News (Updated
January 8, 2012)
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Wed, Dec 21 2011
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
But even though the number
of new HIV infections in
This is not due to a lack
of cash -
"Working on drug
dependency is more effective than needle exchange and methadone programs,"
said Alexei Mazus, who heads the Moscow Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention, one of
around 100 such venues across the country run by the health ministry.
In areas where needle
exchanges have taken place, he said the health ministry had seen new HIV cases
increase, not fall.
The United Nations says
so-called "harm reduction" programs - needle exchanges, and using
methadone as a substitute for heroin - are effective in slowing the spread of
HIV. Methadone reduces the risk of infection by dirty needles because it can be
swallowed, rather than injected.
A major WHO study found
HIV rates fell more than 18 percent in cities with needle exchanges, while they
rose 8 percent in areas that did not have them. The British and
Projects such as giving
drug users and sex workers clean needles, HIV awareness training and medication
have been funded by the United Nations in
Some health workers and
global HIV authorities are angered and baffled by
"When a few programs
were funded and running it was then difficult to see how things could get worse.
Now we know," Damon Barrett, a senior human rights analyst at Harm
Reduction International in
RICH
Separated from world no. 1
opium producer
This year, Russian health
officials estimate 62,000 people were newly infected with HIV, a 10 percent
increase on 2010 and the upper limit of a prediction made last year by the
International AIDS Society. Officially,
The UN puts the number of
people living with HIV today in
Since 2004, NGOs in
This is for two reasons,
says Nicolas Cantau, fund portfolio manager for
BROKEN PROMISE
At a United Nations
meeting in
A spokesman for the health
ministry said
Some health workers are
incensed.
"As it turns out,
they were tricking us," said Anya Sarang, who heads the Andrey Rylkov
Foundation for Health and Social Justice, a small Russian NGO. "Now we are
in the final month of the year. Have they actually done anything? No,"
Sarang said.
The Global Fund's Cantau
is dismayed. "All the things that we have done will be lost without further
funding," he says. "It is disappointing".
PREVENTION BY COUNSEL
No funds will go to needle
exchanges. Instead,
Mazus, the head of the
Moscow Centre, said HIV sufferers need to grieve through counseling, which will
also prevent them from passing on the disease to others.
"HIV is a behavioral
disease. It's not being transferred in everyday life. It is not dangerous,"
he told Reuters.
Such views are scorned by
foreign health bodies.
Instead of making good its
June promise,
"AGGRESSION"
Concerns have spread
beyond health workers. On World AIDS Day, December 1, a drug-users' network
organized protests at 12 Russian embassies from
Hundreds of protesters
rallied and held candles, some holding signs accusing the state of murder for
its refusal to legalize methadone, while others held large red banners heaping
shame on
The protests' coordinator,
Erin O'Mara, also editor of "Black Poppy", a British magazine for drug
users, said "the spotlight was on
In
Some foreign health
workers in
"It will be very
tough to find money. We fear that the state's funding for HIV will be
pre-awarded," said Yelena Agapova, from the AIDS Foundation East-West
(AFEW), a Dutch organization set up in
Like dozens of NGOs in
Though its
Harm Reduction
International's Barrett says the impact will be catastrophic: "It is a
human disaster that Russian authorities are willing to watch unfold," he
said.
(Additional reporting by
Catherine Koppel; Editing by Sara Ledwith)
Fri, Jan 6 2012
PARIS (Reuters) - The
Global Fund, a wealthy medical charity, on Friday dismissed as "inexact and
misleading" a magazine report of alleged financial misconduct implicating
French first lady Carla Bruni, who is one of its ambassadors.
The Geneva-based fund
issued the statement after the French magazine Marianne said in an article the
fund had awarded $3.5 million of contracts to companies controlled by a musician
friend of Bruni, the wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, at her request.
The multi-billion-dollar
fund, set up 10 years ago to combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, issued the
money without a public tender, Marianne said.
"The article makes
several allegations that are groundless regarding a campaign that the Fund
launched in 2010 with the backing of Mme Bruni-Sarkozy," its statement
said.
Sarkozy's office declined
to comment, saying it had nothing to add to the statement from the Global Fund.
The focus of the story is
an AIDS awareness campaign called Born HIV Free which the fund said cost a total
of $2.8 million and which allowed it to leverage further support worth $20.4
million in the form of free advertising and creative work by media partners.
A Global Fund official
said Bruni had asked a friend, Julien Civange, to represent her and develop a
concept of how entertainment could be used to publicise the AIDS fight.
Based on Civange's idea,
the Fund agreed to pay him and four employees 580,000 euros over 18 months to
develop a campaign, in accordance with the fund's rules which allow
non-competitive contracting when an individual has a proprietary idea.
"As part of this
process, Mr Civange brought in pro-bono contributions worth $20.4 million
through free media placements, advertising and creative work," said the
official.
Bruni, a singer and former
supermodel who married Sarkozy in early 2008, was appointed "first
ambassador" in the same year of the Global Fund. Her husband was elected in
2007 and is widely expected to run for a second term in an election less than
four months from now.
The Global Fund, a
public-private partnership, was set up in 2002 and says it has saved 7.7 million
lives with funding for AIDS treatment and programmes worldwide to fight malaria
and tuberculosis.
(Reporting By Brian Love
and Patrick Vignal; Editing by Jon Boyle)
(AFP) – 5 Jan., 2012
It estimates that in 2009
between 149 and 271 million people used an illegal drug.
Cannabis users comprised
between 125 and 203 million; users of opioids (heroin and morphine),
amphetamines or cocaine totalled 15 to 39 million; and those who injected drugs
numbered between 11 and 21 million.
Drug use is more prevalent
in rich economies and in drug-producing regions of poor countries and is often a
major health burden, the paper adds.
"Cannabis use is
associated with dependence and mental disorders, including psychoses, but does
not seem to substantially increase mortality," it says.
"Illicit opioid use
is a major cause of mortality from fatal overdose and dependence," it says,
adding that injecting drug users faced specific threats of catching HIV and
hepatitis by sharing needles.
All three types of drugs
seem to be associated with higher rates of mental disorders, road accidents and
violence, although information about this is often sketchy.
The estimate is based on
data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), from national surveys and
peer-reviewed studies into the impact of drug use.
Ecstasy, LSD, non-medical
use of prescription drugs and anabolic steroids are not included in the
estimate.
Copyright © 2012