Last week, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) celebrated the transition of Project HEART to local partners, after eight years of putting hundreds of thousands of patients on life-saving ARV treatment.
Kevin Kouassi, Community HIV Counselor from Dimbokro, Cote d’Ivoire, and Project HEART beneficiary, counsels a young pregnant woman about prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services. (Photo: Olivier Asselin)
Project HEART was launched in 2004 in partnership with the CDC and PEPFAR to scale up access to HIV prevention, care and treatment services in Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. As of September 2011, Project HEART has enrolled more than 1 million people in HIV care programs (including 80,000 children), provided antiretroviral treatment for more than 560,000 patients, and tested and counseled more than 2.5 million pregnant women.
In celebration of the Global Fund’s 10th anniversary, ONE Global Health Policy Manager Erin Hohlfelder reflects on the organization’s accomplishments over the years.
When I was ten, I was busy doing important things like mastering long division, practicing softball and rocking the plastic glasses/bowl cut combo. While I’m proud of those accomplishments, I have to say I’m even more proud today to honor all the incredible things that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has achieved in its first ten years of existence. To understand the Global Fund’s impact, it’s important to remember just how bad things were before it existed: Fewer than 50,000 Africans had access to AIDS treatment. Malaria was killing nearly 1 million people annually. Treating TB was considered too expensive for most of the developing world.
As the world’s business, political and media elite made their annual trek to the Swiss town of Davos -– blanketed in more snow than I have seen there for a decade -– conventional wisdom had it they should have all the lightheartedness of a gray, winter, Alpine sky. The Eurozone crisis, the difficulty of getting tough political decisions in the United States, and worries in some of the champions among emerging markets – the chance of a property crash in China, for example, or of runaway inflation in India –- were all said to contribute to a note of pessimism among Davos devotees.
In this guest post, Bill Gates discusses the themes of his annual letter, which looks back on progress made and lessons learned in the fight against extreme poverty. Originally published on Impatient Optimists, blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
My job is to learn about global health and development — and to travel to poor countries to meet farmers who can’t grow enough food, mothers who can’t keep children healthy, and heroes in the field who are doing something about those emergencies. Very few people can devote the time to really understand these complex problems. Even fewer can actually meet the people who are struggling to overcome them. That is why I write an annual letter every year.
I want people to know about the amazing progress we’ve made. I also want them to see how much more progress it will take before we live in a truly equitable world.
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?
The mapping team at InterAction reflect on the earthquake in Haiti on its two year anniversary.
We have all seen the statistics: more than 1.5 million people displaced and 230,000 lives claimed. The January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti was the second deadliest on record in the last decade.
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.
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.
