This is what it looks like when the a country has no more than two or three doctors, and, at best half a dozen nurses, for every 100,000 patients: Sick people don’t come for care until they are very sick, if they come at all. When they arrive they can look forward to spending the [...]
The Ugandan Parliament speaker’s promise to present his country with the “Christmas present” of a revived anti-homosexuality bill has led, in turn to a revived interest in the human rights landscape of that country, three years after the bill with its death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” was first announced. The most recent attention, with [...]
The yield from an National Institutes of Health-funded study could improve the odds for children living with HIV in malaria-prone areas, showing that an antiretroviral treatment that has not been commonly used in those areas can add to the protection offered by anti-malaria drugs. The treatment includes a combination of two drugs — lopinavir and [...]
African civil society urges veto of Uganda anti-homosexuality bill: Thanks, but no thanks, a partnership of more than 60 southern African civil society groups is saying to the “Christmas present” of a revived anti-homosexuality bill that Uganda’s parliament speaker is promising to pass before the end of 2013. If the bill becomes law it will [...]
After a tumultuous few years the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is nearing completion of, at least, the first phases of a makeover, with the framework for a new funding model agreed upon at its September board meeting, and details of the model to be decided at the next, Nov. 14-15 board [...]
Research! America responds to gap in debate: When the presidential candidates fail to mention the role that funding scientific research can play in our economy, competitiveness and health, does it make a sound? Research!America President Mary Woolley heard the resounding silence and issued a statement calling on them to make health research a priority. The [...]
The Zero Declaration: This was posted in July on the eve of the 19th International AIDS conference, and its call is still open – “to focus the world’s struggle against tuberculosis on achieving zero TB deaths, zero new TB infections, and zero suffering from TB.” You can sign on as an individual or as an [...]
While the virus that leads to AIDS has long been recognized to be “sloppy” in its replication, changing over time into divergent strains, a National Institutes of Health-funded study recently found the virus that a person transmits tends to continue to look like the virus that originally infected that person. The study, significant for the [...]
India’s patent laws: This Lancet special report on legal challenges by Bayer and Novartis to applications of India’s Patents Act provides a link to the 2010 United Nations Development Program’s report on the nation’s efforts to supply affordable HIV treatment in the context of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). It [...]
The government of Uganda is re-opening discussion around the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that triggered an international outcry among civil rights groups, physicians and public health experts, and the U.S. Congress in early 2010. The legislation, originally proposed to the Ugandan Parliament by David Bahati in September of 2009, would impose life imprisonment or the death sentence [...]
HIV
With the groundwork for treatment provided through the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief having been laid in the first expensive years of country programs, with the purchases of generic antiretroviral drugs, and with economies of scale as the numbers of people enrolled in treatment increased, PEPFAR has reduced per patient treatment costs in recent [...]
Tuberculosis
A group of tuberculosis community activists is taking their quest for representation in responses to TB global, joining efforts across borders to make their voices heard, an announcement this week says. The Global Coalition of TB Activists came together at a February Stop TB Partnership meeting in Geneva, the announcement says, with the aim of [...]
Research & Development
What would people living with HIV do differently if they knew that they could be infected again, with a new strain, that could complicate both their disease, and their treatment?
Policy
What if the government was awarding a contract to fight malaria in a developing country, and an organization bidding for the work had all the technical expertise the work called for, but also a history of criticizing the government? Should that keep the organization from getting the contract? Could one of the strings attached to [...]