Tonight PBS’s “Wide Angle” series will begin airing part 3 of the program Time for School. A 12-year documentary project on global education, Time for School has been following a group of students in Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya and Romania since they first entered in 2002.

According to PBS,

These children’s stories put a human face on the shocking fact that more than 75 million children are currently out of school; of these, two thirds are girls. One in four children in developing countries does not complete five years of basic education, and there are nearly one billion illiterate adults — one-sixth of the world’s people. WIDE ANGLE plans to continue revisiting all the children, and their peers and families, through 2015, the year they should graduate — and, not coincidentally, the U.N.’s target date for achieving universal education, a Millennium Development goal endorsed by all 191 members of the United Nations.

Check out this brief clip:

You can check your local listings here, and join in at 12:00 pm EST tomorrow for a live discussion with the film’s producers and experts on global education through PBS’s website here.

If you get a chance to check it out, let us know what you think in the comments thread!

-Chris Scott

This weekend I was in Pittsburgh attending the fourth annual Netroots Nation conference for politically minded online bloggers and activists from around the country. It was a great opportunity to learn about new technology and resources available for spreading awareness and movement building, and network with other people on the front lines of this quickly evolving world.

On Friday I got to live-blog a panel on “Global Solutions for Global Poverty” for the blog UN Dispatch. On the panel was Ray Offenheiser, President of Oxfam-America; Anita Sharma, North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign; Matthew Yglesias, fellow of the Center for American Progress; and ONE’s own Ginny Simmons! Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch moderated.

It was a great panel and a really cool event to cover. Check it out here.

-Chris Scott

The month of August has seen two important scientific discoveries, including a new strain of HIV found in humans, and the identification of malaria’s origins.

As reported in the weekly journal Nature Medicine, scientists have discovered a new strain of HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), and have linked its origins to gorillas. The other three known variants of HIV have all been linked to chimpanzees. Scientists believe the new virus was probably transmitted from gorillas to humans through the handling or eating of ape meat, though it could have been transmitted from chimpanzees to gorillas, and then to humans (or directly to humans and then gorillas).

Additionally, research on malaria’s origins by a team of scientists was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers identified chimpanzees as the source of the P. falciparum malaria parasite which entered the human population approximately 10,000 years ago via mosquitoes. Researchers emphasized the importance of understanding the origin and genetic behavior of pathogens like malaria, especially when trying to create a vaccine.

These discoveries are part of the continuous effort to monitor how viruses and parasites jump from species to species and emerge in human populations. If emerging infectious diseases are detected early enough, hopefully pandemics can be prevented.

-Rena Pacheco-Theard

Our ONE Campus Challenge students are on the ground in Kenya. Bryant Shannon reports back:

On Tuesday, we had an early flight out of Nairobi. We were headed to Kisumu, a community near Lake Victoria where we were able to visit a clinic funded by PEPFAR. They serve over 1,200 patients that have HIV. Half of these patients were tested because they were sick, and the other half were merely curious about their status. The clinic provides counseling services in preventative health, nutrition, and hygiene.

When an HIV patient’s CD4 count (a measure of the number for helper T cells per cubic millimeter of blood) dips below 250, they are given antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. USAID helps fund these ARVs. Patients are only required to pay 200 Ksh (less than US$3) for their laboratory tests and their medications. These drugs, when taken as directed, can lengthen and improve a patient’s quality of life.

Kisumu’s HIV prevalence is more than twice Kenya’s national average. This is attributed to the fishing culture of the community and the number of people commuting through the area. Fish are in such high demand that often women pay high prices, and are sometimes forced to have sex as payment for the fish.

The clinic has significantly decreased mother-to-child transmission of the virus to below 10%, with the additional funding they have received for the medications. We met with Brightone Odundo, a nurse in the clinic who told us about the complications that arise from combating HIV in addition to opportunistic diseases that take advantage of a compromised immune system, such as tuberculosis (TB). Over 80% of this clinic’s TB patients are also HIV-positive.

Another portion of our busy day that I found particularly interesting was their outreach program to decrease the prevalence of malaria, which is spread by mosquitoes. USAID provides insecticide for the clinic’s outreach workers to spray peoples’ homes.

One of the homes we visited was that of Millicent Adhiambo Obuya. She was widowed 10 years ago and has four children. Her children would frequently get malaria in the past, until she was educated about spraying and using anti-malaria nets from the clinic’s community outreach workers.

Once every year, members of the clinic spray the homes of people in their community. Millicent was warned to remain outside of the home for 2-4 hours and then to sweep and dispose of the contents away from the home. This minimizes the adverse effects of spraying in and around the home. She was also educated on the importance of bed nets in preventing malaria. The clinic sells these nets at a greatly subsidized cost of 50 Ksh (less than US$1). These nets normally would cost US$8-10. Since Millicent’s family began sleeping under bed nets and getting their home sprayed, they have had no incidents of malaria. It was a great success story to hear about funds efficiently allocated and making a difference in the fight against malaria.

Although the clinic has made significant headway with its progressive outreach program, things are far from perfect. Many of the community members use the bed nets to fish instead of to prevent malaria. They would rather utilize them for the short term of catching food then sleeping under them to prevent malaria. Others do not access the clinic enough to get educated about the importance of insecticide and bed nets. In addition, much of Kenya does not have the funding that Kisumu receives for many of these great educational outreach programs.

Today showed me there is a lot of hope in the fight against these infectious diseases, yet still much to do. Educational outreach is a very successful way to get people to understand how to prevent these diseases, which is necessary to get their cooperation for these preventative measures.

-Bryant Shannon

This morning, GlaxoSmithKline announced a new initiative to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and to support orphans and vulnerable children. Called the “Positive Action for Children” fund, it’s been created with $80 million to be made available over 10 years.

