When police seized Paul Kasonkomona outside a Zambia television station last April, he had been arrested before and was ready to be arrested again. Kasonkomona, who had fought to make second line treatments for HIV accessible to all who needed them in his country, and who had stood up for the rights of the poorest […]
The new issue brief from amfAR highlights a peculiar global health conundrum — people living with HIV, a disease for which no cure yet exists, survive with treatment only to die of a disease that can be cured. One example has long been tuberculosis. This brief puts the spotlight on Hepatitis C and HIV: Addressing […]
Physician activist released, Ugandan, Nigerian groups call for action, Uganda government responds, and homophobic rhetoric escalates First the good news: after urging by civil society leaders in South Africa and around the world, Ugandan-born physician and gay rights advocate Paul Semugoma has been ordered released from immigration officials’ custody, and will receive the work permit […]
“Yes, there are many times I’ve been afraid. There are times when we are told that we are going to be arrested. Those are times you can really be afraid. You cannot be out and open as a gay Ugandan.” Physician, gay rights advocate Paul Semugoma, 2012, International AIDS Conference, interview On the eve of […]
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni’s announcement this weekend that he would sign the country’s new anti-homosexuality law may have seemed all the more puzzling in light of his assertion in late December that his decision on the legislation would be guided by science. That plan, and the conclusion it would point to, seemed to settle the […]
A year and a half ago the Global Commission on HIV and the Law put out its report, HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights and Health with recommendations addressing the discriminatory practices that fuel HIV epidemics. Problems the report pointed to included overreaching patent protections and criminalization of HIV transmission, as well as abuses of […]
In the days following a leaked plan from a U.S.-based public relations firm to derail proposed patent reforms in South Africa, those involved indicated that the plan, dubbed “genocidal” by South Africa Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, was the product of a misunderstanding. The U.S.-based firm, Public Affairs Engagement released a statement saying that when firm […]
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved sofosbuvir for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in early December, it was a step that was “expected to dramatically improve outcomes for many patients,” as one report put it. But how many was a big question, as we noted here. While the drug shortens treatment for […]
When Uganda President Yoweri Museveni considered the latest version of an “anti-homosexuality bill” the nation’s parliament passed just before Christmas, he had, as the cliche has it, more questions than answers. Some of his questions concerned the correctness of the parliamentary procedure with which the bill was passed, some with how much, or how little, […]
HIV
The goals of controlling HIV sound like a straight forward series of three consecutive steps, one following another, when discussed in global and domestic epidemic-ending plans. […]
Tuberculosis
The announcement Wednesday of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of pretomanid, a new tuberculosis drug that has been part of a ground-breaking treatment regimen against […]
Research & Development
A randomized, multi-country clinical trial testing a regimen for treating drug-resistant tuberculosis in less than a year against the up to two-year regimen recommended by the […]
Policy
When provinces in Canada lifted restrictions pegging eligibility for treatment for hepatitis C with direct-acting antivirals to the stage of the disease — or range of […]