AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Tue, 30 Oct 2001

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Tue, 30 Oct 2001
-----------------------------------------------

* Five Humanitarian Groups Form Initiative to Help African Children
  Affected by HIV/AIDS
* South African Health Minister 'Urges' WTO to Revise TRIPS to Allow
  Access to Cheaper AIDS Drugs
* ABC News Producer Challenges Political Commentator Andrew Sullivan
  to an Internet Debate Over Mbeki's HIV/AIDS Policies


--
Five Humanitarian Groups Form Initiative to Help African Children Af-
fected by HIV/AIDS

Five international humanitarian organizations have teamed up to 
launch the Hope for African Children Initiative, a collaborative ef-
fort that will aid African children whose lives have been affected by 
HIV/AIDS, according to a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation release. 
CARE, Plan International, Save the Children, the Society for Women 
and AIDS in Africa and Religions for Peace will all participate in 
the effort. Designed to serve as a "bridge" connecting public and 
private donors with the needs of African communities, the Hope for 
African Children Initiative will provide funding and technical sup-
port to local organizations, caregivers and religious communities 
that are working to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. Recipients will use the 
funding to expand and coordinate their efforts to provide services 
such as family support, HIV testing and counseling, succession plan-
ning and educational support. Dr. Pat Youri, executive director of 
the initiative, said, "The partners recognize that the most effective 
responses to this tragedy will come from within Africa's communities, 
and that the best way for agencies and governments to help is to pro-
vide those communities with the tools to strengthen the work they are 
already doing." 

Long-Term Goals

The initiative has four goals: raising awareness and reducing the 
stigma of HIV/AIDS; extending the life of the "parent-child relation-
ship" through HIV prevention and treatment, as well as nutrition and 
home-based care; preparing families for "the loss of a parent" 
through succession planning and psychosocial and economic support; 
and ensuring that children affected by HIV/AIDS will have continued 
access to education and health care following the death of one or 
both parents. The initiative is currently beginning operations in 
Kenya, Malawi and Uganda and will extend to additional countries over 
the next five years. Funding for the project will be provided by a 
variety of public and private donors, including UNICEF, USAID and the 
World Bank. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced yesterday 
that it has given a three-year, $10 million grant for the initiative. 
The effort will also receive a portion of the proceeds from the new 
Artists Against AIDS Worldwide recording of Marvin Gaye's classic 
"What's Going On?", a CD single featuring rock and pop musicians from 
around the world that goes on sale today. Organizations involved in 
the initiative have set a fundraising goal of $100 million over the 
next five years to make the effort fully operational through the next 
decade (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation release, 10/29).


--
South African Health Minister 'Urges' WTO to Revise TRIPS to Allow 
Access to Cheaper AIDS Drugs

South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang yesterday 
"urged" the World Trade Organization to change its Trade Related In-
tellectual Property Rights agreement at the WTO talks in Qatar next 
month to allow cheaper AIDS drugs to be made available to the devel-
oping world, Reuters reports. The law contains clauses that allow na-
tions experiencing national health emergencies to produce or buy less 
expensive generic versions of patented drugs, but pharmaceutical com-
panies have been able to protect their 20-year drug patents despite 
the clauses. Tshabalala-Msimang said that a revised TRIPS agreement 
"must allow countries from the South to gain better access to afford-
able medicines to ensure universal health care is not a luxury but a 
human right," adding that "it is a crime against humanity for poor 
people to die because life-saving medicines are too expensive." She 
said that drug makers continue to "intimidate and penalize those 
countries that explore the use of these legitimate clauses." 

Using TRIPS

Although the South African government in April won a "landmark" law-
suit brought by 39 of the world's largest drug makers over the gov-
ernment's right to import less expensive drugs, the country has not 
used the TRIPS clause to obtain generic AIDS drugs. Drug companies 
have offered discounted AIDS drugs for developing countries, includ-
ing South Africa, but Tshabalala-Msimang criticized these offers, 
saying, "It is not enough for the drug industry to practice cherry-
picking or choose a few drugs which they will offer at a discount or 
as donations." She said that drug prices can be reduced if developing 
countries produce generic substitutes of patented drugs through com-
pulsory licensing and begin the parallel importing of cheaper generic 
versions from other countries. WTO delegates met in Geneva over the 
weekend to work on a compromise on drugs for developing countries but 
did not reach an agreement (Swindells, Reuters, 10/29).


--
ABC News Producer Challenges Political Commentator Andrew Sullivan to 
an Internet Debate Over Mbeki's HIV/AIDS Policies

ABC News medical producer and author Nicholas Regush yesterday on his 
Web site, www.nicholasregush.com, issued a challenge to "conserva-
tive" journalist Andrew Sullivan to write a detailed analysis of why 
he thinks South African President Thabo Mbeki's HIV/AIDS policies are 
"mad" (nicholasregush.com, 10/29). On Saturday, Sullivan published an 
opinion piece on his Web site, www.andrewsullivan.com, titled 
"Mbeki's Madness," criticizing Mbeki's "criminal lack of response to 
the AIDS epidemic in his country." Sullivan challenged Mbeki's stance 
that antiretroviral drugs are toxic and said that Mbeki has attempted 
to "dispel Western medicine as equivalent to bigotry" by saying medi-
cal doctors who promote the use of the drugs view South Africans as 
"natural-born, promiscuous carriers of germs" (andrewsullivan.com, 
10/27). Regush states that Sullivan's piece "smacks of high emotion-
alism without any beef." He goes on to cite a recent study published 
in the Lancet that found that up to two-thirds of people taking anti-
retroviral medications experience side effects and argues that there 
is "nothing mad" about Mbeki's insistence that poverty, malnutrition 
and other diseases are factors in South Africa's AIDS crisis. He asks 
Sullivan to take a week to write a 1,500-word essay stating his case 
against Mbeki "as definitively as [he] can." Regush says he will 
write a similar essay explaining why "Mbeki is not crazy" regardless 
of whether or not Sullivan takes him up on his challenge. He suggests 
that if Sullivan is "game," they both publish their essays on their 
respective Web sites with a link between them for comparison. The 
challenge can be taken up at any time, Regush states, adding that he 
has sent Sullivan an email formally asking him to write an essay 
(www.nicholasregush.com , 10/29).

--
The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. c 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

--
Send mail for the `AFRO-NETS' conference to `<afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org>'.
Mail administrative requests to `<majordomo@usa.healthnet.org>'.
For additional assistance, send mail to:  `<owner-afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org>'.