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ZIMBABWE: "He begged for forgiveness and I did just that"

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:33:48 GMT

Monday, December 01, 2008

HARARE Monday, December 01, 2008 (IRIN) - The story of Samuel and Stella Malunga* is one of love and forgiveness in a time of HIV and AIDS. They met and fell in love while studying law at a university in neighbouring South Africa. Samuel graduated two years before Stella and returned to Zimbabwe but kept their relationship going until she was able to join him in 2000. They got married shortly afterwards but before Stella could find work, they discovered she was expecting twins. Samuel...

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=81750

MOZAMBIQUE: Proposed law a mixed bag for people with HIV

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:48:31 GMT

Monday, December 01, 2008

MAPUTO Monday, December 01, 2008 (IRIN) - Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, people living with HIV in Mozambique are still experiencing frequent human rights abuses. "There are signs that many people have been the victims of violence, or even lost their lives, for having gone public about their HIV-positive status," said Alice Mabote, president of the Mozambican League of Human Rights. AIDS-related discrimination is...

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=81755

Know your HIV status, urges Govt

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:36:58 GMT

Sunday, November 30, 2008

As the country marks the World Aids Day today, the Government is warning that nearly two-thirds of Kenyans have never been tested for HIV.

Source: http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144000580&cid=4&

United against the grim reaper

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:36:22 GMT

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The message from the United Nations today bears hope that the country is finally making tangible gains in the battle against HIV and Aids.

Source: http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144000579&cid=4&

Study cites toll of AIDS policy in South Africa

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:39:28 GMT

Saturday, November 29, 2008

A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.The Harvard study concluded that the policies grew out of President Thabo Mbeki's denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of...

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/africa/26aids.php

HIV prevention campaigns ‘save thousands of lives in SA’

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Thursday, November 27, 2008

SOUTH African HIV prevention campaigns had saved more than 700000 people from becoming infected , a major study has shown. A joint statement from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the Centre for AIDs Development Research and Evaluation (Cadre) in the US , said the study provided evidence that prevention worked. It also showed that more investment should be made to continue and strengthen prevention interventions. The infections averted or delayed in 2005 resulted in huge cost savings,...

Source: http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=274874

Libya Lifts Death Sentences in Child H.I.V. Infections

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:21:19 GMT

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Libya on Tuesday commuted the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of having intentionally infected hundreds of Libyan children with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Bulgaria has consistently said the medical workers are not guilty.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/world/africa/18libya.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

ZIMBABWE: Global Fund deadline missed

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:03:18 GMT

Monday, November 17, 2008

The future of Zimbabwe's AIDS programmes hangs in the balance after the government failed to meet the deadline of Thursday 6 November to return over US$7 million to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Earlier this week, executive director of the Fund Michel Kazatchkine warned that no future grants from the aid agency would be awarded until the remaining US$7.3 million had been transferred to commercial banks by the due date.

This did not happen, despite assurances from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). "The Reserve Bank has failed to meet the deadline and they have asked to be given a little while longer. This doesn't reflect very well on Zimbabwe," said Jon Liden, the Global Fund's spokesman.

The aid agency has five ongoing grants in Zimbabwe worth US$88 million, and disbursed just over US$39 million between 2004 and 2007, helping to enrol 13,000 people in AIDS treatment programmes and supply 330,000 insecticide-treated bed nets to combat malaria.

Some of the money was held by the RBZ, but was distributed "erratically and only partially", which had affected the implementation of programmes, the Fund said.
Although there was no evidence of fraud, the Global Fund will not be disbursing any more funds to Zimbabwe until it can "come with some guarantees that can make us comfortable that this will not happen again", Liden told IRIN/PlusNews.

"Given the complexities of the hyperinflationary environment and the lack of confidence in the Central Bank, we could look at having as little cash in the country as possible, with implementers accessing the funds without going through the banking system."

