treatment

AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), an alliance of NGOs engaged in work on HIV and human rights in the Southern African Development Community region, says that the world is less than halfway to achieving universal access to treatment.

ARASA advocacy coordinator, Paula Akugizibwe, points out that about four million HIV patients are getting AIDS drugs worldwide, but 10 million are not getting treatment.

The Ugandan Law Reform Commission formulated a new HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill for 2009, which has recently received widespread criticism from human rights groups across the globe. The Bill is said to be a dangerous approach to already discredited views on how to prevent and control the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa.

The global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been unparalleled. Between 2007 and 2008, funding increased from US$11.3 billion to US$ 13.7 billion globally (UNAIDS, Fact Sheet AIDS Funding 2008-09). However, the global economic crisis is having dire consequences for HIV and AIDS funding. These effects are felt particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest levels of HIV and AIDS infection in the world, with approximately 25 million people infected.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged countries to phase out the use of Stavudine, the most widespread anti-retroviral, because of what it calls long-term, irreversible side-effects in HIV patients,  including wasting and a nerve disorder.

In sweeping changes to its guidelines, the WHO also recommends that people with HIV, including pregnant women, should start taking antiretroviral drugs earlier to live a longer and healthier life.

Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi has unveiled shocking figures showing a huge AIDS-related leap in South Africa's death rate.

Motsoaledi points out that, "In 11 years [from 1997 to 2008], the rate of death has doubled in South Africa. That is obviously something that cannot but worry a person."

Motsoaledi pins the blame for the current scale of the pandemic squarely on what he called the ‘denialist health policies’ pursued by former president Thabo Mbeki's government.

Zimbabwe's adult HIV prevalence rate is continuing its downward trend, showing a drop from 14.1 percent in 2008 to 13.7 percent in 2009, according to new estimates released by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare.

The 2009 Antenatal Clinic (ANC) Surveillance Survey, based on blood specimens collected from 7,363 pregnant women anonymously screened at 19 clinic sites throughout the country, estimated that 1.1 million Zimbabweans in a probable population of around 11 million were living with HIV.