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At the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria 2010, new reports on the progress made towards reduction of HIV and challenges towards ensuring universal access to prevention, treatment and care is made by UNAIDS and others in the field.
Young People are leading the HIV prevention revolution
One of the exciting news comes from a report by UNAIDS showing that young people are leading the HIV prevention revolution. HIV prevalence trends in 16 countries show decline among young people 15-24 years, decline are largely due to falling new HIV infections among young people, decline of 25% or more in 15 out of 21 countries most affected by HIV. This change is happening among young people across the world, especially in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Waiting longer to become sexually active, young people have fewer multiple partners and there's an increased use of condom among those with multiple partners. And HIV prevalence among young people is dropping in many key countries. The report indicate high-burden countries that have achieved a 25% reduction in HIV prevalence among young people by 2010 are Botswana, Cote D'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Study of Microbicide Gel shows reduced risk of HIV & Herpes infection in Women
Researches have achieved an important scientific breakthrough in the fight against HIV and genital herpes with a vaginal gel that significantly reduces a women's risk of being infected with this virus according to a report by the Center for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) at the XVIII International Aids conference in Vienna..
Funding short falls
"dwindling donations from rich countries imperils the 2006 U.N. and G8 goal of providing universal access to HIV drugs by 2010, AIDS campaigners warned," according to the news service (Ingham, 7/18). According to a joint report on support for HIV/AIDS by donor nations released by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and UNAIDS on Sunday, "in 2009, the Group of Eight (G8) nations, European Commission and other donor governments provided US$7.6 billion for AIDS efforts in developing nations, compared with US$7.7 billion in 2008," IRIN/PlusNews reports (7/19).
The report came one day after "[t]he International HIV/AIDS Alliance warned ... that the annual cost of tackling the HIV epidemic could balloon to $35 billion (22.9 billion pounds) by [2031] if governments fail to invest in efficient, targeted and cost-effective prevention measures," Reuters reports (Kelland, 7/17).
AIDS 2010 is witnessing this progresses and challenges in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
AIDS 2010 is officially opened on the 18th of July 2010. New researches, approaches and scientist progress will be discussed and shared. The AIDS conference is widely known for its unique features in that it’s focusing on single epidemic HIV/AIDS and it’s held every two years. It was expected that new approaches and programs will be introduced and discussed during the week. Treatment 2.0 is one of such approaches being introduced by Michel Sidibé, the new outspoken Executive Director of UNAIDS.
The 15th ordinary session of the summit of the African Union /AU/ will be held in Kampala, Uganda from 19th to 27th July 2010, under the theme “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and development in Africa”. There are only five years to go before the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline. Nations around the world sign on to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by at least three quarters as soon as 2015 around the world under the MDGs. According to a report by UNICEF in sub-Saharan Africa there is a 1 in 16th chance of a woman dying during childbirth. Each year at least 1.16 million newborn babies die in sub-Saharan Africa. This region has the highest risk of newborn deaths and the slowest progress in reducing mortality. More than two thirds of these babies could be saved with low cost, low tech interventions, most of which are already in policy but do not reach the poor.
Maternal health and child mortality is described as a mother’s ability to eat healthy, to have access to safe reproductive strategies, to seek and have access to the appropriate medical services, and to get educated on how to ensure that their life and the life of their baby remains healthy.
Some of the factors that directly contribute to poor maternal health and high frequencies of child mortality are: '''Haemorrhage''', '''obstructed labour''', '''hypertensive''' disorders in pregnancy, unsafe abortion, birth-related disabilities, and nutritional deficiencies. At least 30% of women worldwide lack '''antenatal''' care with 34% originating from sub-Saharan Africa (UNICEF). Highly infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS put both mothers and their infants at a greater risk of long-term sickness and early mortality.
Four effective intervention strategies that have played a significant part in improving maternal health and reducing child mortality have been identified. The most important intervention specified by organizations such as UNICEF is the availability of quality medical services pre- and post-birth. This includes better-trained traditional (i.e. midwife) and formal (i.e. doctor) health care providers and available emergency '''obstetrics'''. As well, improving maternal nutrition practices during and after pregnancy is a strong predictor of the quality of health a newborn baby or infant will have once they are born. In addition counselling for mothers with HIV/AIDS or other infectious diseases (i.e. malaria) ensures that safer practices are utilized during mother-to-infant contact (i.e. breastfeeding). Finally, secondary education for girls has been shown to significantly increase the likelihood that mothers will have healthier pre-natal pregnancies and increase the survival rate of newly born babies.
Maternal and child health issues are the pressing challenges of the continent; hence the AU summit is timely and important in order to come up with feasible strategies and ways to address it. What matters most is what action and decision is to be made in is summit. As the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Advocate Bience Gawanas put it “the July summit should not just be an end in itself, but a means to an end. In other words, this summit will not aim for just another declaration. We are looking forward to an outcome that will make a real difference not just another commitment”. There are unfilled commitments and declarations that are not translated into practice. The Abuja Declaration in 2001, the AU member states had agreed to allocate 15% of their budget to health but after almost 10 years now only few countries are living as to their promises. Maternal and Child health are the most underfunded health programs. Expanding access to services, education needs nothing other than adequate allocation of resources.
