President awards Harvard $107m in Africa AIDS figh

[johnclark54]

President awards Harvard $107m in Africa AIDS fight
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 2/24/2004

PRETORIA -- President Bush launched his global AIDS program yesterday by awarding multimillion-dollar grants to four US-based institutions, including $107 million to Harvard's School of Public Health, to treat those suffering from the deadly virus in three African nations.

The grant to Harvard is the largest received by the School of Public Health, easily surpassing a $25 million grant in 2000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in Nigeria.

"Our intent has been to move as quickly as possible
to bring immediate relief to those suffering the devastation of AIDS," said Randall Tobias, the US global AIDS coordinator, who announced the grants in Washington.

The first installments of Bush
&#39
;s $15 billion five-year AIDS fight come a
gainst a backdrop of recent allegations from activists critical of the administration's go-it-alone approach and a delay in releasing the money.


more at...

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/ar...s_fight?mode=PF

 

[Arheel's Uncle]

South Africans rape children as cure for Aids

Almost a third of Nelspruit's 600,000 people are HIV positive. Now the city has another problem, a dramatic increase in child rape caused by the myth that sex with a virgin cures Aids, reports David Beresford.

www.theguardian.com

South Africans rape children as cure for Aids​

David Beresford in Nelspruit
Sun 29 Jun 2003 01.04 BST


Nelspruit, the provincial capital of Mpumalanga, previously known as Eastern Transvaal, is running out of space for graves. Cemeteries expected to last another 50 years are now full. The announcement, another marker in a growing pandemic, comes as a new parliamentary report has condemned as lamentable the health facilities in one of the world's epicentres of Aids.
An estimated 31 per cent of Nelpruit's population of 600,000 is infected. Now the city has another problem, a dramatic increase in child rape caused by the myth that sex with a virgin cures HIV.

Until 2000 most rape victims were adults. but there was an abrupt turn-around from 2001, when 65 to 70 per cent of victims were children, some as young as two weeks old. The city seems helpless in the face of its woes. The ANC's provincial Health Minister, Sibongile Manana, has been placed under 'curatorship' - the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Public Works are going to help her do her job.
In the main Mpumelela hospital - Rob Ferriera, in Nelspruit - the telephones were not working and public phone boxes had to be used to call doctors and ambulances.

Surprisingly, the shortage of burial space does not appear to extend to the health facilities. Tonga hospital itself is difficult to miss - a red cross signalling its presence is painted on the side of a water tower that can be seen for miles. But the parking places for cars, while efficiently signposted - 'public', 'maternity', 'casualty', 'disabled' - are empty.

The impression that it is a modern hospital, with all the mod cons that a doctor might require, is confirmed by a plaque next to the entrance recording that it was opened by South Africa's Minister of Health only four years ago.

But inside wheelchairs and hospital trolleys stand unused. The neat line of registration booths are empty. Spider webs across doors show that most of the wards are never used, although the beds are made.
The individual tragedy into which all this translates is epitomised by the case of Senzo Mgwenya. Senzo knows he is dying, what is killing him, how he got it and how, in theory at least, he could save himself.

He explains that as a pianist in a band he used to have as many girls as he liked. Now he has abscesses under his right arm and one of his testicles has been removed. But the drugs he really needs he cannot get. 'Vuka Kwabifile' is how they describe anti-retrovirals: 'Wake up from the dying.'

Not many are being saved from the dying. South Africa's Constitutional Court has ordered the authorities to administer anti-retrovirals to pregnant mothers and their newborns to block transmission, but the syrup by which the drugs are administered is not available in Mpumalanga.

Rape victims get anti-retrovirals immediately after an attack, but if they are found to be HIV-positive treatment stops. Barbara Kenyon, who runs a counselling service for rape and HIV/Aids victims, says they have seen an extraordinary turnaround in the incidence of rape.

She attributes this to the myth that HIV/Aids sufferers can be cured if they have sex with a virgin. Kenyon recalls how a senior policeman who recently overheard her rebutting the widespread belief interrupted her. 'But it does!' he said.

 

[Arheel's Uncle]

PRETORIA -- President Bush launched his global AIDS program yesterday by awarding multimillion-dollar grants to four US-based institutions, including $107 million to Harvard's School of Public Health, to treat those suffering from the deadly virus in three African nations.

ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY