Getting to Zero: HIV by the numbers

• 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)

Hopkins’s drug problem

Hey y’all, I have been totally delinquent in posting this, but here’s brief shout-out to our friends at the Hopkins chapter of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, whose October 14, 2010 Op-Ed in the  Baltimore Sun highlights our university’s lagging leadership in promoting access to the medical technologies developed by its researchers. With President Ron Daniels touting the university’s commitment and achievements in global health, the piece points to a significant gap in that commitment.

I would love to know what you think about the article and universities’ role in promoting access to medicines. Should this even be a university’s concern/mission? How far should can/should universities go in defining and fulfilling their responsibilities to global communities? Holla back!

Summer Issue of The Globe

The summer issue of The Globe, the magazine of the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is now available online and in print.

See here: http://www.jhsph.edu/dept/ih/news/summer2010/

Check it out! The issue focuses on the Department’s work in Nepal and the Nepal Nutritional Intervention Project-Sarlahi (NNIPS)

Thanks to Dr. Maria Merritt for the tip!

In Memoriam: Carl Taylor

The key to the whole program is the empowerment of women in the greatest need. Helping those women to take leadership: defining their own problems, and actually doing something about them” – Carl Taylor, 2008

Carl Taylor

He helped to establish international health as an academic discipline in the U.S. He authored a study–the first of its kind– connecting malnutrition to infectious disease. He conducted research in more than 70 countries, and outlined some of the foundational tenets of public health research. Dr. Halfdan Mahler, former WHO Director General, called him “the greatest public health expert I have come across.” When Carl Taylor passed away in February 2010, he left an incredible impact on the world — both a rigorous researcher and humanitarian, he is missed not only here at Hopkins (his academic home for almost fifty years), but across the global community.

In honor of today’s  Carl Taylor memorial lecture (cf. Mariam’s announcement), I wanted to share this video, Professor Taylor’s final interview with Global Health TV.