14 May, 2010
In this issue of the ICEM HIV/AIDS newsletter, we continue the G8 campaign for universal access and inform about critical issues concerning prevention of mother-to-child transmission. We also cover a novel Grandmothers to Grandmothers summit between African and Canadian relatives of children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic, an undertaking by the Stephen Lewis Foundation.
The ICEM Calls on its Affiliates to Contribute to this e-bulletin
ICEM affiliates are engaged in a wide range of HIV/AIDS activities. To spread the information on new agreements, awareness, and prevention campaigns, and educational activities, affiliates and project coordinators are invited to send news and information to [email protected]. Any feedback on the format and contents of the e-bulletin is also welcome.
Support for G8 Campaign for Universal Access
Initiated by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), click here for details from last e-bulletin, support for lobbying the G8 Summit has extended beyond Africa. Unions all over the world have now sent petitions.
Manfred Warda, ICEM General Secretary, has written to the Canadian Mission in Geneva urging the G8 to put forward an action plan to achieve Universal Access to HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support. The ICEM has also called on its affiliates to join the petition and letter writing campaign from their own countries.
Show your support for Universal Access:
Follow the links below to sign a petition that will be delivered to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and world leaders attending the G8 meetings in June.
English: http://cupe.ca/action/hiv-aids
Français: http://scfp.ca/action/sida
New ICEM HIV/AIDS Leaflet
The ICEM has produced a new leaflet, “The ICEM responds to HIV/AIDS.” The leaflet is available in English and French on the ICEM website here and here. Hardcopies can also be ordered from the ICEM Head Office, by writing [email protected].
Shortage of Funding Threatens AIDS Prevention for Pregnant Women
Reports from Kenya and Malawi suggest that new WHO guidelines, which recommend an earlier start of anti-retroviral treatment, cannot be met because of shortages in funding.
The WHO recommended to raise the CD4 count (measure of immunity to ascertain when HIV positive persons should begin treatment) from 200 to 350 and called for HIV-positive mothers to begin treatment at 14 weeks of pregnancy, up from the previous 28 weeks.
In Kenya, rejection of Global Fund Round 9 and 10 proposals means that the country will be seriously short of funds and that around 300,000 people in need of life-saving antiretroviral drugs and pregnant mothers are not sure of continued access to medication. The Global Fund denied approval because of the duplication of roles of the ministries of medical services and public health and because of the huge unjustified and unsustainable workforce in implementing agencies.
In Malawi, services to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) are gaining ground but the country continues to battle drug shortages. Pregnant women and mothers and their infants also often do not turn up for follow-up treatment.
In 2005, only 3% of HIV-positive women in Malawi were using PMTCT services and mother-to-child transmission accounted for 30% of all new infections. Today, 45% of HIV-positive women are accessing PMTCT services. More than 95% of pregnant women opt for an HIV test.
But last year’s change from single-dose nevirapine to a combination therapy, which is more effective and less likely to lead to drug resistance, also means that more funds are required and that clinics, especially in rural areas, run out of drugs or can only administer a single-dose therapy.
(Sources: IPS, Nairobi 1 April, and IRIN PlusNews, Lilongwe, 7 May)
AIDS Activists Ousted during World Economic Forum
The Tanzanian government has deported several AIDS activists and banned a demonstration to protest decreasing funding for HIV and AIDS at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa meeting in Dar es Salaam.
Shortly after a small number of activists from different African countries gave a memorandum to be presented to leaders attending the WEF to South African singer and AIDS activist Yvonne Chaka Chaka, they were arrested. The group had the support of Christoph Benn, director of external affairs of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Among those detained was Michael O’Connor also of the Global Fund.
In a statement, the activists condemned the Tanzanian authorities’ “complete disregard for the right of freedom of expression in respect of the conveyance of a message as critical as this.”
Activists from several African countries said that their government-run antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programmes were turning patients away because of cuts in both domestic and external funding. They declared that the groundwork for achieving universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care has been laid and now is not the time to backtrack on funding commitments and undermine the gains which have been made.
The past five years have witnessed a ten-fold increase in the number of people on life-saving ARVs; an estimated 3 million Africans were on ARVs at the end of 2008, according to the WHO. But some 3.7 million Africans who need ARVs have still no access to them.
(Sources: IRIN PlusNews, Nairobi, 7 May, and Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, 6 May)
Ethiopia: In Search of made-to-measure HIV Prevention
With more than half of all Ethiopian adults tested for HIV in the past five years and a campaign for behaviour change in place, specialists are now calling for a more targeted approach.
Most-at-risk populations (MARPs) have to be targeted through better understanding of how the epidemic is affecting them and in turn, to develop a more specific response. "The government has launched a vigorous campaign to fight HIV, but now it is important to ... target specific groups among whom the epidemic is raging," said Desmond Johns, UNAIDS country director for Ethiopia. "High testing numbers mean little unless you are testing people at risk, such as commercial sex workers."
High-risk groups in Ethiopia include sex workers, uniformed forces and migrant workers, street children, students and discordant couples. Men who have sex with men have, for the first time, been included in the national strategic plan for the next five years, which still is in draft form.
