Erin specializes in global health issues, including infectious diseases and maternal and child health. Erin joined ONE after working as the Policy Associate for the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, where she helped develop and lead advocacy, social media and legislative efforts around NTDs. She also spent time in Kenya, where she conducted research on holistic care for female AIDS orphans.
Friday the 13th is a day known for superstition, fear, and bad luck. But today, the global health community in India attained a milestone that will ensure that we remember this Friday the 13th as a day of progress and hope. As of today, India has gone an entire year without a case of polio. In technical-speak, this means that India has officially interrupted transmission of the virus and is no longer considered an endemic country, leaving only three countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria) remaining in the world with endemic status.
Experts have long considered India to be one of the toughest places in the world to fight and eradicate polio. After all, India is neither a small nor homogenous place, and just two years ago, India had 741 cases of polio—the most in the world. How did they achieve this milestone?
Each day this week, we’ll highlight a major accomplishment in the fight against poverty that ONE members helped achieve in 2011. Today, ONE’s Global Health Policy Manager Erin Hohlfelder discusses our vaccines campaign.
ONE has often been recognized for its work on the “big three” infectious diseases: AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. But in recent years, as we took a closer look at what kills children in the developing world, we realized that our health campaigns had largely neglected the two biggest killers: pneumonia and diarrhea. More than a few ONE staff members’ jaws dropped when we started spreading the word around the office that these two health issues — mere nuisances in the developed world — actually killed more kids than the big three combined. Based on this one statistic alone, we knew we had to do more.
As you all saw (either in person or via YouTube), President Obama commemorated World AIDS Day this morning by stepping up America’s commitment to the fight against AIDS, both domestically and internationally. In addition to his broad rhetoric on the importance — and feasibility — of ending AIDS, he made a number of specific commitments. The US will:
With World AIDS Day just around the corner, a new movement has formed to drive momentum toward the goal of ending the AIDS crisis by 2020: ACT V (Five), led by Leigh Blake and Paul Zeitz. It’s called Act V because, as they see it, the AIDS movement has been defined by four key acts over the last three decades, and today we stand on the cusp of a 5th and final act:
Last week, I sat down with Mead Over, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. He’s an expert AIDS economist, and his new book offers thought-provoking (some might even say controversial!) ideas about how we can improve our efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. Below are excerpts from our conversation.
When we place people on treatment, we accomplish a great good because we prolong their lives, and in the case of the adults, we allow them to continue parenting, contributing to their local economy, enjoying their lives. Unfortunately, medicines cost hundreds a year and must be taken every day for the rest of an individual’s life, so when we expand treatment, the positive effect is counterbalanced by the fact that we’ve added to the fiscal burden of AIDS treatment. I would also argue that it’s not good for a country for a large percentage of its citizens to be reliant on a pill that comes from another country. I believe that young Africans, as they grow older and remain dependent, will come to resent this.
A new report out this morning from UNAIDS paints a mixed picture on the progress we’ve made in the fight against AIDS. We’ve added nearly 1.4 million HIV-positive people to treatment in the last year—an incredible feat that feels even more significant with the new understanding that treatment also serves as prevention in as many as 96 percent of cases. We’ve also learned that in 22 sub-Saharan countries, HIV incidence declined by more than 25 percent between 2001 and 2009 — including in some of the world’s largest epidemics. Some countries such as Botswana, Rwanda, and Namibia have achieved Universal Access to treatment (80 percent or greater coverage), and Zambia and Swaziland are close behind. There are real success stories on AIDS coming out of the African continent that we should be sharing widely.
This morning at 11 a.m. ET, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be delivering a speech at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on HIV/AIDS. We hear she’ll be outlining the progress we’ve made to-date in the fight against AIDS over the last 30 years, and will be delivering a global call to action that will generate momentum ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.
The NIH might seem like an unlikely location for a State Department-led speech, but we think that means she’s likely to highlight all of the exciting new science and data that’s emerged over the last year, offering new tools to prevent HIV infections.
Ultimately, we hope she outlines a vision for how, with the Administration’s support, we can bend the curve of the pandemic and get to the beginning of the end of AIDS by 2015.
You can watch her speech live in the player above, and I’ll be tweeting along at @Global_ErinH. Stay tuned after the speech, too, for an official statement from ONE’s leadership.
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
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.
Friday the 13th is a day known for superstition, fear, and bad luck. But today, the global health community in India attained a milestone that will ensure that we remember this Friday the 13th as a day of progress and hope. As of today, India has gone an entire year without a case of polio. In technical-speak, this means that India has officially interrupted transmission of the virus and is no longer considered an endemic country, leaving only three countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria) remaining in the world with endemic status.
