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Former Disney President Leads Fight Against AIDS

Former Disney President Leads Fight Against AIDS
Deborah Dugan has not always involved in the fight against AIDS. Before becoming the Chief Executive Officer of (RED), an organization founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver that “engage[s] businesses and consumers to help fight AIDS in Africa,” Dugan was President of Disney Publishing Worldwide. Her tenure at Disney, during which she helped generate almost $2 billion in retail sales, prepared her to take charge of (RED), which has raised close to $210 million for AIDS programs.

Since joining (RED) in 2011, Dugan has secured partnerships with The Coca-Cola Company, SAP, and two Latin American mobile carriers – Claro and Telcel. She also helped (RED) attain more than 1 million followers on both Facebook and Twitter.

Though these achievements are impressive, Dugan brings more to the fight against AIDS than just her business savvy. The CEO also writes regular blogs for the Huffington Post, commenting on diverse issues relating to the AIDS crisis.

In an article entitled “Meaningful Change: An AIDS-free Generation by 2015,” Dugan remarks that we have reached a “turning point” in the fight against AIDS and that we will be able to end the transmission of HIV from mothers to children by the end of 2015.

Dugan’s optimism about the worldwide AIDS crisis pervades her articles. She portrays the issue of HIV/AIDS as an approachable problem that can be overcome with modern medicine and activism, stressing that we must expend a mere 40 cents per day in order to give someone with HIV the medicine he or she needs to stay alive.

While Dugan offers reassuring statistics and motivational stories in her commentaries, she stresses that mobilization of resources is the key to overcoming AIDS. By informing the public about the AIDS crisis and partnering with “iconic corporations,” Dugan believes that (RED) can successfully make AIDS a disease of the past.

– Katie Bandera
Source: ONE.org, Huffington Post

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The Global Impact of World Vision

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Although World Vision is a Christian organization, religious preference has no bearing when it comes to the people they help. World Vision has been helping nearly 100 million poor and oppressed people fight the causes of poverty and injustice in nearly 100 countries since 1950.

Their mission is to demonstrate religious commitment and love through service to impoverished families, natural disaster survivors, exploited children, refugees, families devastated by AIDS, and so many more in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They work towards peace, promote justice, provide for people’s daily needs, and encourage spiritual healing and transformation.

The global organization consists of over 44,000 staff members; a large percentage of which work in their home countries to reduce language and culture barriers that might inhibit progress. With such a large network of humanitarians with such a broad range of cultural and occupational backgrounds, World Vision can provide aid wherever in the world it is needed.

The amount of support World Vision receives speaks volumes to their effectiveness. They have earned the trust of nearly 3 million donors, supporters and volunteers, over 500,000 child sponsors, thousands of churches, hundreds of businesses, and government agencies around the world. This enormous amount of support is easily understood after considering the organization’s numbers; 4.2 million children have been sponsored and 1,600 communities have been served worldwide.

World Vision truly is a global humanitarian organization, providing assistance wherever it is needed, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender.

– Dana Johnson

Source: World Vision

Uzbekistan: Providing Relief to Those With HIV

HIV-project-Uzbekistan
Rano Isaeva, a healthcare worker in Uzbekistan, took time off of work to attend a training session that teaches her how to provide palliative, or relief focused care, to those living with HIV.

“Patronage nurses bring relief to patients and educate relatives to provide care and support. Often they turn into family members and counselors, trusted and relied upon.” she says.

The main goal of UNDP’s HIV project in Uzbekistan is to provide relief and comfort to families as well as patients. UNDP has trained over 2,000 nurses in several different regions of Uzbekistan. To reach as many nurses as possible the training sessions are offered in Uzbek as well as Russian. During the training, the nurses improve their knowledge about HIV infection, the effects on the body, stages of the disease, signs, symptomatic treatment and pain relief therapy. So far over 35,000 people in all regions of Uzbekistan have been reached by HIV-prevention services.

By the end of 2013 over 5,100 nurses should be trained and able to spread their knowledge in their respective communities.

“Many people in the community ask questions on HIV. Now I am able to answer any questions on prevention measures, how the virus is transmitted and not transmitted, what the consequences may be, and whether it can be treated.,” says Zarifa Jonova, a local community nurse. “Thus, I will make my input in wellbeing of my community,” she says.

The program will also begin to focus on spreading awareness to at-risk populations in the area, including young women, drug users, commercial sex workers, and homosexual men. The program has already offered 10,000 information sessions on treatment as well as prevention.

