Dr. Gary A. Puckrein, president and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum, spoke about an HIV/AIDS Atlas developed by the NMQF. He said it provides community-based organizations with the empirical data necessary for effective advocacy. (0:27)
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon talks about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS worldwide and the need for leadership to take the lead on this issue. (0:50)
President of the UN Foundation and Better World Fund and Former Sen. Timothy Wirth (D-Colo.) says that women are getting severely affected by HIV/AIDS worldwide, and we must continue to treat and prevent the virus globally. (0:41)
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said while “fewer are being infected with HIV,” there is “no room for complacency” in the fight against AIDS.
In a luncheon presented by UNAIDS, Moon said via webcast that while there have been successes in the fight against HIV/AIDS, it is still one of the “top ten causes of death worldwide” and the leading cause of death in Africa. He felt that the worldwide goal should be to “create a future without AIDS.
President of the UN Foundation and Better World Fund and Former Sen. Timothy Wirth (D-Colo.) felt the issues of AIDS treatment and family planning have “got to be brought together” worldwide. He said that while there are approximately 35 million people with HIV/AIDS in the world, there are almost 200 million couples who want family planning services but cannot get them.
Wirth said the focus of AIDS prevention should be on “adolescent girls in particular.” Wirth claimed that over half of all new AIDS infections are women. He said that bringing prevention and treatment to women has been more difficult because anti-women forces have “reared their head.” Director of the Washington Office for UNAIDS John Hassell echoed Wirth’s statements saying HIV/AIDS is “definitely not a gay disease.
Thembi Nkambule, National Coordinator of the Swaziland National Network of People Living with AIDS, said that while “more people than ever” have access to care, the fight is “far from over.” She estimated that in her home country of Swaziland, around 20 percent of the population is infected. She advocated that HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention should be “priorities in the global agenda.” “We need to keep people living with HIV alive as long as possible,” remarked Nkambule.
Jahnabi Goswani, General Secretary of the India Network of People Living with AIDS, said that HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment should focus on “vulnerable communities” as well as women. She also stated that people with AIDS must be proactive in educating communities because they understand the virus “better than anyone.”
Carl Schmid, Director of Federal Affairs at the AIDS Institute, discusses the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and what groups have been most affected by the virus. (0:38)
Carl Schmid, Director of Federal Affairs at the AIDS Institute, stated that over 1.1 million people in the U.S. are currently living with the HIV/AIDS virus. He also remarked that 56,000 new people are found to be infected every year. He added that African Americans and homosexual males are affected at a disproportionately high percentage.
Rebecca Haag, Executive Director of the AIDS Action Council, called it “shameful” that Washington D.C. has higher AIDS rates than some Sub-Saharan African countries.
Haag said it is vital for the U.S. government to “develop a national AIDS strategy.” Haag was surprised that a strategy hasn’t already been formed 25 years into the epidemic.
Haag advocated better sex education. She said that there is no evidence that abstinence-only education has any impact on preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
Christine Lubinski, Executive Director of the HIV Medicine Association, claimed that health care reform is very important to the fight against AIDS. She mentioned that if the health care system works for those with HIV/AIDS, “it will work for everybody.”
UN Correspondent Tala Dowlatshahi will be attending a UN briefing on women and violence.
The Washington Bureau will be covering a discussion on “Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century” at the Brookings Institution, a discussion on “World Energy Outlook: Energy Projections to 2030,” a news conference by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group to release its 23rd annual toy safety report, and a conference call on how President-elect Obama can improve the domestic HIV/AIDS situation.
2.5 million people will contract HIV this year, a disease that is “preventable” according to Elizabeth Pisani, author of “The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS” at a discussion of her book at the Center For Strategic and International Studies today.
Pisani disagrees with the idea that AIDS is a worldwide problem saying, “There is no global HIV epidemic.” She said that parts of Africa, or 10 percent of the world’s population, have 66 percent (40 million people) of reported cases of HIV. She said that the rest of the HIV epidemic is prevalent in people who “sell sex,” gay men, and drug injectors.
She focused on the multitude of interest groups that will not help in the fight to prevent HIV. She said those in the UN will lose money, politicians will lose votes, religious groups will “compromise their morality,” and AIDS activists do not want to bring this problem back to its “bad days.”
Pisani added that the religious “sacred cows” against prevention of HIV are miscalculated. She said the feeling among the religious that providing condoms is a way of promoting sex is misguided. She said, in her experience, carrying condoms “doesn’t make it any easier to get laid.” She also said that the notion that providing needles promotes injection is untrue as well.
In the U.S. , Pisani said that HIV is “a gay male disease.” She said that prevention in America must be focused on that group.
In regards to to treatment of HIV, Pisani stated that she supported treatment, but “We can’t do it without doing better at prevention.”
The recent economic crisis may pose a threat to HIV/AIDS patients worldwide. With the financial future of so many countries in question, it appears that the funding that has provided retro viral therapy for over 300 million people may be cut. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, gave a strong warning about cutting funding.
“Interrupting that…or slowing down would not only be a disaster for millions of people but also, it would undermine the huge investments that have been made over the last few years, just when the return of the investment is starting to come now.”
Speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on “the past and present challenges for Global Health and AIDS”, Piot said that the U.S.’s effort in combating AIDS internationally has saved millions of lives.
“It was really heartening to hear President Bush and Secretary Rice…at the summit on development, to make a plea for continuing American leadership here, and I hope the next President will follow on the same lines.”
Piot stated that the world’s funding must continue to be a priority to guarantee that 3 million people on retro viral therapy can remain in treatment, those who do not have treatment find it, and that AIDS prevention continues to be pursued.
Piot discussed the necessary steps to continue fighting AIDS, including confronting HIV/AIDS with a multilateral approach; using an approach that blends science with human rights, and adopting an attitude of immediate action.
“If we would have waited until Health systems and Health services [were] functioning very well before starting with retro viral therapy, which was the conventional wisdom of every single donor, I know what would have happened with the 3 or 4 million people on retroviral therapy today. They would be dead,” said Piot.
Pentagon Correspondent Dawn Casey will attend a briefing by Army Col. Dominic Caraccilo, Commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), live from Iraq in the Pentagon Briefing Room. UN Correspondent Tala Dowlatshahi will attend a briefing by the Russian Federation. The Washington Bureau will also attend a conference held by Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies on “Unearthing Iraq: Trajectories of Disintegration and Transformation,” a discussion by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on “Past and Present Challenges for Global Health and AIDS,” the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s discussion on “Promoting Religious Freedom in Sudan,” and a discussion on “The Election and Post-Racial Politics” by the Institute for Policy Studies.
