• 25 million: number of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS since 1981
• 2.5 million: number of HIV-related deaths averted by antiretroviral treatment (ART) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) since 1995
• 34 million: number of people living with HIV worldwide at the end of 2010
• 3.4 million: number of children under 15 years living with HIV
• 68%: percentage of HIV-positive persons living in sub-Saharan Africa
• 2.7 million: number of new HIV infections worldwide in 2010, a 21% decrease from 1997
• 50%: worldwide percentage of HIV-infected persons who aware of their status
• 96%: reduction in sexual transmission of HIV between serodiscordant partners with antiretroviral therapy observed in the HPTN052 trial

• 61%: percentage of new HIV infections in the United States occurring among men who have sex with men (MSMs) as of 2009
• 44%: percentage of new HIV infections in the United States occurring among Blacks as of 2009
• 2%: Adult HIV prevalence in Baltimore city in 2009; adult HIV prevalence in Haiti in 2009
• 5%: Adult HIV prevalence in Baltimore zip code 21205, directly northeast of the Johns Hopkins medical campus, in 2009; adult HIV prevalence in Gabon in 2009
• 37.5%: HIV prevalence among MSMs in Baltimore city; the proportion of new HIV infections among MSMs in Baltimore has increased to nearly the same levels as in 1985
• 76.9%: percentage of HIV-infected MSMs in Baltimore city who are unaware of their status
• 312: Median CD4 count at HIV diagnosis in the Baltimore-Towson metropolitan area (current guidelines recommend initiating ART at CD4 counts 350-500)
• 6,411: Number of HIV-positive people in the United States currently on AIDS drugs assistance program (ADAP) waiting lists

• 6.65 million: number of HIV-infected people currently receiving ART in low- and middle-income countries
• 3.3 million: number of people currently receiving ART through Global Fund grants
• $2.2 billion: unfulfilled pledges to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
• 2: number of countries (USA and UK) that have honored their pledges to the Global Fund

• ZERO: number of new grants that will be awarded by the Global Fund for the next two years in response to budget shortfall; UNAIDS goal by 2015 (0 new infections, 0 discrimination, 0 AIDS-related deaths)

Thirty years ago, in New York and San Francisco, a small number of young men became inexplicably and very seriously ill. Some had a particular cancer while others had a form of pneumonia that had never before troubled that age group. Their immune systems were shot, their bodies unable to fight back, and they died. They were the first documented cases of Aids, a new disease that would terrify entire populations as it scythed down rich and poor, celebrity and nonentity. Rock Hudson. Freddie Mercury. Arthur Ashe. And thousands whose names were known only to those who loved them.

Today, on World Aids Day, the disease is still incurable – but not untreatable. After years of intense scientific effort, huge sums of money, and some of the most effective health campaigning ever seen, people who become infected with the HIV virus can live normal lives, albeit on daily medication. In the more comfortable regions of the UK, the US and Europe you hardly hear about it. Yet among the deprived and the marginalised, the numbers are still growing.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been the campaigners’ focus for more than 10 years. To everyone’s enormous credit, the rate of infection and deaths has slowed as drugs that used to be the sole property of rich countries have been rolled out in cheaply manufactured versions to the developing world.

The great news this year is that scientists have now tentatively offered us a way to end Aids. Studies in recent months have shown that the drugs that keep people alive also stop them infecting others. A man who is on a standard combination of three antiretroviral drugs is 96% less likely to transmit HIV to his partner. That news has fired up all those working against Aids.

Three weeks ago Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, stoked the excitement, offering to lead the world towards the goal of “an Aids-free generation”. Politicians pick their fights. Science, she said, had shown this one is winnable, with drugs to prevent people infecting their partners, the same drugs to prevent mothers passing the virus to their babies in childbirth, and male circumcision, which also reduces the risk for men.

But in the last week the champagne bubbles have gone flat. The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan a decade ago, has cancelled its next funding round. Developing countries need not apply – there is no cash. A year ago, when the fund asked for $20bn, donors coughed up just $11.7bn and the money has not been much boosted since. If this were not so deadly serious it would be absurd. As Clinton declares the end of Aids is nigh with one massive last push, the donor governments, mostly in Europe, sit on their wallets. HIV/Aids has gone out of favour. It is said to have had too large a share of the cake in years gone by – although perhaps the overall cake for developing world health would have been smaller without it.

Europe’s economic crisis is also to blame, of course, and so is bad publicity over some grants that fell into corrupt hands in Africa – although reforms are under way and the UK still gives the fund an A1 value-for-money rating.

But what is being overlooked as donors quit, claiming they have already done enough, is not only the opportunity of an Aids-free generation, but also our moral responsibility to those now on treatment and those who need it.