We also need to appreciate the positive gains from existing interventions and by learning from the lesson there has to be a mechanism for effective scaling up. Reports indicate that despite continuing high child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, there has been significant progress in some countries thanks to increased immunization coverage, vitamin A supplementation, bed net distribution, and increased access to clean water. Eritrea's under-five mortality rate declined by 52% between 1990 and 2007. In Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Ethiopia child mortality rates have declined by more than 40% across the same period. Child mortality in Tanzania dropped by 24% between 2000 and 2004 thanks to scaled up investment in the public health system and the delivery of key child-survival interventions such as insecticide treated nets, vitamin A supplementation, immunization and exclusive breast feeding.
The forthcoming next general elections envisaged for 23 May 2010, witness a lack of substantial youth representation in either the ruling party or the contestant opposition political parties. Ethiopia has a youthful population. The 2007 population and housing census show that the proportion of young population under age of 24 is 65 percent. The ruling party is in power for over 18th years, at this age a youth in Ethiopia will complete secondary education. The vast majority of youth is not yet in a position to take a lead in the country’s political future for at least the coming five years.
Wonago district is one of the densely populated districts in Ghedeo Zone of the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State in Ethiopia with 1137 people per sqmt. Farming specially coffee, false banana and other fruit trees is the main stay of the community. The community is practicing traditional agro forestry system long been utilized in the area. The population pressure depleted the hectares of land a family can have. Recently it was only 0.5hc/family. One can simply imagine how hard it is to ensure food security in a family of 8-12 with this very little land holding. The case of Genjo Bonja is one such example. "Genjo Bonja 80, lived in Wonago district, has raised his five children on the produce of the one hectare of land his family occupied. When two of his children married, he had to share his land with them, leaving less than half a hectare to himself and the rest of the family. That land is no longer enough to sustain the family. The problem of land shortage for the locals is exacerbated by children returning to their parents after school, and remaining dependent on their parents". (Wudineh Zenebe, FORTUNE Newspaper Nov.15 2009)
He told this to journalists in the annual general assembly of the Consortium of Integrating Population Health and Environment (CIPHE). CIPHE promote the integration of population, health and environment in addressing the root causes of poverty in Ethiopia. A new approaches to the address the multi faceted problems of population pressure, health and environment in the country. CIPHE recognizes the interconnectedness between people and their environment and supports multi-sectoral collaboration and coordination across all levels of society.
The greener sightseeing scene is quite astonishing, as the community preserves the land using the traditional agro forestry system. The issue of reproductive health in spacing children and limiting the number of children has to be widely implemented in the area. It was a critical challenge to the community to preserve the land having experienced a population boom. Lem Ethiopia another NGO is helping the community by introducing improved varieties of seeds and fruits that have better yield within a short period of time. Increasing land productivity is a vital option to not destroy the trees. This is very essential in order to maintain the environment as it is. The yield per hectare has to be significantly enhanced in order to maintain the ecosystem. Coupled with this aggressive efforts need to be undertaken to heighten the awareness of the community about reproductive health for a sustainable usage of the conserved agro forestry. The landscape is steep. I have seen people settled in slope mountainous areas.
Preserving the environment goes hand in hand with having manageable size of population. It is a practical example to show the link reproductive health interventions have with environment and reduce the effects of climate change.
The young Ethiopian musical sensation of the time, Tewodros Kassahun a.k.a Teddy Afro hosted a massive outdoor fundraising concert on October 11, 2009 after his one year and half jail term after he was accused of hit-and-run manslaughter. The concert is considered a success, with more than 35,000 turnouts and raised more than 1 million Ethiopian Birr (nearly USD 80,000). This is one of the big concerts ever happen in the metropolitan for the past one decade. The 60th birthday of Bob Marley celebrated in Addis in February 2005 where the late Marley family and most of the reggae popular celebrities attended didn't attract this much amount of crowd.
Resettling beggars who flooded into cities from drought prone and food insecure areas In search of better livelihood is the main aim of the concert. I want to give emphasis on two main points. The first one is the involvement of this popular musical icon in helping social problems which is rarely seen in Ethiopia. The other most important point that I want to note is that, when fundraising organized its either to construct a new hospital, school or responding to recurring droughts, and other problems. To my understanding it is emanated from the thinking that lies behind development believed to be building and construction. This type of long term sustainable way of supporting development programs is not seen. Of course there was other forms of fundraiser in the country seen raising much larger funds. But all of them targets addressing recurrent problems and or construction. In this regard his concert is a breakthrough in bring new paradigm in the sector. He paved the way for new way of thinking in addressing root causes of our long lasting development problems. This is one of the greater challenges for many of us engaged in soft skills of development. All of the time people want to see new building and construction outlets to attest the program achievement. The organizer Elshaday development organization has to be appreciated and applauded. This kind of raising funds will motivate others to behave in the same manner. Looking for outside sources of funds to all the development programs is hindering the successful undertaking of the many development programs. I think this would give insights and new ways of thinking and paradigm shift to our old way of fundraising skills!
