HIV/AIDS remains a major challenge in Ethiopia. During 2002 the UNCT conducted intensive awareness and advocacy campaigns. Through its campaigns and collaboration with other development partners the UNCT has succeeded in having HIV/AIDS incorporated in important national processes and policies.

2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic

Intro

The global HIV challenge: assessing progress, identifying obstacles, renewing commitment

Treatment and care: unprecedented progress, remaining challenges

Mitigating the epidemic’s impact on households, communities and societies

Where do we go from here? Sustaining an effective, robust HIV response for the long-term

Annex-HIV and AIDS estimates and data, 2007 and 2001

Annex-Country Progress Indicators

Status of the global HIV epidemic

Addressing societal causes of HIV risk and vulnerability

Preventing new HIV infections: the key to reversing the epidemic

REFERENCES

Introduction to reports

In the countries most heavily affected, HIV has reduced life expectancy by more than 20 years, slowed economic growth, and deepened household poverty. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the epidemic has orphaned1 nearly 12 million children aged under 18 years. The natural age distribution in many national populations in sub-Saharan Africa has been dramatically skewed by HIV, with potentially perilous consequences for the transfer of knowledge and values from one generation to the next. In Asia, where infection rates are much lower than in Africa, HIV causes a greater loss of productivity than any other disease, and is likely to push an additional 6 million households into poverty by 2015 unless national responses are strengthened

The decision of the global community to push towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support represents a moral commitment of historic proportions. Never before has the world attempted, on such a large scale, to bring broad-based chronic disease management to resource-limited settings. Until this decade, low- and middle-income countries were forced to wait 10−20 years—sometimes for more than a generation—before breakthrough health technologies were broadly available.

The HIV epidemic has resulted in history’s single sharpest reversal in human development (UNDP, 2005). In the most heavily affected countries, HIV has reduced life expectancy, deepened poverty among vulnerable households and communities, skewed the size of populations, undermined national systems, and weakened institutional structures.

Moving towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support is an important step toward an effective, sustainable HIV response. Substantial, although variable, progress has been made in scaling up towards universal access. As Tables 7.1 and 7.2 show, several countries have already achieved their national universal access targets for prevention of mother to-child transmission and antiretroviral treatment.

The estimates and data provided in this Annex relate to 2007 and 2001, unless stated otherwise. These estimates have been produced and compiled by UNAIDS/ WHO. They have been shared with national AIDS programmes for review and comments, but are not necessarily the official estimates used by national governments. For countries where no recent data were available, country-specific estimates have not been listed in the tables. In order to calculate regional totals, older data or regional models were used to produce estimates for these countries.

As of March 2008, 147 countries had reported on progress towards implementing the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS in their 2008 Country Progress Reports submitted to UNAIDS. Indicators reported were derived from the original UNGASS Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS (2001). The data in the following tables reflect Country Progress Report data as well as information taken from other sources.

HIV remains a global health problem of unprecedented dimensions. Unknown 27 years ago, HIV has already caused an estimated 25 million deaths worldwide and has generated profound demographic changes in the most heavily affected countries.

HIV is a biological entity that is responsive to medical interventions, but the epidemic has continued to expand, largely due to the failure to tackle societal conditions that increase HIV risk and vulnerability. This chapter examines two sets of societal factors that affect HIV risk and vulnerability but have not been effectively addressed in most countries

The HIV epidemic cannot be reversed without strong, sustained success in preventing new HIV infections. HIV prevention remains—in the words of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS—“the mainstay of the response”.

Treatment access has steadily expanded in recent years, but efforts to prevent new HIV infections have lagged. While 87% of countries with targets for universal access have established goals for HIV treatment, only about 50% of these countries have targets for key HIV prevention strategies.

List of References

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2009 AIDS epidemic Update

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The continuing rise in the population of people living with HIV reflects the combined effects of continued high rates of new HIV infections and the beneficial impact of antiretroviral therapy. As of December 2008, approximately 4 million people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy—a 10-fold increase over five years (World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNAIDS, 2009). In 2008, an estimated 2.7 million [2.4 million–3.0 million] new HIV infections occurred. It is estimated that 2 million [1.7 million–2.4 million] deaths due to AIDS-related illnesses occurred worldwide in 2008.