A more focused response means that regional branches of HAPCO, the Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, will need to draw up specific plans for prevention in their regions, where the risks and prevalence differ widely.
According to HAPCO, the provisional national HIV prevalence in 2010 is 2.3%, but big cities such as Addis Ababa have an average HIV prevalence of about 7%, while rural areas – home to 85% of the population - have an average prevalence of 0.9%.
(Source: IRIN PlusNews, Addis Ababa, 3 May)
Ukraine: Outcomes of HIV Global Fund Grant
As of 31 March 2008, a recently completed Round 1 Global Fund grant in Ukraine had provided prevention services to 214,103 people who inject drugs. By the end of September 2008, 6,070 people, including 911 children, had received antiretroviral therapy (ART). And, in 2008, 80% of pregnant women living with HIV had received treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission, up from 35% in 2003. The grant exceeded the majority of its targets.
This information was contained in a report released in September 2009 by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. The grant, which cost US$98 million over five years, supported programmes that involved the rapid scale-up of ART, a comprehensive package of care, support and prevention services for most-at-risk populations, and the roll-out of substitution maintenance therapy.
The Global Fund grant formed the major part of the national response to HIV and AIDS in the Ukraine. During the period of the grant, the number of new HIV cases per 100,000 tests decreased from 632.8 in 2006 to 590.2 in 2008; and the AIDS mortality growth rate dropped from 38% to 8% (between 2004 and 2008).
The report, “Civil Society Leads National Response – Final Report: Overcoming the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Ukraine, Funded by the Global Fund (2004-2009),” also describes the experiences of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance as principal recipient (PR) of the grant, and outlines the lessons learned from the experience. According to the report, one of the Alliance’s major contributions to the grant was to strengthen civil society.
The report is available on the website of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance at www.aidsalliance.org/publication-search.aspx.
(Source: Global Fund Observer, Issue 120 of 16 April. GFO is a free service of Aidspan (www.aidspan.org); to receive GFO send an email to
[email protected])
Opportunity to Re-programme Grants to Improve PMTCT Treatment
The Global Fund Secretariat is working with 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to assess the possibility of re-programming existing Global Fund grants to allow for a switch from the use of single dose nevirapine to more effective dual or triple ARV therapy for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).
The countries are Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. (Other countries may be added later; a similar initiative is already underway in India.)
There are several factors that have to be considered to determine whether re-programming is feasible. These include the ability to free up some money in other parts of the grant budgets (e.g., if a particular area is under spent), and whether there already is a PMTCT-related service delivery area in the existing programmes.
The Global Fund projects that the call for the virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission by 2015 is within reach. This is contained in the Global Fund 2010 Results Report which was released recently.
(Source: Global Fund Observer, Issue 120 of 16 April. GFO is a free service of Aidspan (www.aidspan.org); to receive GFO send an email to
[email protected])
Grandmothers Gather for AIDS Summit
This is a remarkable initiative. Grandmothers from all over Africa have joined hands with grandmothers in Canada to call for greater support and recognition of their role in caring for grandchildren orphaned by AIDS.
"We are the backbone of our communities; with our love and commitment we protect and nurture our orphaned children. Africa cannot survive without us," declared a manifesto released to coincide with the first African Grandmothers' Gathering held in Swaziland.
Eunice Simelane, who has supported and cared for five grandchildren since her son and daughter-in-law succumbed to AIDS-related illnesses, read the manifesto at the meeting attended by 200 grandmothers from Swaziland, 232 from African nations, and 42 Canadian grandmothers, representing 7,000 others who have formed groups in Canada to raise funds and awareness to help elderly African women struggling to raise AIDS orphans.
The first Grandmothers' Gathering took place in Toronto, Canada, in 2006, and was the brainchild of former United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, whose foundation has been channelling funds to community-led AIDS organizations that support grandmothers in 15 sub-Saharan African countries.
Swaziland's AIDS epidemic is among the worst in the world - around 160,000 children are classified as orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in a population of less than one million - and was a natural choice to host the first Grandmothers' Gathering held in Africa.
The delegates compiled a list of demands to their governments, including financial assistance and sustainable projects, created with their involvement.
(Source: IRIN PlusNews, Manzinin, 11 May)
News from the Swedish Workplace HIV/AIDS Programme (SWHAP)
SWHAP reports that during 2009 companies that have reached the end of their three years of co-funding continued to implement and invest in their HIV/AIDS programmes. This shows the viability of HIV and AIDS workplace programmes. It also indicates the effectiveness of the strategy – SWHAP supported programmes achieve results and create sustainability. This achievement is even better considering the adverse economic situation in 2009.
(Source: SWHAP Newsletter April 2010, www.swhap.org)
News from Global Unions
The Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) reports that BWI affiliates in East Africa are increasingly mainstreaming HIV/AIDS issues in their activities. HIV issues are integrated in study circles, child labour training, para-legal courses, and industrial relations programmes. A sub-regional HIV/AIDS seminar at the end of March also called on the East African Community to include rights for people living with HIV and AIDS in the East African protocols.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF – www.itfglobal.org) reports in its latest HIV/AIDS update on a new navigation tool for truck drivers to help them find healthcare centres along major transport corridors in Africa. Most of these centres also provide HIV/AIDS testing.
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