Spotlight
John Keats, DH Lawrence, Dylan Thomas, Henry David Thoreau. Famous poets that turned words to art. Sadly, they also had another thing in common: tuberculosis. In the late 1800s, TB was tearing through the US and Europe, causing many deaths.
Today is World TB Day, an opportunity to take stock of progress made in ridding the world of this horrible disease and also identifying opportunities to make more progress. For most of us, TB is not a big concern. Once in a while we get a scare –- remember that guy a few years back who flew back to the US even though he’d been diagnosed with infectious TB? -– but for the most part it’s a disease of the past.
Not so for many people living in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. About 2 million people die every year from TB, making it one of the world’s top killers. It’s become even more deadly with people with HIV, and is what causes most AIDS-related deaths in Africa.
“Without additional funding in the battle against tuberculosis for research, improved prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, some 8 million people will die from what is largely a curable disease between now and 2015,” according to a statement from UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
Thanks to a lot of work by partners across the world, there’s been great progress. More and more people are diagnosed and treated, and that’s thanks in large part to increased funding through the Global Fund -– a key focus of our ONE advocacy work. About two-thirds of all donor support for TB flows through the Global Fund, and this has helped many poor people get the treatment they need. There’s also a good strategy in place, thanks to the Stop TB Partnership, an active coalition of more than 1 thousand organizations working together to eliminate TB.
Still, there’s a lot more to do. On the prevention front, there’s still a shocking disconnect between HIV and TB services –- even though we know that the rate of TB is much higher, and more deadly, among people living with HIV. Those managing programs and funding need to do much more to ensure that HIV and TB are treated as one in the many countries where they’re raging together.
On the research front, there are some new diagnostic tools to help quickly identify people with active TB, including those that have developed drug-resistant TB (you get drug-resistant TB when the systems for providing regular TB fail, leaving patients vulnerable to mutating viruses that are harder and more expensive to treat). The Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics (FIND) has an active effort on TB that’s really focused on addressing real problems in developing countries that don’t have lots of expensive laboratories, microscopes, and trained personnel).
The world needs a vaccine for TB! There is one now, called BCG and developed about 90 years ago, and it’s used to protect infants but it doesn’t protect them from adult forms of TB and is only partially effective. The Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation is leading in this area; they’re hopeful that a vaccine will be ready by the end of the decade. Let’s hope they’re right!
So what can you do to save the poets of today and tomorrow? Help us keep up the pressure to fully fund the Global Fund. The fights still on, sadly, and it’s caught up in the big budget debates going on in many donor capitols. Join ONE, and respond when we ask –- we really do need your voice to help support political leaders to do the right thing.
Photo of Henry David Thoreau courtesy of Wikimedia commons
Last week, we asked people on Facebook this very simple question:
We got more than 130 comments — answers ranged from “strength in numbers” to “moral obligation.” Take a look at some of the responses we received, then add your own in the comments below!
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This morning, I read an AFP story that said the South African government was thinking about making HIV tests mandatory for students older than age 12 in order to expand testing and improve treatment for youths.
Of all the countries in the world, South Africa is hit hardest by HIV/AIDS. Approximately 5.7 of the 48 million population of South Africa is infected with the virus, and nine percent of people younger than 20 have HIV. So, it makes sense that the South African government would consider measures like this one to help curb infection rates.
But is age 12 too young? Children’s advocates in South Africa have called for caution, fearing that students wouldn’t be mature enough or emotionally capable to handle the results. Curious to see what other people had to say about the issue, I sent out this discussion topic to our nearly 480,000 followers on Twitter:
Here are a few of the responses we received on Twitter. Take a look and leave us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Mar 14th, 2011 6:52 PM UTC
By Field
On Saturday, a group of ONE members attended the 2011 Annual Farm Forum in Piqua, Ohio. ONE members Kara Ford and Carly Rohrbraugh — ONE leaders and students from Ohio State University — and I hoped to get a chance to talk with the powerful new Speaker of the House John Boehner. And we succeeded!
As ONE members, we know the important role that Speaker Boehner will play in funding critical life-saving programs to fight AIDS, hunger and extreme poverty in the developing world — so we were pretty excited to have a chance to talk with him about these matters of life and death for millions.
Much to our surprise, Speaker Boehner spotted us and stopped to introduce himself to us. When we mentioned that we were ONE members, he told us that he was very familiar with ONE and that he has met with ONE’s leadership over the years. We told him how worried we were about funding for programs like PEPFAR, and he told us that he recognizes PEPFAR is working to save millions of lives from HIV/AIDS.
