International
Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day!
Did you know – despite everything we’ve learned about HIV, the number of new infections each year is close to what it was in the mid-1990s: the total figure today is 2.7 million? Antiretroviral treatment (ART) helps keep HIV at low levels within the body, but ART can have side effects and must be taken every day for a lifetime. What’s more, access to life-saving treatment can be an issue for people living with HIV in developing countries. Thanks to programs like the Global Fund and PEPFAR, treatment is increasingly available, but it still only reaches a third of people who need it to survive.
We must continue to extend current prevention, care and treatment options to as many people as possible to mitigate AIDS here and now, but we must also invest in the future to bring the epidemic to an end. Continued investment in prevention research, to include new tools like vaccines, microbicides and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), will produce net savings in the long term – and save lives.
In fact, only vaccines have historically ended major viral epidemics. They are proven to be cost-effective and practical. There will be an AIDS vaccine in our lifetime, and we must continue the search.
So today, on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, I urge you to become informed about AIDS vaccine research. We all have a role to play whether it is as advocates, volunteers, health professionals or researchers.
- Checkout NIAID’s information hub around HIV Vaccine Awareness Day
- The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has a new website, which features an interview with Dr Anthony S. Fauci (Director, NIAID)
- Global Health TV recently posted four interviews with leading AIDS advocates about their commitment to finding an AIDS vaccine
- IAVI President & CEO, Seth Berkley, recently gave a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as part of their Global Health Policy Center’s speaker series
For those of you reading this blog who are already involved – today (and every day) is an opportunity to say thank you!
-Nicole Schiegg, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative–Washington, D.C.
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The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
05/06/2009 at 1:24 pm
I am a South African and it breaks my heart to see the people around me ill or dying. Last year one of my employees got extremely ill, I had noticed he was getting thinner and sick since 2006 already. His friends, family and himself refused to think it was HIV.
Last year when he got worse I decided to take him to my doctor (I am privileged enough not to have to go to the state hospital). I received his permission to have an HIV test done. Within a few days, we got the result, he already had AIDS and his CDC count, I was told, was 1. I could not believe that the people around him had not noticed that he was so ill. He was to ill to go to the state hospital and stand in a cue for min. 8 hours to receive drugs and care. So I decided we would buy the ARV drugs for him at my doctor. The cost was just under R500 which was a third of his monthly salary and that was only for one months supply. I found this totally disgusting! This young man, Godfery, of about 23 died 3 months later. How sad, he did not even get a chance to “fight to live”.
There is not enough being done for the poorer people in South Africa when it comes to HIV/AID awareness. It has slowed down completely or in some parts of the country, non existent.
I know I have a hand full of people that work for me, that have the disease but are in total denial or are ignorant.
In 2007, we lost one of our longest serving employees and a friend to me and my husband due to having TB with HIV/AIDS. The hospital was to full to take care of him and make him comfortable on the night which would be his last. He past away on a bench outside the hospital entrance that night. He left behind his wife (who also has the disease now & does not work) and two young boys about 8 and 11.
So much more can be done…
Godfrey and Patrick, just 2 of millions in South Africa dying of aids every year.