making the initial investment to build a hospital where effective healthcare can be provided on a public scale.

Another significant highlight of the summit is climate change. Africa’s rural agriculture relies on the rain. In recent years, Africa has suffered from harsher and more frequent environmental changes, and so Obama has opened a dialogue on implementing sturdier agricultural infrastructure to positively impact food security among African nations.

This has big implications for Africa’s impoverished population, as 65 percent of the entire continent relies on agriculture as their source of livelihood. If environmental conditions can be dealt with more productively, agricultural output will increase. This will have real and beneficial effects on conditions by raising wages and lowering the price of food. Thus, Africa’s impoverished population will have greater buying power.

Obama is also hopeful that his discussions on trading partnerships will have a positive impact on job markets in Africa. In doing this, African companies will be seeking foreign investment and will prove that the continent has more to offer than just commodities and natural resources. If significant investment is secured, many tangible benefits will be brought back to American soil, as these companies will be capable of expanding the economy and beginning to employ Africa’s promising youth.

All in all, the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit has a lot of potential for aiding Africa’s population.

– Conner Goldstein

Sources: UCSF, WhiteHouse.gov, The World Bank, The Guardian
Photo: The Guardian

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Niger Students Use GPS to Map Country

While the developing world is gaining more and more Internet access, many countries are still without technology.

One African nation, Niger, is utilizing the brainpower of students to help map the country despite its supposed technological inequalities. A landlocked country in Sub-Saharan Africa, Niger maintains a population of over 17.4 million. With a GDP of under $7.5 billion last year, it is considered a low-income level country.

With the help of Hungarian Orsolya Jenei, the project–called Mapping for Niger–allows Nigerien university students to map the country using GPS equipment. The students geo-locate buildings and roads, take photographs and interview local residents about a variety of subjects specific to each area.

Niger students first mapped their university in Niamey. When the students go home or to other parts of the country, some take GPS trackers with them. The information is eventually uploaded onto a collaborative mapping program called OpenStreetMap which maps locations worldwide.

Even though the students only have one computer, four GPS trackers and have to help pay for the Internet subscription, the dedication of the students is unparalleled.

According to Jenei, digital mapping has already been implemented in other African countries. Doctors Without Borders has made use of the technology in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help locate hospitals in remote areas. Yet Jenei says digital mapping could have other uses.

While Google Maps or other similar applications provide users with adequate navigational directions, digital mapping provides a host of other useful information.

“Flooding is a big problem [in Niger], washing away many people’s homes every year,” Jenei said. “Creating maps of flooded areas would be a great way to help figure out who needs to be relocated. Mapping wells could also reveal the distances rural dwellers have to walk to get water, and help figure out how to improve their access.”

Prior to working with the Nigerien students, Jenei worked on the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Like the Niger project, OpenStreetMap utilizes open source and open data sharing as a means for direct humanitarian response and economic development.

– Ethan Safran

Sources: France24, World Bank. Openstreetmap.com
Photo: Observers

Emotions Run High Over US Border Control

The recent surge of immigrant children across the U.S.-Mexico border has caused a wave of anger and criticism of the Obama Administration from those who are opposed to immigrants who enter the country illegally.

Despite the fact that President Obama recently asked for $3.7 billion in emergency funds to address border control, Senator Ted Cruz (R- TX) recently accused the President and fellow Democrats of “doing nothing” to stem the flow of immigrants, as well as holding immigrant children for ransom with promises of amnesty.

Cruz’s accusations come in response to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) recent comment that the southwestern border is already secure. The comment angered Cruz, who said that Reid should visit the border himself and then decide whether or not it is secure.

Congress is currently debating the President’s request for $3.7 billion. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in a press conference that he is not optimistic about the House coming to an agreement but that they will continue to discuss it just the same.

House Republicans think $3.7 billion is too much money, but Democrats believe that the investment needs to be made in order to see a positive change and that trying to accomplish the same goals with less money will not be successful.

House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also stated that House Democrats do not agree with the Republican desire to make changes to a 2008 anti-trafficking law. Currently the law treats unaccompanied children from Mexico differently than unaccompanied children from other Central and South American countries. The law was passed in order to protect immigrant children from sex traffickers and requires that hearings be held for children of non-neighboring countries.

This often leads to these children being housed in the U.S. indefinitely, whereas Mexican children are more likely to be immediately turned away at the border. Republicans would like to see the bill altered so that all unaccompanied children are treated in the same manner.

The problem with court hearings for immigrant children is that courts are so backed up that it can take years for a hearing to take place. Generally, while the children wait for their hearing, they will stay with family or friends, go to school and begin to feel like they belong in America.

When people in Central and South America hear how much easier it is for minors to move to the U.S. than it is for adults, more and more children are sent. Republicans hope that altering this law will result in fewer children journeying north to the border, but Democrats claim that this could be potentially harmful to children who travel a long way.

