Governor Huckabee recently released a statement outlining his plan to fight global HIV/AIDS if elected president. Governor Huckabee committed to supporting President Bush’s $30 billion plan over five years for a second round of the emergency AIDS plan. The Governor also committed to increasing support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
ONE Vote ’08 applauds the governor for releasing his plans to fight HIV/AIDS. We look forward to hearing more from the governor about his plans to fight global poverty and disease.
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton issued a release outlining her plan for fighting both the domestic and global HIV/AIDS epidemics. In addition to committing to doubling funding for research towards a vaccine, she made several commitments specific to global HIV/AIDS including:
· Renewing her commitment to providing at least $50 billion for global HIV/AIDS by 2013 including an increased commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
· The statement says that Senator Clinton “will seek in the near term to double the number of people receiving treatment and put us on a path to reach the goal of universal access to medications.” She also provides commitments on health infrastructure including increasing the number of health workers in Africa by at least one million; this was a recommendation from the Commission on Africa report published in 2005.
· Senator Clinton is a sponsor of the Education for All Act currently in the Senate. There is a clear link between children being in school and those children avoiding contracting HIV. The Senator renewed her commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal basic education by 2015.
· Senator Clinton made specific mention of sub-populations especially impacted by the epidemic, women and children.
ONE Vote ’08 applauds Senator Clinton for presenting her plan to fight HIV/AIDS at home and abroad. The new UNAIDS statistics released this past week confirm that the AIDS epidemic is still a crisis that will demand greater resources to beat. Our nation’s next president will be counted on to meet this looming challenge.
The head of the Global Fund, Michel Kazatchkine, announced major progress in the fight against malaria today. While more than one million people still die from malaria every year, mortality rates for children under 5 have been cut in half in areas of Tanzania and Eritrea in the last five years and rates have also fallen significantly in South Africa, Mozambique and Burundi.
Insecticide-treated bed nets are one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent transmission of the disease, which is caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes.
The Geneva-based Fund announced on Tuesday it had delivered 46 million insecticide-treated bed nets to families at risk of contracting malaria this year, against 18 million last year.
It was working to ensure that all African families are protected with bednets and that countries attain “universal coverage” or at least a 60 percent coverage rate after which child mortality diminishes significantly, Kazatchkine said.
Last week, citing the use of improved methodologies and better surveillance capabilities, the United Nations released news AIDS figures that place the number of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide at 33.2 million rather than their previous estimate of 39.5 million.
As World AIDS Day approaches this Saturday we expect to see many articles and op-eds mentioning these new stats. A quick excerpt from Sunday New York Times Editorial is below.
“There are, thankfully, glimmers of hope that the epidemic is beginning to wane. The number of new infections peaked in the late 1990s, and the number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses has declined in the last two years, in part thanks to life-prolonging drug treatments…
But it’s hard to rejoice too much when the number of people living with AIDS infections is still rising, more than two million people mostly in sub-Saharan Africa are still dying from the disease each year, and eight countries in southern Africa have more than 15 percent of their populations infected, a devastating blow to their societies and economies. The revised numbers cannot be used as an excuse to relax the campaign against AIDS.”
You can read the full piece here, and please take this moment to sign up to attend or host a World AIDS Day event in your area.
Below, the key findings from the report, courtesy of ONE’s Josh Lozman:
Global Statistics:
· Number of people (adults and children) with HIV in 2007: 33.2 million (down from 39.5m reported in 2006 report)
· Number of children living with HIV: 2.5 million (increased from 1.5 million in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· Newly infected with HIV in 2007: 2.5 million (down from 4.3m reported in 2006 report)
· AIDS deaths in 2007: 2.1 million (down from 2.9m reported in2006 report)
Africa Statistics:
· Number of people living with HIV in 2007 in SSA: 22.5 million (increasing from 20.9 million in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· Newly infected with HIV in 2007: 1.7 million (declining from 2.2 million in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· AIDS death in 2007: 1.6 million
· Adult HIV prevalence: 5.0% (declined from 5.8% in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· Orphans due to AIDS: 11.4 million
Key Notes on Africa:
· AIDS remains the single largest cause of mortality in SSA
· Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for 35% of all people living with HIV and almost one third (32%) on all new HIV infections and AIDS deaths globally in 2007
· Eight countries in SSA have prevalence rates greater than 15%: Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe
· Only in Mozambique has there been a recent increase in prevalence.