In addition to this, the fund will also include “£10 million seed funding to support a Public Private Partnership into research and development of new HIV/AIDS medicines for children.”

You can read more about the Fund here.

-Chris Scott

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced today that it has helped put 2.3 million people on life-saving treatment for HIV/AIDS (a 31 percent increase over results reported last year), treated 5.4 million people for tuberculosis (a 38 percent increase over last year), and distributed 88 million insecticide-treated bed nets (a 49 percent increase from this time last year) to protect against malaria since it was created eight years ago.

These inspiring results constitute 30-50 percent increases in treatment and prevention measures in just one year. As Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund, commented, “In less than eight years, the Global Fund has gone from a concept to a driver of change.”

The Global Fund’s latest results attest to its effectiveness in the prevention and treatment of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. It is imperative that the $3 billion funding shortfall currently facing the partnership is filled by donors.

To learn more about the Global Fund’s impact, read their press release here.

-Rena Pacheco-Theard

The Obama administration is moving forward with a rule change that would end the current regulation preventing HIV-positive individuals from entering the U.S. The proposed change, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), within HHS, appeared in today’s Federal Register. The posting is a request for public comment, due by August 17, 2009. CDC will then review the comments and make any appropriate modifications, issuing a final rule later in the year.

In the CDC/HHS post, the agency notes, “While HIV infection is a serious health condition, it does not represent a communicable disease that is a significant threat for introduction, transmission, and spread to the U.S. population through casual contact.”

This issue was in the news most recently with the high profile denial of a visa to British activist Paul Thorn who was seeking to participate in the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle. Thorn was denied entrance to the U.S., despite efforts by Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Jim McDermott on his behalf.

The proposed CDC/HHS change would amend the definition of “communicable disease of public health significance” and would remove references to HIV from the scope of medical examinations that aliens must undergo before they obtain admission to the U.S.

ONE will be tracking this development closely, and will let you know what happens.

-Rena Pacheco-Theard

At a congressional briefing last Thursday, leading global health experts pushed for stronger U.S. leadership and more aggressive global policies to combat HIV/TB co-infection worldwide. The hearing coincided with the Center for Global Health Policy’s release of “Deadly Duo: The Synergy Between HIV/AIDS & Tuberculosis”, which echoed many of the main points of the briefing. The discussion, moderated by Christine Lubinski, director of the Center for Global Health Policy, included Dr. Diane Havlir, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Dr. Carol Hamilton, co-chair of the Center’s Scientific Advisory Committee, and Rosemary Mburu, advocacy and policy coordinator for Kenya’s AIDS NGO Consortium (KANCO).

Both the hearing and the report warned that the recent success of HIV treatment is at risk due to the spread of tuberculosis. In the past two decades, the number of new cases of TB in HIV-prevalent countries has tripled – TB is now the number one killer of those infected with HIV in the developing world. Within two weeks of contracting HIV, Dr. Havlir explained, the risk of also contracting TB doubles. These catastrophic consequences of co-infection require immediate action.

The panelists emphasized the need to improve and ramp-up antiretroviral treatment, diagnostic tests, and research and development. Dr. Havlir also urged an earlier start for treatment. This early start, Havlir explained, would have dual benefits – it would improve survival rates of HIV-positive patients as well as lower the risk of contracting TB. Dr. Hamilton explained that outdated drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines are becoming less and less effective at combating the spread of TB. Even more dangerous, TB strains are developing faster than the drugs to combat them, resulting in drug-resistant strands of TB.

Mburu provided a face to the disease, recounting personal stories from the ground. A lack of labs to diagnose drug-resistant TB, compounded by a lack of accessibility to treatment and a lengthy delay in test results is causing an increase in TB deaths. “People are living with HIV, but it is TB that is killing them,” Mburu explained.

Lubinski ended the briefing with an aggressive call to action. She urged attendees to, “re-invigorate the energy [and] the passion” from HIV/AIDS research and development to fight against the increasingly disastrous consequences of TB.

Check out a webcast of the briefing here.

-Pooja Gupta

As you may know, today is National HIV Testing Day in the United States. To commemorate the day, and to encourage all Americans to get tested for HIV/AIDS, the Obama administration compiled this footage of then-Senator Obama being tested during a visit to Kenya back in 2006.

President Obama actually spoke with some New Hampshire ONE members about his visit to Kenya when he was running for president. Check out our account here .

To find a testing site near you visit http://www.hivtest.org.

-Chris Scott

Our first on-the-ground post from our delegation traveling through Ethiopia and Ghana. Learn more about our trip here.

Yesterday we spent time at the Mother-to-Mother program at Adama Referral Hospital in Ethiopia. The hospital is a comprehensive HIV/AIDS service site, currently providing over 12,000 people with HIV care and more than 7,300 people with antiretroviral therapy.

The Mother-to-Mother program offers support groups for expectant mothers who are newly diagnosed with HIV. Mothers already living with HIV gather with expectant mothers recently diagnosed with HIV to mentor, educate and listen to each other.

Visiting with the mothers at the Mother-to-Mother program was a rare opportunity for an intimate discussion. We were able to speak on a personal level with mothers suffering from HIV, but these women didn’t speak of suffering. They spoke of surviving. They were gathered together to support one another through the experience of having a child while being HIV positive. I was moved by their stories and their perseverance. They were attending support groups twice a week, working to be strong mothers to their children and helping to spread the word about HIV prevention. As our discussion ended, one woman asked that we not forget them. My memory is strong. It was a true honor.

-Kathleen Biden

UPDATED: Here’s Maggie Williams on her visit to the Mother-to-Mother program

And here is Senator John Sununu on the Mother-to-Mother program