Throughout the world, particularly in the Global South, millions of people begin each day struggling with how to satisfy their most basic needs. Where to get food or water. Making do with non-existent or communal sanitary facilities. Limited or no access to dental or medical care. High exposure to contagious diseases. The constant threat of conflict or disasters — which is never far removed from situations of extreme poverty.
Of the many issues relevant to international development and poverty reduction, which would you rank as being the most important? According to Dr Jim Kim, World Bank President, the biggest single issue in development is that one in four children suffer from stunting (being well below average height for their age), an indicator of chronic malnutrition among children.
World AIDS Day, observed December 1st, is an opportunity both to call attention to the continuing challenges to end infections globally, and in the case of Haiti, to shed new light on the link between poverty, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and the need for deep and coordinated efforts across the issues.
I attended the International AIDS Conference this year. International HIV/AIDS activist Charlize Theron caught my attention with her comments at the opening ceremony. “I am sad to be here at the 21st International AIDS Conference,” she said. “This is the second time my home country of South Africa has hosted…We shouldn’t have had to host this conference again.” This World AIDS Day, let us pledge to focus more on creating health systems and infrastructure so that when it comes to global health, we go beyond just responding when pandemics occur to actually preventing them in the first place.
In a World AIDS Day blog post, the Global Fund's Mark Dybul writes that "[a]n indispensable element of our efforts to end HIV as an epidemic — prevention — is lagging too far behind." While an impressive 18 million people are now on HIV treatment, "to end HIV as an epidemic, we must re-energize the HIV movement with a comprehensive approach that includes medical prevention methods and," he argues, must "address cultural and structural factors that put people at risk and undermine access to services."
By the time you read this I’ll be home from Liverpool, in the north-west of England. where last week, on behalf of RESULTS Australia, I attended the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (‘The Union’). The 47th World Conference, addressed a wide range of issues affecting adult and child lung health including air pollution, pneumonia, tobacco control -- and, of course, tuberculosis (TB). Global scientific gatherings like this -- over 3000 people attended -- are, as you’d expect, very much about new biomedical discoveries: in bacteriology, immunology, drugs and diagnostics, disease prevention, patient care and links between TB and diseases such as HIV and diabetes. So this got me thinking: what is the role of advocacy at a scientific conference?
Last year, nearly a million children under five around the globe died from pneumonia. Despite a vaccine and antibiotic treatment that makes pneumonia both preventable and easily treated, it kills more children each year than either HIV, tuberculosis, or malaria. It’s unconscionable that children still die in such large numbers from something we can prevent and treat. On Saturday, November 12th, we will observe World Pneumonia Day to raise awareness of this injustice.
Abdusamad Latifov of STOP TB Partnership, Tajikistan and an ACTION media champion, spoke at the launch of action's new TB-HIV report, "From Policy to Practice." He told the assembled audience, "The progress made in TB and HIV services [in East Europe and Central Asia] is dangerously at risk if governments don’t step up to the plate to increase domestic funding." Read his full prepared remarks.