HIV and AIDS: have we seen the worst?

On World AIDS Day on Monday, at the final event of our HIV and AIDS season hosted at the Frontline Club, an expert panel of policy makers, scientists, journalists and community activists were asked “have we seen the worst?” The perhaps unsurprising answer was; “it’s more complicated than that”. Representing very different sectors in the global fight against AIDS, the panel were all careful to emphasise both what has been achieved in the 20 years since the first World AIDS Day and how much there is left to do. In short, the past two decades have witnessed almost unprecedented progress in disease response, yet there remains much, much more to be done.

The statistics are sobering; 3 million people on anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), another 7 million needing them, 2.7 million people infected in 2007 and worldwide, over 33 million people living with HIV. Robin Shattock, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Infection at St George’s, University of London was clearest in his statement that without investment there is no possibility of keeping up with demand: “we cannot halt the epidemic without reducing rates of infection which will only come with medical advances – and ultimately a vaccine.”

 

World AIDS Day: blogging positively around the world

Today, marking the 20th annual World AIDS Day, we’re preparing for the final event in our co-hosted HIV and AIDS season at the Frontline Club in London. A panel discussion “Have we seen the worst” featuring Robin Shattock, Michael Bartos, Anton Kerr and Thandi Haruperi and introduced by BBCWST Asia Director Caroline Howie, is being streamed live online, and you will be able to watch a recording here (scroll down to 1st December).

Elsewhere online, the Harvard-based Global Voices has an interesting project mapping and linking to HIV positive bloggers around the world “who bravely defy stigma and taboo to communicate their situation to the rest of the world.”

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This Wednesday, 3rd December, they will also be a hosting a live chat facilitated by Kenyan bloggers Serina Kalande and Daudi Were on how to use citizen media to help improve awareness and information about the AIDS epidemic. Find out more here, and contact the editors to contribute to the map.

 

The Wisdom of Whores – Elizabeth Pisani on HIV and AIDS

“A wholly preventable disease”. Elizabeth Pisani’s description of what she calls the defining epidemic of our age is damning of the international response to HIV and AIDS. We have, she says, collectively run out of excuses for the ways in which we are getting it wrong whilst people continue to die.

Elizabeth Pisani

Pisani, a former journalist turned epidemiologist and self-confessed science “geek” was speaking at the Frontline Club in London last night at the second of four events in an HIV and AIDS season co-sponsored by the BBC World Service Trust.

As to be expected with an informed audience and a wide-ranging topic such as this one, the evening covered a variety of issues with Pisani an entertaining and avowedly blunt speaker. In conversation with Yusef Azad of the National AIDS Trust, she was discussing her new book “The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS” in which she deals – characteristically honestly – with “sex and drugs”.

 

Google Flu Trends: of mobs and medicine

Yet another example of the all-seeing nature of Google’s digital domination was unveiled this week with the launch of Google Flu Trends, a new application from the internet giant’s charitable arm Google.org that provides information on the spread of the infection by tracking individual Flu-related internet searches such as “aching muscles”, “headaches”, “fever” and so on.

According to data mined from their archives, a Google mapping of the past 5 years’ flu-related searches almost exactly matches the statistics of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The crucial difference being, that the digital data Google provides could be accessed, analysed and acted upon quicker than traditional methods of tracking disease and infection. According to an article in the IHT, there are 36,000 flu-related deaths in the US each year – a far higher figure than expected for this uninitiated reader, and one that underlines the fact that an ability to respond and react quicker to regional flu epidemics could potentially save lives.

 

World AIDS Day 2008

HIV positive woman in India. DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP/Getty Images

Ahead of the 20^th annual World AIDS Day on 1^st December, the BBC World Service Trust is co-hosting a special season of events with the Frontline Club in London throughout November exploring issues around living with HIV, the search for a cure, securing universal access, and documenting the impact of this devastating disease.

Highlights include a screening of Living with AIDS with Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura, a photo exhibition looking at the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa by Gideon Mendel and a panel discussion looking at the future of AIDS prevention work “Have we seen the worst?”

Full details of each event are on the Frontline Club website, or at the bottom of this post.

 

Global Handwashing Day

The UN estimates that 2.5 billion people are at risk of disease from poor sanitation, and that it claims the lives of 1.5 million children under the age of five every year. Diarrhoea, a major cause of child mortality in many countries around the world, is a particular focus of today’s campaign in which more than 120 million children in 70 countries across five continents are expected to take part.

Despite being singled out in the Millennium Development Goals sanitation is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an unpopular subject which has been termed the “silent crisis”. However in 2006 the BBC World Service Trust tackled the issues creatively and with measurable success as part of a wider initiative on child and maternal health in Cambodia:

In this creative Public Service Announcement (PSA) spot a group of enthusiastic school children deliver an important message about how to avoid diarrhoea through handwashing – in song.

Quantitative survey research carried out after the BBC World Service Trust’s mass media campaigns revealed that the prevalence of those reporting a child in their care with diarrhoea in the last month decreased from 17% to 13%, and that the number of people who said they washed their hands to avoid diarrhoea increased from 10% to 25%.

Elsewhere online, legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar heads the campaign in India, the BBC has the story plus more on handwashing at Unicef’s YouTube channel.