3 May, 2006May 2006
28 April – International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers
Workers throughout the world participated in activities to commemorate the millions of workers who died, were injured or became ill due to unsafe, unhealthy or unsustainable workplaces. Focus of the activities this year was the call of the international trade union movement for a total ban of asbestos and the fight against HIV/AIDS.
In a massive campaign international and national union bodies called on G8 governments to establish a permanent high-level G8 Working Group on HIV/AIDS at their forthcoming summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. Such a working group will help G8 countries achieve commitments made at the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, for universal access to treatment by 2010 and to the development of a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. (See also e-bulletin No. 7, April 2006).
Global Unions have updated their workbook, which reports on ICD activities. It can be accessed at http://www.global-unions.org/pdf/ohsewpT_4c.EN.pdf.
The ILO, as the current chair of the Committee of Co-sponsoring Organisations of UNAIDS, put the spotlight on HIV/AIDS as a workplace issue and produced a report, “Decent Work – Safe Work – HIV/AIDS.”
Global Unions Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee of the Global Unions Programme on HIV/AIDS met in Geneva from 4 to 6 April. The committee, which brings together representatives of all Global Unions, funding organisations and the ILO and UNAIDS, developed a strategic work plan for 2006 and 2007 and a joint action plan for interventions at major events. The overall objectives of the GU Programme are:
- Make HIV and AIDS a priority issue for trade unions
- Strengthen capacity of trade unions
- Develop partnerships to position trade unions within the AIDS response
- Mobilise resources, especially at country level.
Go to www.global-unions.org/hiv-aids for more information on the programme.
High Level Meeting on AIDS
The United Nations General Assembly will undertake a comprehensive review of the progress made in achieving the targets agreed by member states at the 2001 General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), which adopted the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. The review will take place during a high-level meeting at the UN Head Office in New York City from 31 May to 2 June.
The UN produced two reports, which can be accessed on the UNAIDS website www.unaids.org: a report on progress made until the end of 2005, entitled “Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS: Five Years Later” and “Towards Universal Access: Assessment by UNAIDS on Scaling Up HIV Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support.”
In his foreword to the progress report, the UN Secretary General warned, “Failure to urgently strengthen the AIDS response will mean that the world will achieve neither the 2010 targets of the Declaration of Commitment nor Millennium Goal 6.”
(Note: the wording “universal access to treatment by 2010” has mutated in some official documents to “coming as close as possible to universal access to treatment by 2010.”)
Civil society organisations and trade unions will be represented at this important event. The South African government objected to the participation of the Treatment Action Campaign and two other NGOs and refused their accreditation.
Bangladesh
The ICEM-affiliated Bangladesh Chemical, Energy and Allied Workers’ Federation is getting involved in the fight against the pandemic. In a wide-ranging report to the ICEM, the Federation pinpoints the dangers which high-risk behaviours pose.
Although the overall prevalence rate in Bangladesh is still very low, a large commercial sex industry, low levels of condom use and needle sharing among drug users contribute to a slow but steady increase in the infection rate. The Union is getting involved in awareness raising campaigns and the promotion of prevention.
World Bank Suspends US$60 million AIDS project in Ukraine
The World Bank has suspended a US$60 million project on combating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis because of the government’s failure to implement the project. Only 2% of the funds earmarked in January 2004 have been spent. This is a major tragedy for the people who need treatment in this country, which has one of the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in Europe.
(Comment: While a series of political crises’ may have contributed to this development, the World Bank may also have failed to include capacity building into such a large project).
(Source: Kyiv Post, 12 April 2006)
Life Expectancy in Zimbabwe – World Health Report 2006
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has published the 2006 World Health Report in advance of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, 22-26 May.
Outstanding from the mass of data are the statistics for the life expectancy in Zimbabwe, which at an average of 36 years is lower than anywhere else in the world. The high mortality rate of people at a young age is largely due to death caused by AIDS.
Ten years ago, life expectancy was still 56 years. Zimbabwe is the only country in the world where women have a lower life expectancy (34 years) than men (37 years). Behaviour change may have contributed to a falling HIV infection rate in the country in recent years but more tragically a lower rate at this stage of the pandemic is probably due to the high death rate. People who have died of AIDS are no longer included in the statistics of people living with HIV/AIDS.
By the end of 2005, only 20,000 people in Zimbabwe were receiving antiretroviral treatment. The target was 145,000 people, around half of the total of 295,000 believed to require the drugs.
Global Fund Phase 2 Renewals
Only 23% of the 124 Global Fund grants that have reached the end of their second year have met or exceeded the performance targets that were set by the applicants when they submitted their original proposals. This constitutes an A rating.
(Note: Global Fund grants are approved for five years but are reviewed and rated after two years. The Fund can then decide whether a grant receives funding for Phase 2, i.e. years 3 to 5).
The rest of the grants received a B1 or B2 rating with a conditional or revised go-ahead. Only two grants received a C rating, which means that no funding is approved for Phase 2 (Senegal and South Africa).
(Source: Global Fund Observer, Issue 56 of 17 April 2006)
Theoretically, the Fund has the right to terminate grants at any stage, not only after a Phase 1 review. The Global Fund Board meeting on 27-28 April applied this exceptional procedure to two HIV grants worth some US$81 million to Nigeria on the grounds of inadequate performance. One of the grants was supposed to have 14,000 people on ARV treatment by the end of the first year, but the actual number was zero.
On continuation of services, the Board agreed that in cases where people have started treatment on ARVs or for TB, financial support for such treatment would not automatically stop when a grant is terminated.
(Source: Global Fund Observer, Issue 57 of 1 May 2006)
Note: The Global Fund Observer is an independent source of news, analysis and commentary about the GFATM. To receive it, you can send an email to [email protected]. The subject line and text can be left blank.
News from ILOAIDS
The ILOAIDS website www.ilo.org/aids now features country profiles with information on HIV/AIDS and the world of work. They are also linked to new pages providing details of project activities. The 15 countries, which are so far included, can be found on the roll-down menu on the left side of the screen.
ILOAIDS has made available, on its website, a tool kit for the workplace on Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) jointly published with Family Health International. The tool kit provides a step-by-step approach, emphasising prevention through education, gender awareness and practical support for behaviour change.
Resource Pack on Gender and HIV/AIDS
The UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Gender and HIV/AIDS developed a resource pack. It aims to strengthen the impact of national HIV/AIDS programmes by tackling a key underlying factor that fuels the epidemic: gender inequality.
The resources pack contains an Operational Guide on a rights-based approach, a Review Paper on Integrating Gender into HIV/AIDS Programmes and 17 Fact Sheets with concise information on gender-related aspects of HIV/AIDS. The resource pack can be accessed at www.unfpa.org.
This ICEM HIV-AIDS Newsletter – How to Subscribe or Translate?
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Unfortunately, the e-bulletin can only be published in English. For a free automated (non-ICEM) translation of this HIV-AIDS bulletin into other languages, you may want to try http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr or http://www.google.com/language_tools and insert the following URL into the window “Translate a Web page“:
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