AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Mon, 10 Dec 2001

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Mon, 10 Dec 2001
-----------------------------------------------

* 12th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Dis-
  eases in Africa Opens in Burkina Faso With Calls For Improved Ac-
  cess to Treatment
* Focus on Youth 'Crucial' to Future HIV Prevention Efforts, Hopkins
  Report Says

--
12th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Dis-
eases in Africa Opens in Burkina Faso With Calls For Improved Access 
to Treatment

The 12th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted 
Diseases in Africa opened yesterday in Burkina Faso amid calls for 
improved access to treatment, Agence France-Presse reports. Six thou-
sand delegates -- including public health workers, scientists and 
government officials from around the world -- will focus on "commu-
nity solutions" to the African HIV/AIDS pandemic at the five-day 
meeting (Agence France-Presse, 12/10). According to UNAIDS' annual 
report on the state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, released last month, 
28.1 million of the 40 million people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-
Saharan Africa, and without "adequate treatment and care, most of 
them will not survive the next decade" (Agence France-Presse, 12/7). 
Blaise Compaore, president of Burkina Faso, yesterday called for a 
"new solidarity" in the fight against the disease, calling HIV/AIDS a 
"major crisis retarding development in African countries." He called 
on other nations and international donors to "collectively pitch in" 
to expand treatment access for Africans. Although several price con-
cessions from major pharmaceutical makers have lowered the prices of 
antiretroviral drugs on the continent, the drugs are still prohibi-
tively expensive for most Africans, and only about 30,000 people are 
currently receiving antiretroviral treatment (Agence France-Presse, 
12/10). Support for price concessions and generic competition has 
gained momentum since the U.S. anthrax scare began. Faced with a pos-
sible public health emergency, American officials, who had "loudly 
defended" the right of pharmaceutical companies to protect patents 
and intellectual property rights, threatened to break Bayer's patent 
on the anthrax antibiotic Cipro, forcing the company to halve its 
price. Jean-Marc Foex, coordinator for the Association Francois-
Xavier Bagnoud, a France-based HIV/AIDS charity, said that eventually 
HIV treatment "will have to be free, but this will only happen if 
(African) governments are somewhat bolder on this issue and if West-
ern doctors and decision-makers realize that the drugs can be admin-
istered properly in poor communities without building up the risk of 
resistance" (Agence France-Presse, 12/7). UNAIDS Executive Director 
Peter Piot added that the "undertaking to pay or reimburse medical 
expenses of the sick has shown significant progress," but added it 
was "not enough" and more needed to be done (Agence France-Presse, 
12/10). Representatives from major drug manufacturers -- including 
GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck -- are also attending 
the conference, which is sponsored by the African Society Against 
AIDS, the African Union Against Sexually Transmitted Diseases and the 
government of Burkina Faso. The conference will continue through 
Thursday (Ouedraogo, Associated Press, 12/8).


--
Focus on Youth 'Crucial' to Future HIV Prevention Efforts, Hopkins 
Report Says

HIV prevention efforts must do "much more to reach young people right 
away" if the HIV/AIDS epidemic is to be contained, a report, titled 
"Youth and HIV/AIDS: Can We Avoid Catastrophe?" and published in the 
latest issue of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Pub-
lic Health's Populations Reports, states. According to UNAIDS statis-
tics, 11.8 million young people have HIV/AIDS, and that figure repre-
sents "just 10% of the eventual impact." According to the report, the 
epidemic is worst in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than eight mil-
lion young people, two-thirds of them women, have HIV/AIDS. Women are 
more likely to become infected at a younger age -- 10 years earlier 
than men on average, the report states. 

Avoiding Catastrophe

Hopkins researcher Karungari Kiragu writes that in some countries it 
may "already be too late to avoid catastrophic numbers of AIDS 
deaths." Life expectancy is expected to drop to 30 years in some 
places by 2010 due to HIV/AIDS, and in the worst affected countries, 
"little can be done" to reduce the numbers of deaths in the near fu-
ture because of the already high infection rates among youth, the re-
port notes. For example, in Botswana, 88% of 15-year-old boys are 
predicted to die of AIDS-related complications if infection rates re-
main constant. Even if the risk could be reduced by 50% by 2015, the 
percentage of AIDS-related deaths would only decrease to 78%, accord-
ing to the report, as those already infected would continue to spread 
the virus. However, if large numbers of young people changed their 
sexual behavior, the epidemic could be slowed. The report states that 
national strategic approaches, "not just more projects," are neces-
sary to contain the epidemic. The report also makes the following 
recommendations:

* Increased political and financial support for HIV/AIDS prevention 
among youth in developing countries: Ninety-five percent of those 
with the virus live in the developing world, but 95% of HIV/AIDS re-
sources are spent in industrialized nations.

* Increased sex education and communication: Studies have shown that 
school-based sex education programs delay the onset of sexual activ-
ity and increase condom usage without increasing sexual activity lev-
els.

* More "youth-friendly" health and social services: Services that are 
not welcoming of young people may cause many to forego health care 
and counseling.

* Increased attention to causes of youth vulnerability: Program ini-
tiatives need to address the "cultural practices and economic depend-
ence" that put young people, particularly young women, at risk for 
HIV (JHU release, 12/10).

--
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.

--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: owner-afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org