Between 2002 and 2013, Congress increased spending on border control by 300 percent but only increased immigration court funding by 70 percent, resulting in inefficient court systems. It also begs the question whether or not increased funding for border control is effective or if the government should invest that money elsewhere.

– Taylor Lovett

Sources: Politico 1, Politico 2, CNN
Photo: ND SATCOM

Women with HIV Face Forced Sterilizations

Our knowledge of HIV/AIDS is continuously expanding 30 years into the AIDS epidemic. Researchers are discovering that–given the right treatment and precautions–people living with HIV can greatly reduce the risk of transmission to partners and can even safely conceive and give birth. Yet many health care providers in Central America are misguidedly pressuring HIV-positive women into sterilization.

Tamil Kendall, a Harvard School of Public Health research fellow with 10 years of experience in gender and HIV in Latin America, reports that “health care providers [in Central America] are expressing the view that living with HIV means that you don’t have reproductive rights, that you can’t choose the number and spacing of your children, that you can’t choose the contraceptive method that you would like to use.”

Kendall is the driving force behind a recently-published study on health care practices in El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua, one which reveals antiquated attitudes toward HIV and troubling reproductive rights violations throughout the region.

The results show that, out of the 285 women studied across the four Central American countries, 23 percent have been pressured by health care professionals to go through a sterilization procedure. Rates in individual countries range from 20 percent in Nicaragua to 28 percent in Mexico. Additionally, only half of the women surveyed reported being told that an intervention in the form of antiretroviral drugs exists, which can reduce mother-to-child transmission of the virus by 98 to 99 percent.

Women with HIV are coerced by doctors and nurses unethically. Kendall reports that one Mexican woman was sterilized while under anesthetics during a Caesarian section. Another young mother from El Salvador claimed that doctors refused to perform a Caesarian until she consented to sterilization. Many women are told that another pregnancy will result in their own or their child’s death.

Kendall’s study reveals that socioeconomic status and ethnicity do not play a part in this kind of discrimination and that it is driven solely by an HIV-positive diagnosis.

Yet amid this troubling news, there is reason for optimism. As Kendall observes, “There is some promising research… indicating that health care providers are becoming increasingly aware of the possibility of preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission as well as sexual transmission with antiretroviral therapy—and that this knowledge is starting to transform attitudes.”

Moving forward, she recommends that health care providers be held accountable for their actions in courts, and that policy makers become aware of new research on HIV/AIDS and begin investing more in reproductive health and women’s rights.

– Kayla Strickland

Sources: Thomson Reuters Foundation, Harvard School of Public Health
Photo: Fabulous-City

Hunger in Eritrea

Situated between Sudan and Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea is a nation of both plenty and dearth. Food grows abundantly in the nation’s nutrient-rich fields, but nearly every year, Eritrea makes global headlines for a hunger crisis.

A particularly severe food shortage in 2011 left as many as two-thirds of Eritreans hungry. Last year’s shortage was among the worst in Africa–only Comoros and Burundi had more serious food insecurity–and was classified as “alarming.”

Eritrea is one of many African nations with both an economy based in agriculture and a paradoxical inability to feed its people. Though nearly 70 percent of Eritreans are involved in the agricultural sector, Eritrea currently only meets a third of its estimated food needs (the other two-thirds being met by international food aid programs). Though Eritrea’s economy is technically growing, it isn’t growing quickly enough to sustain a population of over six million people.

Being one of the least-developed countries on the planet makes it difficult for the government to implement lasting changes to prevent hunger in Eritrea, as the infrastructure and supplies for long-term economic changes and aid programs are largely lacking.

In the past three years, the Eritrean government has focused on improving agricultural infrastructure in order to decrease food insecurity, and though hunger has declined during that period, it has not declined significantly enough for Eritrea to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal (that of halving hunger and poverty levels by 2015).

Another issue causing continued hunger for Eritreans is that the government is rather secretive and has been accused of deliberately withholding information regarding the substandard living conditions of its people.

During the 2011 famine that swept through the entire Horn of Africa, Eritrea publicly stated that it was unaffected despite the overwhelming majority of its people living in hunger that year. Eritrea’s government faces no opposition and forbids freedom of the press, allowing it to mask subpar conditions more easily than other, more transparent governments.

To some extent, food insecurity can be expected in a country with a climate like that of Eritrea. Situated in the Sahel desert, Eritrea experiences periodic droughts which affect its agricultural output. That said, the number of people hungry in Eritrea remains alarmingly high even with the implementation of food aid programs and efforts to improve infrastructure.

– Elise L. Riley

Sources: BBC, All Africa, World Food Programme, World Bank, UN
Photo: Trust