Notable changes in Africa:
· Uganda’s decline in national HIV prevalence in the 90s has plateaued. Given Uganda’s high fertility rate (6.7), the leveling of prevalence actually points to a significant increase in the number of people acquiring HIV each year.
· In Mozambique, the epidemic has again started to increase in all three zones of the country. Prevalence of 20% or more has been found in the central and southern zones.
· HIV prevalence data in South Africa in this latest round suggests that HIV infection levels might be leveling off with prevalence among pregnant women having decrease from 30% in 2005 to 29% in 2006.
· National prevalence of HIV has declines in Kenya from a high of around 14% in the mid-1990s to 5% in 2006.
Why are the numbers lower?
· The reduction is due to “improvements” in methodology for surveillance and monitoring as well as some success in treatment and prevention.
· Revisions in six countries account for 70% of the shift – Angola, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. In Kenya and Zimbabwe, there is evidence that the decline is due to a reduction in the number of new infections in part due to a reduction in risky behavior.
· A couple different assumptions were used for this estimate. One of them is that the average number of years people are estimated to survive without HIV treatment has been increased from 9 to 11 years.
· Increased sentinel surveillance sites have allowed for better, more precise estimates.
Overall Trends:
· Prevalence has leveled off.
· AIDS is still the leading cause of death in Africa.
· There are 33.2 million people living with HIV, 6800 people becoming infected everyday and over 5700 people dying from AIDS everyday. This is primarily because of inadequate access to HIV prevention and treatment services – these are things we can do something about.
ONE’s Marine, Michael Castaldo attended a town hall meeting with Sen. Edwards in Rochester, NH, yesterday. In the middle of the meeting, Sen. Edwards started talking about debt relief, fighting AIDS in Africa, and making sure that children in poor and developing countries have access to primary education. He said that not only is it the right and moral thing to do in the world, it also helps improve the image of America around the world.
Michael got it all on tape, and then after, Michael was able to thank Sen. Edwards and take a photo for the blog. Go Michael! Go ONE!
Gov. Mitt Romney and his whole family made it down to the Nashua Winter Holiday Stroll on Saturday night. While holding his grandson Parker Mitt Romney, Gov. Romney shook hands and spoke with NH voters.
After talking with Mayor Rudy Giuliani moments earlier, ONE member Brandon Laws was not done yet and he and his friends made their way through the crowd to speak with Gov. Romney directly too. Brandon told him that he was a member of the ONE Campaign and thanked him for his ideas about reaching out to marginalized countries and expanding basic primary education in Africa. Gov. Romney thanked him and posed for a photo while still holding Parker Mitt.
It may have been a cold night, but ONE members braved the weather to come out and show support for the ONE Campaign and the world’s poorest people.
Saturday night, the city of Nashua, NH, held a Winter Holiday Stroll that attracted many of the city’s residents (and a few presidential candidates) to the downtown area.
ONE member Brandon Laws hit Main Street just as Mayor Rudy Giuliani made his was down the stroll. Brandon was able to briefly talk with the mayor and let him know that as a member of the ONE Campaign, he thought it was very important for our nation to do everything we can to help save lives in Africa and end extreme poverty. Rudy thanked him and even posed for a quick picture.
Later, as we walked down the street, I was able to talk with Rudy and thank him for the answer he gave me a few weeks ago at a town hall meeting when he told the crowd that as we have the richest economy in the world the US must be a global leader in fighting malaria and AIDS in Africa, and said that we need to encourage more trade with Africa. Rudy told me that he really believes in our work and that the ONE Campaign “gets it.”
Rudy ran into a few more ONE members as he made his way that night. Even in cold New Hampshire, people are realizing that we can save lives in the poorest nations on earth, when we drop our party differences and unite as ONE.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