We also talked about how PEPFAR and other programs will be part of President Bush’s legacy for the world, to which he agreed. I even spoke with him about the Global Fund and how transparent and accountable the fund is to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and Malaria. He nodded in agreement and told us that there is still a lot more work to be done, too, so we urged him to continue America’s life-saving role in the future. He even took a ONE band and some ONE literature after we snapped a quick photo with him.
We hope that Speaker Boehner will remember ONE and the world’s poorest people as Congress takes action during the next steps in the CR process. We are so excited and proud that he made time for us on Saturday, and we hope that he will carry our thoughts and prayers with him into action in the House.
-Beth Kaltenbach, ONE Congressional District leader, Ohio
Mar 9th, 2011 3:51 PM UTC
By Field
Yesterday, I listened to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio give his first address to the Buckeye State. Gov. Kasich is a longtime friend of ONE and helped start our efforts as ONE members when he was a congressman working with Bobby Shriver, co-founder and chairman of PRODUCT (RED) and DATA, and ONE founder on debt relief for Africa in 2000.
During his speech, Gov. Kasich surprisingly talked about his work in Congress to lead life-saving efforts in Africa and also talked about his trip to Rwanda with ONE.
Here’s an excerpt from the speech below and a link to listen to the audio:
“And, of course, I love the work that I was involved in with Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Helms and Bono in an effort to fight poverty. You know, it’s a great story. I got a call from The Terminator. Arnold said, you need to meet this man, he’s out there, he’s meeting with every big official all over the world, he’s got a program to do debt relief in Africa.
And I’d always felt that foreign aid was a little bit of corporate welfare, but I always thought it could be applied well so that if we actually did immunize somebody or vaccinate them in another part of the world when extremists were shouting and criticizing America, the woman there would stand up and say, you may not like them, but they vaccinated my kid. See, I like that idea.
Arnold said, you’ve got to meet this guy. I said, what’s his name? He said, you never heard of him. I said, what’s his name, Arnold? He says, you’ve never heard of him. I said, what’s his name? He said, his name is Bono. I said, Arnold, I’m not an Austrian bricklayer, I know who Bono is. (Laughter) So Bono and I sat down, and he talked about his faith. The song “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is not about something he misplaced. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
Bono says, you’re not getting me in to see enough congressmen and senators. I said — this was in the early days — I said, Bono, look, you’re wearing a black leather suit, Prada shoes, and those crazy sunglasses, they don’t want to be seen with you. He said, John, the guys in my band, they don’t want me to be seen with you. (Laughter) Well, we won. And just a couple years ago, my wife and I went to Rwanda at the request of Bono. Began to see some miracles of reconciliation. It worked.”
-Beth Kaltenbach, ONE Congressional District leader, Ohio
After 18 days of protesting in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down today after being in power for more than three decades. What will this mean for the Middle East’s most populous nation? What are the next steps? Here are three points of view from three very different sides of the story. Take a look and see what they have to say, and then add your thoughts in the comments below.
Dr. Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Peace Prize winner and the president’s special envoy for science to the Middle East, outlines four steps that Egypt needs to take to resolve the crisis in a New York Times column:
“Though Egypt has seen some economic progress in recent years, the masses of the poor have been left behind, and the middle class has actually gone backward. Only the small elite at the top has benefited lavishly by exploiting its influence with the government. The corruption resulting from this marriage and the constant demands for bribes by officials has further exhausted the tolerance of the people.
There are four important steps that must be taken to resolve the current crisis: First, a council of wise men and women should be assembled to map out a new national vision and draft a new constitution based on liberty, human rights and the orderly transfer of power. Second, the independence of the judiciary must be guaranteed. Third, free and fair elections must be conducted for the upper and lower houses of Parliament and for the presidency, overseen by the independent judiciary; Fourth, a new transitional government of national unity must be formed as soon as possible.”
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Porter McConnell of Oxfam America shares a letter published in Politico this week that urges Congress to support the budget for global health.
What do doctors, Republicans and nonprofits that fight poverty and global disease all have in common?
They all support the global health reforms that are happening right now. As Congress heads into budget deliberations, these folks are urging Congress to support the budget for global health. Check out this letter running in Politico this week:
The US Global Health Initiative (GHI) continues President Bush’s legacy by:
Building on the foundation of PEPFAR’s life-saving programs
Reversing the tide of HIV and AIDS and other diseases by helping countries build health systems to tackle their health challenges for themselves.
Starting from the premise that poor countries can and must be partners in managing complicated health delivery.
Coordinating US government agencies on the ground so patients get the care they need.
To learn more, check out a recent article by Oxfam CEO Ray Offenheiser about the US helping people tackle their health challenges, instead of tackling those challenges for them.
To add your voice to these doctors, Republicans and nonprofits, just type the message “I support global health” in the comments section below.
-Porter McConnell, Aid Effectiveness Team, Oxfam America