– Catherine Ulrich

Source: UNDP
Photo: Facebook

Tuberculosis Info

Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis may be the world’s most romanticized disease. La Boheme’s Mimi, Les Miserables’ Fantine, Moulin Rouge’s Satine, among many others, have succumbed to the disease. Despite being a recurring theme in literature and art, the reality of tuberculosis is much uglier.

Tuberculosis, or TB for short, is second only to HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death from a single infection. It’s symptoms including coughing up sputum or blood, fever, night sweats, weakness and chest pain.

An infection of the lungs, TB is quite insidious. Highly contagious, it can be spread simply by inhaling a few particles from an infected person coughing, spitting or sneezing. It can lie dormant in many individuals, meaning that although they are carriers, they don’t develop the active disease, nor do they transmit it.

However, once infected with the active form of the disease, the symptoms are often mild and so individuals do not immediately seek treatment and often contribute to spreading the infection. People infected with HIV or diabetes are much more likely to get TB because of weakened immune systems. Environmental risk factors including overcrowding and malnutrition make TB a disease of the poor.

TB occurs in almost every country in the world, though mostly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Both treatable and curable, control of the disease is mainly preventative, done through vaccination. Once contracted, antibiotics can be administered to help those infected, though treatment is often difficult because of the resistant nature of the bacteria.

– Farahnaz Mohammed

Source: WHO
Photo: Los Angeles Times

Rosling Explores New Facts and Data on HIV

Hans Rosling, a professor of global health at Karolinska Institut, focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world and its relationship with HIV/AIDS.

In Hans Rosling’s TED Talk, he used very interesting and vivid graphs to explain how HIV spread throughout the past twenty-five years. The rate of those effected by HIV is not about poverty and undeveloped, although there are many reasons why one’s living conditions makes one more susceptible to the virus. An often understated fact, Rosling notes that even countries with a good economy and peaceful environment may be hard to drop the population of HIV-infected persons, because with good healthcare, HIV carriers can live ten to twenty years longer than those living in places with less access to effective healthcare.

– Caiqing Jin (Kelly)

Pediatric HIV Treatment Must Be Reassessed

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There are over 3 million children that are HIV-positive, with more than 90% of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends both efavirenz and nevirapine for first-line pediatric use in resource-limited settings such as sub-Saharan Africa. A recent study compared the first-line treatments for HIV-positive children and was conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, along with colleagues at the Botswana-Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence. The study found that initial treatment with efavirenz was more effective than nevirapine in suppressing the virus in children ages 3 to 16, and that nevirapine is less effective than efavirenz. Nevirapine, the less effective drug, is used much more often in countries with a high prevalence of HIV.

The study notes that nevirapine costs less than efavirenz and is more widely available in pediatric formulations, which may explain this disturbing fact. Studies that focused on adult treatment also found efavirenz to be more effective than nevirapine. Conclusively, the study states, “Given this evidence, it is very reasonable to adjust pediatric HIV treatment guidelines…more work should be done to make efavirenz a more financially viable option for children on anti-retroviral therapy in these resource-limited settings.”

– Essee Oruma

Source: allAfrica
Photo: Science Daily

Australia’s Successful Foreign Aid

Tim Costello
Tim Costello, who serves as Chair of the Community Council of Australia and as the Chief Executive of World Vision Australia, recently spoke about Australia’s successful foreign aid. Costello is a prominent figure in Australia, recognized for his unrelenting efforts to raise global poverty awareness and place poverty issues on the Australian national agenda. On Boxing Day of 2004 when the tsunami hit Asia, Costello was able to raise more than $100 million from the Australian public for tsunami relief. Recently, Costello asserted that when it comes to children’s lives and education, Australia’s foreign aid has been “spectacularly successful.”

Overseas development assistance has led to the inhibition of many HIV infections and has treated millions with AIDS. Australian development assistance has also dispensed “insecticide-treated bed nets against malaria,” which globally decreased death rates by half. Thus, Australian foreign aid is deemed quite necessary yielding many successes. The good news is that, for the past two elections, the Gillard government has wanted to lift aid directed overseas by 0.5% of Gross National Income. The U.N. had set up a goal of 0.7% of G.N.I. and so this lift is a step closer to that goal. It also presents the greatest potential of changing many people’s lives and saving people.

–Leen Abdallah
Sources: World Vision, The Australian
Photo:The Sydney Morning Herald

Fighting HIV/AIDS in Honduras Through the Arts

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The Garifuna people of Honduras have an HIV infection rate of 4.5 percent – higher than any nation in the Western hemisphere, and five times higher than Honduras as a whole. Those affected by the virus are finding new and creative ways to fight HIV/AIDS in Honduras.