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AIDS-Stigma & Discrimination.

Stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS are the greatest barriers to preventing further infections, providing adequate care, support and treatment and alleviating impact. HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination are universal, occurring in every country and region of the world

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AIDS Epidemic Update 2002

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As the world enters the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, the evidence of its impact is undeniable. Wherever the epidemic has spread unchecked, it is robbing countries of the resources and capacities on which human security and development depend. In some regions, HIV/AIDS, in combination with other crises, is driving ever-larger parts of nations towards destitution.

AIDS Prevention

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At the World Summit held at the United Nations in September 2005, leaders pledged to fully implement the Declaration of Commitment of HIV/AIDS adopted in 2001, by scaling up efforts for prevention, treatment, care and support so that every person, without exception, has access to these life-saving programmes. In Kofi Annan’s address on World Aids Day on 1 December 2005 he said that “It is a time to recognize that although our response so far has succeeded in some of the particulars, it has yet to match the epidemic in scale. It is a time to admit that if we are to reach the Millennium Development Goal of halting and beginning to reverse the spread of AIDS by 2015, then we must do far, far more. That mission concerns every one of us.”

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AN INTRODUCTION TO HIV/AIDS

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The possible responses to the epidemic are well documented. Risk of sexual transmission can be reduced by use of condoms and/or cutting down on numbers of partners and treating other sexually transmitted infections. Blood and blood products can be made safer through screening of donors and their blood. Drug users can be encouraged to sterilize or exchange needles

Barriers to better care for people with AIDS in developing countries

Access to good quality antiretroviral treatment has transformedthe prognosis for people with AIDS in the developed world. Althoughit is feasible and desirable to deliver antiretroviral drugsin resource poor settings,few of the 95% of people withHIV and AIDS who live in developing countries receive them.The World Health Organization has launched a programme to deliverantiretroviral drugs to three million people with AIDS in thedeveloping world by 2005, the "3 by 5" initiative. We identifysome of the challenges faced by the initiative, focusing ondelivery of care.

Children-residential care policy .

We fight for children’s rights and deliver lasting improvements to children’s lives worldwide

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Comparative analysis-India & Uganda.

HIV and AIDS-related discrimination, stigmatization and denial—a comparison of both countries

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Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS-UN 2001

Global Crisis—Global Action—What the United Nations

plans on doing for the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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Guideline for Preparation and Execution of Studies of the Social and Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS

Because of HIV/AIDS, its results in exceptional levels of illness and death in the mature adult population it has many social and economic implications. This document provides basic concepts to assist thinking about these implications together with ideas and techniques for planning responses to the medium and longer term social and economi impact

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Handbook for Legislators on HIV/AIDS, Law and Human Rights: Action to Combat HIV/AIDS in View of its Devastating Human, Economic and Social Impact

The Introduction to this report sets out the shocking statistics of the epidemic-33.4 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS. An effective response is required to avert the devastation wreaked on communities around, the world by the epidemic. This impact is disproportionately felt in developing countries and vulnerable population (those whose human rights are already not fully respected).

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From the moment scientists identified HIV/AIDS, social responses of fear, denial, stigma and discrimination have accompanied the epidemic. Discrimination has spread rapidly fuelling anxiety and prejudice against groups most affected as well as those living with HIV/AIDS

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HIV/AIDS and Human Rights

The ILO estimates that over 25 million workers worldwide are infected with HIV, and millions more are affected by the epidemic, including the tragic situation of children orphaned by AIDS. Prevention of the further spread of the epidemic is essential, as are measures to mitigate its impact, including the provision of care and support. Neither prevention nor care, however, is effective in settings where the rights of workers and individuals are not respected.

HIV/AIDS in Africa

The HIV pandemic continues to pose major challenges in the world of work and African society at large. Nearly 34 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS, and one-third of these are young people between the ages of 10 and 24. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected. More than 11 million Africans have already died, and another 22 million are now living with HIV/AIDS. Nearly 10 million more deaths are expected by 2005. Among the HIV-infected globally, six out of ten men, eight out of ten women, and nine out of ten children live in Africa.

