-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anjana Basu Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 5:57 PM Subject: [TriumphOfContent] Recession and compassion fatigue starve Africa of cash to cope with Aids epidemic
Recession and compassion fatigue starve Africa of cash to cope with Aids epidemic <http://www.scotsman.com/images/1pixel_spacer.gif> <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> Click on thumbnail to view image <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> Click on thumbnail to view image <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> Click on thumbnail to view image <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> Click on thumbnail to view image <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> Click on thumbnail to view image <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> Published Date: 23 May 2010 By Donald McNeil IN THE grounds of Uganda's biggest Aids clinic, Dinavance Kamukama sits under a tree and weeps. Her disease is probably quite advanced: her kidneys are failing and she is so weak she can barely walk. Leaving her young daughter with the family, she took a four-hour bus journey to the hospital where her cousin, Allen Bamurekye, born infected, bot ADVERTISEMENT h works and receives the drugs that keep her alive. But there are no drugs for Kamukama. As is happening in other clinics in Kampala, all new patients go on a waiting list. A slot opens when a patient dies. "So many people are being supported by America," Kamukama, 28, said. "Can they not help me as well?" The answer increasingly is no. Uganda is the first and most obvious example of how the war on global Aids is falling apart. The past decade has been what some doctors call a "golden window" for treatment. Drugs that once cost £8,000 a year fell to less than £70, and the world was willing to pay. In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing. Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In neighbouring Kenya, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run programme in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders. The collapse was set off by the global recession's effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases despite the number of people infected by Aids growing by a million a year. Other forces made failure almost inevitable. Science has produced no magic bullet no cure, no vaccine, no widely accepted female condom. Every proposal for controlling the epidemic with current tools like giving a daily prophylactic pill to everyone contemplating sex or testing billions of people and treating all the estimated 33 million who would test positive is wildly impractical. And, most devastating of all, old-fashioned prevention has flopped. Too few people, particularly in Africa, are using the "ABC" approach pioneered here in Uganda: abstain, be faithful, use condoms. For every 100 people put on treatment, 250 are newly infected, according to the United Nations' Aids-fighting agency, Unaids. That makes prospects for the future grim. Worldwide, even though two million people with the disease die each year, the total keeps growing because nearly three million adults and children become infected. Even now, the fight is falling short. Of the 33 million people infected, 14 million are immuno-compromised enough to need drugs now, under the latest World Health Organisation guidelines. Instead, despite a superhuman effort by donors, fewer than four million are on treatment. Just to meet the minimal WHO guidelines, donations would have to treble instead of going flat. Uganda is a microcosm of that: 500,000 need treatment, 200,000 are getting it, but each year, an additional 110,000 are infected. "You cannot mop the floor when the tap is still running on it," said Dr David Kihumuro Apuuli, director-general of the Uganda Aids Commission. As he tours world capitals seeking donations, Dr Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said he had become "hugely frustrated". "The consistent answer I hear is: 'We love you, we hear you, we acknowledge the fund's good results, but our budget is tight, our budget is cut, it's the economic crisis.' " Donors give about £7 billion a year, while controlling the epidemic would cost £19bn a year, according to estimates. AIDS2031, a panel looking ahead to the epidemic's 50th anniversary, issued a pessimistic report in November that concluded: "Without a change in approach, a major epidemic will still be with us in 2031." Because of population growth, it said, there may still be two million new infections a year even then. Under its new Global Health Initiative, the US administration of Barack Obama has announced plans to shift its focus to mother-and-child health. The Aids budget was increased by only 2 per cent. The British government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also said they would focus support on mother-child health. "The political winds have changed," said Sharonann Lynch, chief author of the Doctors Without Borders report. "And I don't believe for a minute it's just the economic downturn. I think world leaders feel the heat is off and they're fatigued." http://www.scotsman <http://www.scotsman.com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.631350 9.jp> .com/news/Recession-and-compassion-fatigue-starve.6313509.jp _____ All the post budget analysis and implications Sign up <http://news.in.msn.com/moneyspecial/budget2010/> now. __._,_.___ Reply <mailto:[email protected]?subject=recession and compassion fatigue starve Africa of cash to cope with Aids epidemic> to sender | Reply <mailto:[email protected]?subject=recession and compassion fatigue starve Africa of cash to cope with Aids epidemic> to group | Reply <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriumphOfContent/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJybjB0cDNzBF 9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE3OTM4NjM5BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2Mzk4NQRtc2dJZAMyMDI3MA RzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNycGx5BHN0aW1lAzEyNzQ3NDk1OTg-?act=reply&messageNum=20270> via web post | Start <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriumphOfContent/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJmbmJvcG1qBF 9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE3OTM4NjM5BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2Mzk4NQRzZWMDZnRyBHNsaw NudHBjBHN0aW1lAzEyNzQ3NDk1OTg-> a New Topic Messages <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriumphOfContent/message/20270;_ylc=X3oDMTM3Z DV0MWJnBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE3OTM4NjM5BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2Mzk4NQRtc2dJZ AMyMDI3MARzZWMDZnRyBHNsawN2dHBjBHN0aW1lAzEyNzQ3NDk1OTgEdHBjSWQDMjAyNzA-> in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TriumphOfContent;_ylc=X3oDMTJmOHY4MmE2BF9TAzk 3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE3OTM4NjM5BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2Mzk4NQRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2h wBHN0aW1lAzEyNzQ3NDk1OTg-> Your Group MARKETPLACE Stay <http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=15oibuh19/M=493064.13983314.14041046.13298430/D =groups/S=1705063985:MKP1/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1274756798/L=c5740c14-6799-11df-87c7-f b6d69b62614/B=1ZsISmKJiSo-/J=1274749598508551/K=EvlEXFu9d8lIGOSAloBKpg/A=606 0255/R=0/SIG=1194m4keh/*http://us.toolbar.yahoo.com/?.cpdl=grpj> on top of your group activity without leaving the page you're on - Get the Yahoo! 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