Take Malawi, a country that has performed wonders against HIV/Aids. More than 90% of its funding comes from the Global Fund. It has managed to put 76% of all those who need it on treatment, decentralising care so that nurses instead of doctors can start administering the drugs. It wants to start all pregnant women on drugs for life, instead of offering them a short course around childbirth.

Malawi had its grant application turned down last year. Cash-strapped even then, the fund said its plan was too ambitious. And there will be no grant approval next year, either. Suddenly there are real fears. Those people already on drugs must stay on them – or their virus will become resistant and they will need new, more expensive drugs to stay alive. The fund is talking about provision for “essential needs”, but nobody knows what that means.

Zimbabwe, Kenya and Congo are among the others whose plans to put more people on drugs will fail without money. How can this be the right time to let the Global Fund founder? There are more than 6 million people in poor countries on the drugs now – but just as many are still in need, and many more will soon join the waiting lists. Without treatment and continuing effort, three decades of progress could be reversed.

From “The Guardian” by Sarah Boseley

Source: http://gu.com/p/33mhb

November 13-15 marked the 2011 Global Health Conference, co-hosted for the first time by the Global Health Education Consortium, the http://www.cugh.org/, and the Canadian Society for International Health. Many of the sessions focused on issues surrounding education and research/healthcare workforce, but the range of topics was very broad, from a rousing presentation of scientific breakthroughs in HIV prevention and treatment featuring Tom Quinn (JHU/NIH) and Myron Cohen (UNC) to discussions on how to approach the ethical challenges often faced in international projects.

For those who couldn’t make the trip up north, do not despair, the folks at CUGH have put together a great blog with summaries of all the sessions, as well as videos of all the plenary sessions and a few breakouts as well. Enjoy!

Besides the fact that their flyer includes data from the HPTN 052 trial (the subject of our first symposium of the year) and a quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci (the main speaker for our next advertised event of the year), there are many reasons to become involved in AMSA’s End in Sight Campaign.  With World AIDS Day just around the corner (December 1st), the International AIDS Society coming to Washington, D.C. in July this summer for their 19th biennial conference (the XIX International AIDS Conference, or “AIDS 2012″), and exciting progress being made in the realms of HIV prevention and treatment, it is an exciting time to get involved in HIV science and advocacy.  It is worth emphasizing that we now have all the technologies to rapidly screen people for HIV, disrupt the replication of virus in their bodies (“undetectable” viral levels are now the gold standard in HIV care), and thereby dramatically improve their lives and reduce their ability to transmit the virus to others at the same time with Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART).  Please take a moment to consider writing to congress, publishing an editorial in your local paper, and/or other avenues of advocacy by visiting the End in Sight website.  Let’s come together to make HIV a thing of the past.

Our first Tri-School Global Health Mixer took place on Thursday, October 20th at Johnny Rads in Baltimore.  The mixer was between the Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing and their respective global health student organizations: the Global Health Interest Group (GHIG) at the SOM, the J.B. Grant International Health Society at the SPH, and Nursing Students in Global Health (NSIGH) at the SON.  We ended up packing the place and everyone had a lot of fun–let’s hope this is the start of a tradition!  A special thanks to everyone involved in the planning, including Becky McKibben, Susan Matesanz, and Bilal Khan (SOM), Jenny McManus (SPH), and Katrina Reiser (SON).

In our first Journal Club of the school year for the Global Health Interest Group (GHIG), we discussed a recent JAMA article by M.J. Friedrich on the human rights crisis in Bahrain in which health care workers were abducted and interrogated following an anti-government protest. With the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine class of 2015 joining the GHIG discussion for the first time, there was general consensus that this incident was a clear governmental breach of medical neutrality and human rights. From this point, much of the conversation was over the role of physicians abroad, and how future physicians should view their responsibility in the global arena. A debate formed over whether physicians should report human rights violations when they see them or remain neutral and provide only medical care. An example of the latter was the Red Cross, which is able to work in several countries with restricted access because of its adherence to disaster relief  and medical care without political involvement. However, many felt that the dual role of being a physician and a global citizen motivated them to report human rights violations. A similar situation was presented from the United States in which physicians must straddle the dual role of treating a patient while being a social advocate when a situation like child abuse is observed. All in all, it was a lively discussion that began a dialogue among participants about what their own role as medical students would be in global health when faced with situations such as that in Bahrain.

This report echos similar findings of the persecution of healthcare workers which PHR documented last spring in Bahrain.

These reports are painting a disturbing picture of a suspension of major international norms surrounding healthcare and healthcare workers in the time of conflict across the Middle East.