HIV/AIDS: A threat to decent work, productivity and development

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HIV/AIDS is a threat to enterprise performance. The world of work is affected by increasing costs due to health care, absenteeism, burial fees, recruitment, training and re-training. For smaller firms in both the formal and informal sectors, the loss of employees has major implications. In the rural sector, losses due to HIV/AIDS may reduce food production and food security. Enterprises in sectors such as transportation, tourism and mining are the most vulnerable. Overall, there will be a reduction of growth if rapid measures are not taken to prevent the impact of HIV/AIDS.

How to Make the Global HIV Response Sustainable

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Power Point Presentation

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Human Rights Abuses in the Name of Drug Treatment: Reports From the Field

Around the world, governments commit flagrant and widespread human rights violations against people who use drugs, often in the name of "treating" them for drug dependence. Suspected drug users are subject to arbitrary, prolonged detention and, once inside treatment centers, abuses that may rise to the level of torture. In many countries, military and police force people who use drugs into treatment without any medical assessment, and then rely on chains and locked doors to keep them there. Drug users who voluntarily seek medical help are sometimes unaware of the nature or duration of the treatment they will receive. In fact, treatment can include detention for months or years without judicial oversight, beatings, isolation, and addition of drug users’ names to government registries that deprive them of basic social protections and subject them to future police surveillance and violence.

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ILO- Recording and notification of occupational accidents

The absence of reliable information about the incidence of occupational accidents and disease is a major obstacle to curbing the appalling toll of work-related deaths and injuries that continues to plague humankind. Despite enormous advances in technology, preventive medicine and the means to prevent accidents, the ILO and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that each year around 1.2 million work-related deaths, 250 million accidents and 160 million work-related diseases occur worldwide. Death, illness and injury on such a scale impoverish individuals and their families, and undermine attempts to improve working conditions

Interventions to reduce HIV stigma.

Stigma is a common human reaction to disease. Throughout history many diseases have carried considerable stigma, including leprosy, tuberculosis, cancer, mental illness, and many STDs. HIV/AIDS is only the latest disease to be stigmatized

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Introducing Governance into HIV/AIDS Programmes: People’s Republic of China, Lao PDR and Viet Nam

What links exist between governance and the AIDS pandemic?

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Low-credit-report on World banks response to AIDS.

This paper looks at the response to the HIV/AIDS crisis by the World Bank as a key member of the international donor/lending community…

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Meeting the Global Challenge of AIDS.

More people have died from HIV/AIDS over the last twenty years than from any other disease in human history. The devastation caused by the epidemic poses a clear and direct challenge to long-term US economic and security interests.

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Money Matters: Financing the global epidemic-Sectoral Impact: what we know, don’t know and need to know: the true cost of AIDS

Charts and graphs

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National Health Bill of South Africa 2003.

TO provide a framework for a structured uniform health system within the Republic

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News: OSI Sues USAID over Dangerous Public Health Policy

The Open Society Institute (OSI), along with its affiliate the Alliance for Open Society International (AOSI), filed a lawsuit today against USAID to challenge its unconstitutional and dangerous policy of requiring grantees to sign a pledge opposing prostitution. Failure to endorse this loyalty oath means health workers across the world striving to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS could lose funding and be forced to abandon life-saving programs.

Now More Than Ever HUMAN RIGHTS AND HIV/AIDS

At the United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in 2006, world leaders reaffirmed that “the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all is an essential element in the global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.” Yet, 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, the “essential element” remains the missing piece in the fight against AIDS. This declaration, endorsed by 24 nongovernmental organizations and networks around the world, affirms that, now more than ever, human rights should occupy the center of the global struggle against HIV and AIDS.

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Racism, stigma and discrimination.

