Microbiology
Aids quick-fix won't save Africa
IPN Opinion article
Dr John Kilama, President of Global Bioscience Development Institute, warns against the dangerous belief that simply increasing the supply and lowering the cost of AIDS medicines in Africa will solve the crisis. In reality the entire healthcare infrastructure needs an overhaul before treatment regimens can be effective
Remember TB?
IPN Opinion article
Most of us probably think of tuberculosis as a disease of the past ñ something that killed off our weaker ancestors and was eliminated by antibiotics. It may come as something of a shock, then, to learn that each year approximately 8 million people are infected with TB and 2 million die.
Economic solution to scourge of malaria
IPN Opinion article
Moreover, when studying climate and vector-borne disease transmission, you must consider the past few thousand years. Dr Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute in Paris points out in a new book Adapt or Die: the Science, Politics and Economics of Climate Change, edited by Kendra Okonski that in the past 2000 years, malaria thrived during temperature extremes. During the dark ages (from 750 to 1100 AD) temperatures were so low that the Nile froze and ice floated in the Adriatic Sea. During the Middle Ages, temperatures rose, so much so that Greenland became suitable for agriculture and England became a wine producing region. Yet all the while the transmission of malaria and other vector-borne diseases continued.
AIDS drug incentive dilemma
IPN Opinion article
According to recent reports, notably in the British Medical Journal, viral resistance is making existing AIDS drugs less effective and others totally useless. Meanwhile, the development of new AIDS drugs is in shocking decline, down by 33 percent over the past five years. The Bush administration seems to be unaware, and big pharma is unwilling to admit, that this decreased development is a nasty consequence of drug activists succeeding in their campaign to demand lower prices for AIDS drugs.
Aids: It is now up to Africa\'s leaders
IPN Opinion article
AS THE US edges closer to war with Saddam Hussein, its global popularity seems to be ever-diminishing. And while US President George Bush\'s decision to act on the global HIV/AIDS crisis may improve his international image, its success is far from certain.
HIV infection continues to rise in Africa, while mortality from AIDS-related illnesses is increasing alarmingly. Few African governments can be proud of their response to the epidemic. Yet some have faced this catastrophe admirably.
HIV-Aids a poverty disease?
IPN Opinion article
Kenya will receive $179,4 million from the UN Global Fund to fight Aids and other diseases. The health ministry indicated that $129m of this would go to the fight against HIV-Aids, $33,6m to malaria and $11,2m to tuberculosis.
However, to check the Aids tide, Africans really need economic empowerment through trade and productivity. Countries may receive all sorts of aid packages, but as long as they subject their populations to policies that sustain them in poverty, there is a danger that disease will be turned into a tool of global politics. It may well be that the famine in southern African countries is largely attributable to the HIV-Aids scourge. With over seven million deaths among agricultural workers since 1985, crop output plummeted nearly 60%.
Slowing birth of AIDS drug
IPN Opinion article
AT THE WORLD Summit on Sustainable Development, in September, Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS, told delegates he was upset that AIDS discussions were not more prominent on the summit agenda.
He will be even more upset when he learns of the latest data to come out concerning AIDS research: There are between 5 percent and 30 percent fewer anti-AIDS drugs in development than there were a few years ago.
AIDS activists hinder their cause
IPN Opinion article
Two weeks ago at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the head of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, told delegates that he was upset that AIDS discussions were not higher up the agenda of the summit. He will be even more upset when he sees the latest data to come out about AIDS research.
There are between 5 percent and 30% fewer anti-AIDS drugs in development than there were a few years ago.
NGOs play big role in AIDS plans
IPN Opinion article
The head of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, is angry the discussion of the AIDS pandemic is so low on the agenda of the World Summit for Sustainable Development and that African ministers are so lukewarm to the issue. He was expected to tell WSSD delegates Friday night he is annoyed by the lack of government action on controlling acquired immune deficiency syndrome on the African continent.
