What We’re Reading: UN hails HIV rate breakthrough

Jul 14th, 2010 10:11 AM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

HIV rates fall among young people in worst-affected countries – The UN hailed a breakthrough in the fight against AIDS with the release of figures showing that the prevalence of HIV has fallen among young people in 15 of the most affected countries. The news was even better in 12 of those countries, where HIV levels have decreased by 25 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds, which UNAIDS attributes to dogged prevention campaigns. (The Guardian, Sarah Boseley)

Careful budgets at center of new AIDS strategies – New AIDS plans released by the U.N. and the U.S. government on Tuesday stress smarter, targeted spending as a way to keep up the fight against the pandemic during a global recession. Hailing his predecessor’s much-lauded AIDS strategy, President Obama presented a new plan asking states and federal agencies to find ways to cut new infections by 25 percent, get more patients treated quickly and educate Americans about the deadly and incurable virus. (Maggie Fox, Reuters)

Time for efficiency in fighting AIDS: Bill Gates – No big influxes of new money are coming to fight the AIDS pandemic, but some smarter targeting and using approaches that have been shown to work can still save lives, philanthropist Bill Gates said on Tuesday. Focusing prevention efforts on particular groups such as women in Africa as well as lowering delivery and personnel costs, he argued, will make the most impact. “We want to broaden treatment. The only way to do that is efficiency,” Gates said. (Maggie Fox, Reuters)

Kristof admits “White Reporter’s Burden” in Africa – In response to a question from one of his readers, New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, admitted that there’s a white reporter’s burden in writing about Africa. However, by freely admitting his slant, Kristof has provided something else the crowd says it wants these days: transparency. Kristof should “push himself to question his ongoing narrative,” said one critic, and “put aside his homegrown American heroes in favor of richer yarns” about locals. (Phil Bronstein, Huffington Post)

More Aid Needed for drought in Mali – Aid agencies are struggling to meet the food and water needs of people and their livestock in drought-hit Mali, with potentially “catastrophic gaps” in the humanitarian response, according to Oxfam. Some 258,000 people are in need of urgent assistance in Mali, with a further 371,000 at risk, following poor rains across the Sahel region. “There will be a catastrophe if more people do not respond,” said one Oxfam official. (AllAfrica.com)

TAGS: What We're Reading