AIDS Fund Raising: November 2006 Archives

GENEVA (AFP) - Several charities have accused rich countries of undermining a World Trade Organisation agreement to improve access for the world's poorest people to cheaper drugs against diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

The rules were set up by the WTO's 149 members at Doha, Qatar in 2001 to grant poor nations threatened by serious diseases a temporary exemption from international laws protecting intellectual property rights on medicines.

The British charity Oxfam said developed countries had done "nothing or very little" to meet their obligations and had even undermined the agreement in some cases.

PARAMARIBO, Suriname: Promising additional funds if necessary, the Netherlands has donated 303,300 euros towards several HIV/AIDS projects in Suriname.

At the signing ceremony Tuesday in Paramaribo, Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation, Agnes van Ardenne, stressed the importance of the fight against the deadly disease. “I am very pleased to sign these documents and the Netherlands is willing to donate more funds if necessary,” said the Dutch official.

Suriname's acting Minister of Health, Michel Felisi, stressed the importance of minimising the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS. The funds donated to the National AIDS Program (NAP) are to be utilised for activities to combat stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV and AIDS.

The deaths of three HIV-positive people on the waiting list of South Carolina's AIDS Drug Assistance Program -- a federal- and state-funded program that provides HIV/AIDS-related medications to low-income, uninsured and underinsured HIV-positive individuals -- highlights the need for an emergency increase in federal funds for the program, the HIV/AIDS advocacy group Title II Community AIDS National Network said recently, CQ HealthBeat reports (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 11/7).

According to TII CANN, there are more than 200 South Carolina residents on the state's ADAP waiting list. About 1,800 HIV-positive people are enrolled in South Carolina's ADAP. Sixty-seven percent of the clients are black, and 85% have incomes lower than 200% of the federal poverty level, which is about $19,000 annually, according to TII CANN.

The state's waiting list is the longest in the country. Carmen Julious, director of Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services, said South Carolina's ADAP would need $3 million to move everyone from the waiting list by June 2007 and an additional $8 million by 2008 (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 11/7). 

Global Fund International has approved $67m (Frw361.8bn) project proposals for Rwanda to control HIV/Aids and Tuberculosis (TB). According to sources, the approval follows the submission of three project proposals worth $76m (approxFrw410.4b) early this year.
 
Efforts to get a comment from Dr Innocent Nyaruhirira, the State Minister in charge of Aids and Other Infectious Diseases over the development were fruitless by press time.

ut a source in the Ministry of Health confirmed the approval of the two project proposals, saying they covered the next five years.Shakilla Umutoni, a member of the Global Fund Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs) for Rwanda, said: “When we met as members of CCM-Rwanda, we had so many proposals under each programme (HIV/Aids, TB and Malaria). But as the Global Fund required, we had to fuse them all up or even drop others to come up with three of them.”

GENEVA (AFP) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it had failed to choose a new executive director among five candidates and would renew its search, postponing a decision until April 2007.

The administrative Board, meeting this week in Guatamala, "could not reach consensus," said Board President Carol Jacobs in a statement.

"The new executive director will need strong and broad support to accomplish our life-saving mission. The Board has therefore decided to continue the search process, with the goal of identifying and appointing a new Executive Director by its next Board meeting in April 2007," the statement said.

The term of the current executive director of the Fund, Richard Feachem, comes to an end in March 2007.

Baltimore could lose more than half of its HIV/AIDS federal funding if the Ryan White CARE Act -- which provides funding for HIV/AIDS programs in the U.S. -- is not reauthorized by the end of 2006, local officials said Monday, the Baltimore Sun reports. According to the Sun, the CARE Act is the region's primary funding source for HIV/AIDS services (Bor, Baltimore Sun, 10/31).

Congress last month adjourned without the Senate passing a measure to reauthorize the CARE Act. Five senators, including some from New Jersey and New York, blocked Senate consideration of a House-approved bill (HR 6143) sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) that would change CARE Act funding formulas so that rural areas experiencing increasing numbers of HIV/AIDS cases receive higher funding amounts, which would decrease funding allocated to urban areas.

Some legislators from states with large urban areas -- including California, New Jersey and New York -- have opposed measures that would change CARE Act funding formulas, saying they could harm HIV/AIDS programs in areas with higher HIV prevalence (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 10/17). 

A new drug for HIV/Aids sufferers will reduce side-effects and simplify pill regimes, the New Zealand Aids Foundation says.

The once-a-day protease inhibitor atazanavir (Reyataz) will be funded by Pharmac from today.

Protease inhibitors are taken to stop the HIV virus from reproducing.

Pharmac medical director Peter Moodie said HIV patients usually took a combination of different drugs, which had to be changed as people grew resistant to them.