According to an NPR report funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the Garifuna are using traditional music and theater to raise awareness of HIV, and to combat stigmas surrounding the disease. Musician and singers perform traditional celebratory Garifuna songs to draw listeners, and then enact a play in which actors put HIV on trial.

Many Hondurans who are HIV-positive are reluctant to seek help, even though HIV clinics provide medical care and antiretroviral medication to patients at almost no cost. They deny having the problem because they fear judgment or ostracization, and for good reason. Lack of education has been a major contributor to high infection rates. Women infected with the virus report being rejected by family and unable to find work.

Widespread poverty and migration also contribute to new infections. In some areas it is socially acceptable to have multiple sexual partners. Testing facilities are not widely used, and communication between sexual partners is nonexistent in some cases.

Participants in the Garifuna theater group believe that theater, music, and other community activities are more engaging than books or pamphlets around such complex social and medical issues. Fighting HIV/AIDS in Honduras, especially among rural populations, is a challenge. But the creative approach is working well so far.

USAID and the Honduran government are funding theater groups like the Garifuna’s. A USAID official reported a decline in the rate of HIV infection among program beneficiaries: the 30 members of the theater group are living safer lives, and encouraging others to do so. The problem of HIV/AIDS in Honduras is not yet resolved, but community engagement through the arts is a step in the right direction.

– Kat Henrichs

Source: NPR

Improving HIV/AIDS Care in Malawi

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Over the last decade, Malawi has reduced its rate of HIV/AIDS infections by 72 percent, more than any other African country. US agencies that combat the virus hope to build on these successes with a five-year effort to improve HIV/AIDS care in Malawi. The effort is coordinated with Malawi’s government and will target seven districts across the country.

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, an NGO that focuses its anti-HIV work on mothers and children, is spearheading the effort. Funding is provided by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Centers for US Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One of the biggest successes to date for HIV/AIDS care in Malawi has been the prevention of virus transmission to at least 7,000 babies. This has been accomplished through lifelong anti-retroviral treatment for all pregnant and breastfeeding women who are HIV-positive. The Foundation’s efforts continue to focus on pediatric preventive care. Its goal to achieve less than a five percent transmission rate from mother to child is well within reach.

Over the next five years, US organizations plan to provide other health care services in addition to HIV/AIDS care in Malawi. One million Malawians will receive counseling, 50,000 adult men and 400,000 pregnant women will receive HIV testing, and lifelong treatment will be provided to at least 25,000 women expected to test positive for the virus.

Despite gains over the last decade, AIDS remains the number one cause of death in Malawi, with about 100 deaths and 30 new infant infections each day. The Malawian minister of health, Catherine Hara, expressed hope that the seven targeted districts will serve as a model for widespread improvements in HIV/AIDS care in Malawi.

– Kat Henrichs

Source: Relief Web
Photo: News@Jama

Emily Oster’s Ted Talk on AIDS in Africa

Emily Oster
Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, uses the dismal science to rethink conventional wisdom, from her Harvard doctoral thesis that took on famed economist Amartya Sen to her recent work debunking assumptions on HIV prevalence in Africa.

Emily Oster re-examines the stats on AIDS in Africa from an economic perspective and reaches a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about the spread of HIV on the continent is wrong.

She brought up an opinion that more exports means more AIDS and that effect is really big, by testing new data and information about prevalence over time. The data that Emily Oster offers suggests that if you double export volume, it will lead to a quadrupling of the new HIV infection. And this has important implications both for forecasting and for policy. From a forecasting perspective, if we know where trade is likely to change, we can actually think about which areas are likely to be heavily infected with HIV and we can go and try to deploy pre-emptive preventive measures there. Likewise, as we are developing policies to try to encourage exports, if we know there is this externality, we can think about what the right kinds of policies are.
But it also tells us that even though poverty is linked to AIDS in the sense that Africa is poor and they have a lot of AIDS, it is not necessarily the case that impoving poverty in the very short run is going to lead a decline in HIV prevalence.

And she also questioned the HIV prevention case in Uganda, the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa with successful prevention. It is true that there was a decline in prevalence in Uganda in 1990s and they had an education campaign for it. But there was actually something else that happened in Uganda in that period. Their exports went down a lot in the early 1990s and actually that decline lines up really closely to HIV infections at that time, according to Emily Oster.

– Caiqing Jin (Kelly)

Source:Ted Talk
Photo:Flickr