E-DRUG: AIDS-Care-Watch Campaign Launch Announcement
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Hidden health-care crisis denies effective, affordable HIV treatments to
millions with HIV
To comment on this ACW Launch Statement, please go to:
http://aidscarewatch.blogspot.com
23 March 2005 -A prevailing focus on the provision of antiretroviral (ARV)
drugs is denying millions of people with HIV access to effective and
affordable treatment options that could extend their lives.
In the first three months of 2005 alone, more people have already died from
AIDS-related conditions than the total number taking ARVs throughout the
world.
According to an unprecedented global campaign and civil society partnership
being launched this week to coincide with World Stop-TB Day, this grim
milestone is a stark reminder that as we grapple with the scale-up of global
ARV access initiatives, we have to keep people with HIV alive in all
possible ways.
The AIDS-Care-Watch (ACW) Campaign draws attention to the hidden healthcare
crisis and leadership oversights that allow millions to die because other
life-extending care options are being seriously neglected.
"The ACW campaign aims to raise awareness about all care and treatment
options that are keeping people with HIV alive, particularly the vast
majority who are waiting for antiretroviral treatment," said Abigail
Erikson, Campaign Coordinator. "The basic principle of the campaign is that
humanity cannot let millions of people die from HIV-related conditions when
life-saving care and treatment options exist."
While AIDS-related deaths have fallen dramatically since the introduction of
ARVs ten years ago, this has only happened where they are available and
affordable, and that mostly means in wealthy nations. Today, only
one-in-eight of the six million people who need them have access to
life-saving ARVs. The vast majority of these people live in developing
countries.
"Of course ARV drugs are critical to keeping us physically well - but
without nutritious food, without additional therapies, and without the love
and care of those who surround us, those drugs do little for us," explained
Alice Welbourn of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS
(ICW), one of the organisations partnering the new campaign.
Tuberculosis (TB) is the biggest killer of people living with HIV/AIDS
(PWHA), who have a 50% lifetime risk of developing the disease. Without
prompt diagnosis and treatment for TB, death can come within weeks to
someone with HIV. Effective TB treatment can extend lives of PWHA by at
least two to three years and carries a 10US$ price tag.
Studies conducted in four African nations have also shown that preventive
treatment of AIDS-related opportunistic infections with a cheap and safe,
broad-spectrum antibiotic called 'cotrimoxazole', can reduce HIV-related
death rates by up 50%. The evidence is so compelling that it prompted the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to recommend - five years ago - that the antibiotic should
be given to Africans with symptomatic HIV infection. The annual cost of
cotrimoxazole treatment is 6US$.
Despite being one of the areas of public health where we know the most,
latest estimates to be released on World Stop-TB Day this week are expected
to confirm that TB incidence in Africa is climbing sharply, especially in
countries heavily impacted by the HIV epidemic, and that only about half of
all TB cases in Africa are even detected. Similarly, the routine use of
cotrimoxazole in developing countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa,
remains minimal despite explicit UN recommendations.
"People living with HIV/AIDS continue to die before their time because of a
lack of appropriate treatment and a lack of understanding and information"
said Greg Gray, Regional Coordinator of the Asia Pacific Network of People
Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+). "We know only too well the importance of
promoting prevention for opportunistic infections, yet still even this most
basic and cost effective treatment is out of reach for many who desperately
need it. APN+ is pleased to be a partner in this campaign and hope this can
be a timely reminder to governments in making them accountable to the UNGASS
declaration commitments and the 'significant progress' they have promised."
The AIDS-Care-Watch Campaign stresses that advocating for the scale-up of
such care services is not an excuse for governments, international agencies
or communities to slow down or do less in their ARV expansion efforts - it
must be additional to those efforts.
The campaign receives strong endorsements from entities such as the World
Health Organization (WHO).
"We strongly support the goals of the ACW campaign because a holistic
approach to care for all HIV-infected people is essential," said Dr Paul
Nunn, of the WHO Stop TB Department. "There is no point in getting people
onto ARVs at great expense, only to have them die for lack of TB treatment
with a fraction of those costs."
During the course of this year, AIDS-Care-Watch is working with
country-based partners to monitor whether previous commitments have been
translated into care services at the local and national levels. The campaign
uses a backbone of country-based reporting, documentation and analysis to
hold relevant institutions and organisations accountable against their
previous HIV/AIDS care commitments.
2005 is a benchmark year for a related prior commitment by over 180
governments. Four years ago, the UN General Assembly held an unprecedented
special session on HIV/AIDS - the first time the assembly had ever addressed
a specific health issue. The resulting Declaration of Commitment on
HIV/AIDS, signed by all Member States of the UN, made explicit pledges to
"make significant progress in implementing comprehensive [HIV/AIDS] care
strategies" by 2005.