Fighting HIV-related intolerance: exposing the links between racism, stigma and discrimination

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Sexual relations among young people in developing countries: evidence from WHO case studies

In every setting, sexual activity begins during adolescence among many young people. Much of this activity is risky—contraceptive use is often erratic, and unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortions are observed in many settings. Sexual relations may be forced. There are wide gender-based differences in sexual conduct, and in the ability to negotiate sexual activity and contraceptive use. Despite this, relatively few young people think they are at risk of disease or unwanted pregnancy. Awareness of safe sex practices seems to be superficial, and misinformation regarding the risks and consequences of unsafe sex is wide-spread

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SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES (STDs)

Sexually transmitted diseases affect industrialized as well as developing countries. The 20-24 age group is the most exposed to risk.

Stigma and Global Health: Developing a Research Agenda"
an International Conference

To explore the relationship between stigma and public health, examine the social and cultural determinants of stigma, explore how stigma prevents people from seeking or getting treatment for disease, and determine future research opportunities

Strategy on HIV/AIDS and Investigative Journalism

It is a defining attribute of democracy that people should not merely have voice on how but they must and should be able to exert influence on the public process in which they deserve the best information on HIV/AIDS epidemic, they must be aware of developments, findings and research not only at home, but to have regular flow of information from abroad and be able to present the nature of its problems to the officials that will deal with them.

Summary of HIV Prevalence & Sexual.

The USAID-supported ABC Study examines how prevention behaviors may have affected HIV prevalence as well as fertility patterns in 3 countries where HIV prevalence declined during the 1990s and in 3 countries where it appears not to have declined

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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

The Global Fund Secretariat has started developing the ‘IDU Initiative’ which explores and recommends ways to create demand at a country level for programming and evidence-based interventions for injecting drug users (IDUs). The Initiative is also intended to highlight how the Global Fund can play a role in advocacy and show leadership in the area of access to prevention and treatment services for IDUs.

The Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic, Structural Inequalities, and the Politics of International Health

In spite of recent advances in treatment and care available in most developed countries, the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to spread throughout the developing world

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The New UN Trafficking Protocol

This article also addresses the connections between prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation, arguments of those who would dispute these connections, and policy and legislative trends in countries that are seeking to legalize/regulate prostitution as ‘sex work.’

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The Socio-economic Impact of HIV/AIDS on Children in a low prevalence Context: the Case of Senegal

Examines the socio-economic impacts of HIV/AIDS on children in Senegal as well as the impacts of the response policies implemented by the different actors

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Threat to decent work, productivity and Development

The pandemic has profound negative impacts on the economy, the workforce, the business, individual workers and their families. Economic growth could be as much as 25 per cent lower than it might otherwise have been over a 20-year period in high prevalence countries.

"So What?" Report

Improving reproductive health and promoting gender equity are key components of the Programme of Action (POA) from the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. As the tenth anniversary of the ICPD approaches, it is time to take stock of the progress made toward implementing the POA. Does taking a genderbased approach to policy and programming as proposed in the POA have an effect on reproductive health outcomes? This question, posed to the USAID Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG), formed the basis for a review of the evidence that integrating gender into reproductive health programs makes a difference to outcomes—both reproductive health outcomes and gender outcomes.

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Strategy on AIDS and Journalism

The World Bank and Disability

Defining what is meant by disability is sometimes a complex process, as disability is more than a description of a specific health issue; rather it is affected by people's cultures, social institutions, and physical environments.

UNAIDS & The Prevention of HIV Infection Through Injecting Drug Use

Despite the clear public health benefits of the main components of a harm reduction approach to drug injection, recorded in a number of academic and policy reviews over the last 10 years, the implementation of these measures has remained the subject of fierce debate at local, national and international levels.

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United Nations: ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL

Despite the distribution of information and educational materials for

AIDS prevention and care, behaviour change remains a challenge

for national AIDS programmes in the region.  Nevertheless, there

has been a dramatic rise  in the number of condoms sold or

distributed over the past five years.  Some countries made special

efforts during the year to assess the safety of blood transfusion in

health-care settings with a view to developing a national policy.

Sentinel surveillance activities are being implemented as planned

in many countries, but in some they are hampered by a lack of

resources to purchase HIV test kits or maintain equipment.