The failure to meet the deadline came a day before the Global Fund's board of directors are to meet in New Delhi, India, to decide on whether to approve funding applications from Zimbabwe and other countries.

Zimbabwe's application for about US$300 million for HIV/AIDS, US$58 million for its TB programme, and US$80 million to revive the ailing health sector was found to be "technically sound", and was widely expected to be approved by the board.

Health Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa, who also heads the body responsible for drawing up funding proposals, expressed concern over the effects of a possible grant refusal on the country's AIDS efforts.

"We are eagerly waiting for the funds because our people are really in need of it. We hope the disputed US$7 million will not affect our pending grant proposal, and we are working hard to ensure that money goes back to its intended beneficiaries," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

"We strongly recommend that the Global Fund looks at other means to disburse this money, [and are] recommending that any future grants come straight to programme implementers instead of through RBZ, so that we minimise the interferences," he said. "We hope the Global Fund will consider this proposal and not deny the people of Zimbabwe money."

PlusNews

SOUTH AFRICA: Thousands of lives lost in treatment delays

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:28:44 GMT

Saturday, November 08, 2008

A new study estimates that more than 330,000 HIV-positive South Africans lost their lives between 2000 and 2005 as a direct result of government delays in rolling out a treatment programme.

The report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health was published in November in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS).

The researchers attributed the deaths to government policies that blocked the distribution of life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs long after neighbouring countries had launched such programmes.

Using data from UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation to estimate how many people would have benefitted from ARVs, the authors compared the number of people who actually received the drugs either for treatment or for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT).

Compared with what neighbouring Botswana and Namibia, with similarly severe epidemics and resource constraints, managed to achieve in rolling out treatment over the five-year period, they concluded that South Africa fell far short of what was "reasonably feasible".

Botswana and Namibia were rolling out PMTCT and ARV treatment programmes at a time when former President Thabo Mbeki was still questioning the link between HIV and AIDS, and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, was describing ARVs as "poisons".

The authors pointed out that the South African government declined the offer of free nevirapine from pharmaceutical manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim in 2000 and delayed the disbursement of a 2002 grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to fund treatment in KwaZulu-Natal Province.

Botswana's national PMTCT programme had been underway for four years when South Africa finally launched its PMTCT programme in 2003, after a protracted legal battle with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a local lobby group.

A 2001 High Court decision ordering the state to roll out nevirapine was upheld by South Africa's Constitutional Court, which ruled that by restricting the availability of the drug to just 18 pilot sites, the government was violating the constitutional rights of women and their babies. The study authors estimated that the delay resulted in 35,000 babies being born with HIV.

By 2005, South Africa had achieved 30 percent coverage of PMTCT services, compared to 70 percent in both Botswana and Namibia; its ARV treatment rollout had only been underway for a year and had reached 23 percent of those in need of the drugs, compared to 85 percent in Botswana and 71 percent in Namibia.

The authors of the Harvard study suggested that South Africa could have started its ARV programme four years earlier and scaled up coverage as the drugs became cheaper to achieve 50 percent coverage by 2005.

Using UNAIDS estimates of the number of deaths resulting from AIDS in South Africa, they projected that the availability of ARV therapy could have added 2.2 million years to the lives of HIV-positive people over the five-year period. They calculated that a further 1.6 million years were lost due to delays in implementing a PMTCT programme.

Should leaders be held accountable?

South Africa has the highest HIV caseload in the world: of approximately 5.5 million people living with the virus, 350,000 are accessing ARV treatment via the public health sector, while a further 524,000 are still in need of the drugs, according to the TAC.

"Access to appropriate public health practice is often determined by a small number of political leaders," the authors of the Harvard study concluded. "In the case of South Africa, many lives were lost because of a failure to accept the use of ARVs to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in a timely manner."

Commenting on Friday in The Times, a local newspaper, Zachie Achmat, former chairperson of the TAC, called on South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and the government to hold Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang liable for the deaths of thousands of HIV-positive people.

"They should be called to address an independent judicial board so that justice can prevail for those who lost loved ones at their hands," he said. "They must be held accountable."

Dr Francois Venter, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, noted that Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang were not alone in bearing responsibility for deaths resulting from the delay in rolling out treatment.

"I think the Cabinet as a whole needs to account, our leaders need to understand the implications of their decisions; they are very culpable," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

"But everybody should have been out at the forefront challenging this: the churches, the trade unions, civil society," he said. "If it wasn't for a few brave activists and people living with HIV, there would have been a lot more people dead."

Neither Mbeki nor Tshabalala-Msimang, who is now the minister in the Presidency, have responded to the study's findings.

PlusNews

ZIMBABWE: Even a short prison sentence could mean death

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:05:52 GMT

Friday, November 07, 2008

Zimbabwe's prison walls have not insulated inmates from the effects of the country's economic meltdown. A recent report has warned that the nation's 55 prisons have become "death traps", with conditions deteriorating rapidly and diseases spreading even faster.

The Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO), a prisoners' rights group, said jails were in a "deplorable state".

Israel Chamboko, 30, (not his real name) from Highfield, a low-income suburb in Harare, the capital, spent three years in Chikurubi maximum security prison on the outskirts of Harare for car radio theft. He has vowed never to go back.

"Generally, life was unbearable; we hardly had enough food to eat, not enough water, our cells were hot, dingy and smelly in summer and extremely cold in winter," he said.

"If you told the guards you were sick they would laugh in your face and say, 'criminals deserve to die'. They didn't care if you were HIV positive, or you were diabetic, or that you had any of these chronic illnesses. We were all just criminals with no rights."

The ZACRO report said water cuts were frequent, while sanitation often consisted of one bucket in the corner of a cell occupied by a number of inmates, and another bucket with water for washing and drinking.

Findings also revealed that the country's 55 prisons including satellites, with a capacity of around 17 000, were holding over 35,000 inmates. Overcrowding and the unhygienic conditions were also contributing to the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) and cholera.

Pellagra, a deficiency disease, was also common. It is caused by a lack of vitamin B3 and trypophan, an essential amino acid found in meat, poultry, fish and eggs, all foodstuffs no longer available in jails.

The lack of condom distribution in prisons has also exacerbated the spread of HIV/AIDS. Prison authorities refuse to provide condoms to inmates in the belief that it will encourage homosexuality, which is illegal in Zimbabwe.

HIV positive prisoners

In a country with one of the highest prevalence rates in the world, prisons have not been spared the effects of the pandemic. ZACRO's information officer, Wonder Chakanyuka, said at least 10,000 people in prisons were living with HIV/AIDS, but their needs were being neglected.

Although antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) were available, the treatment was not accompanied by proper nutrition. Inmates in most prisons were surviving on just two meals a day, and at least two prisoners died every day as a result of hunger and disease.

"The main problem is that nutritious food is not available, which is necessary to boost immunity of inmates affected by the pandemic. The shortage of food in most prisons remains a scenario undermining disease mitigation programmes in the prisons."

HIV-positive inmates also do not have access to drugs to treat opportunistic infections. ZACRO found that because of the shortage of drugs, prisoners were obliged to buy their own medicines through their relatives, but the escalating cost of medicines meant many families could barely afford this extra expense.
Sebastian Chinhaire of the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS said HIV-positive inmates suffered the double tragedy of being stigmatised because of their positive status and being labelled criminals.

"People in prisons have rights like us that should be protected and respected. The justice system in Zimbabwe is such that people want to throw away the keys after locking someone up; society simply forgets about them."

Acting spokeswoman for the Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS) Granitia Musango said the prison service was doing the best it could in light of the economic meltdown in the country.

"The Zimbabwe Prison Services' mandate is to ensure all prisoners are treated with respect and dignity while in prison ... However, it must be noted that the Zimbabwe Prison Services, like any other government institution, has not been spared by the economic crisis."

PlusNews