UN Hits Back at US in Report Saying Parts of America Are as Poor as Third World

Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare.

UN: Facts and Figures 1999 World AIDS Campaign

According to estimates by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS, more than 3 million children and young people worldwide became infected with HIV in 1998. This included almost 590 000 children under 15 and over 2.5 million 15-24 year olds.

UNDP’s Role in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS

AIDS is devastating in terms of creating and deepening poverty, reversing achievements in education, and diverting meager health budgets away from other priorities

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UN's Envoy to Convey Enormity of Food/Aids Crisis

At the end of January, the UN Secretary General's special envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa, James Morris, completed a tour of four countries in the region and said the HIV/Aids pandemic was threatening the very future of nations. One president told him: "My country is on the verge of extinction."

UN-facts and figures

UN-targets peacekeepers, combatants

It is now widely accepted that the HIV/AIDS pandemic is, as Secretary-General Kofi Annan asserts in his report on AIDS to the General Assembly special session, "the most formidable development challenge of our time." World leaders increasingly call for a "war" on the deadly infection, and often note that the disease has killed more people in Africa than all of the continent's recent conflicts combined.

UN update 2003-AIDS

Applying the improved tools and methods to previous years shows there have been steady increases in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS, as well as in the number of AIDS deaths.

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UNICEF report on Africa's orphaned

The HIV/Aids epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has already orphaned a generation of children - and now seems set to orphan generations more.

WHO (the World Health Organization") just released its new ICF -International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health

ICF describes how people live with their health conditions. ICF is a classification of health and health-related domains that describe body functions and structures, activities and participation.

Who cares AIDS review 2001-#1

Tim Treng ove Jones has emerged as one of the leading commentators on the HIV and AIDS epidemics in South Africa

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Who cares AIDS review 2001-#2

Contents

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Who cares AIDS review 2001-#3

This review will seek to address a particular question and in answering it broaden our knowledge and understanding of HIV and AIDS as the epidemics unfold in South Africa

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Who cares AIDS review 2001-#4

The question these billion (of poor) ask is—what are you doing, you in whom we have placed our trust, what are you doing to end the deliberate and savage violence against us that, everyday, sentences many of us to a degrading and unnecessary death!

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Who cares AIDS review 2001-#5

To note the intertwining of the clarificatory and the obfuscatory in the discourses surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa, is to pinpoint another manifestation of the struggle over power and disputes over authority provoked by the illness

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World Band and Disability

For this reason and the fact that persons with disabilities are an underserved group in most developing countries, there are economic and social benefits to increasing the participation of and opportunities for persons with disabilities in society. Although the link is not well documented, disability in the household can lead to poverty because persons with disabilities are often excluded from school or the workplace and may depend—particularly children—on others in the family for care. Disabled people are also at risk of social exclusion

World Bank Approves $20 Million For HIV/AIDS Prevention And Control In Trinidad And Tobago

The World Bank yesterday approved a $20 million loan aimed at reducing HIV infections and providing treatment and care for people infected with HIV/AIDS in Trinidad and Tobago.

World Bank Supports Pakistan’s Efforts In Preventing The Spread Of HIV/AIDS

Recognizing that Pakistan has an opportunity to prevent a widespread HIV/AIDS epidemic, the World Bank today announced the approval of a US$37.1 million credit, of which US$ 9.28 is a grant to the Government of Pakistan. The HIV/AIDS Prevention Project will prevent HIV/AIDS from becoming established in vulnerable populations while, at the same time, avoiding stigmatization of these vulnerable populations.

World Bank’s Moscow Office

"Expanding economic opportunities overall—that is, promoting growth that directly benefits the poor—remains central. Market-oriented reforms, institutional development and investments in health, education and infrastructure are crucial to its delivery," says World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Nicholas Stern

World Bank-Accelerating the Response to HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean

HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in the 15 to 44 year age group in the Caribbean. By the end of 2001, more than a half million people in the region were infected with the disease.

Worldwide Map of Hepatitis Rates

Map of the world

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