KAISER DAILY HIV/AIDS REPORT
A service of kaisernetwork.org
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/hiv
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Wednesday, June 4, 2003

POLITICS AND POLICY
========================================
1. HHS Secretary Thompson, U.N. Secretary-General Annan Urge Nations To
Increase Contributions to Global Fund


GLOBAL CHALLENGES
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2. Chile, Global Fund Sign $13.6 Million Grant for AIDS Treatment,
Prevention Programs

3. AIDS Advocates Hold Congressional Briefing, Conference Call on AIDS
Orphans

4. Hepatitis C Epidemic in Egypt Result of Improperly Sterilized Needles
Used in Government Bilharzia Treatment Campaign


PUBLIC HEALTH & EDUCATION
========================================
5. Surviving Members of TLC Launch 'Dialogues' HIV/AIDS Education Initiative

6. Washington Post Profiles Baltimore, Md.-Based HIV/STD Prevention
Outreach Program Aimed at Sex Workers

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POLITICS AND POLICY

1. HHS Secretary Thompson, U.N. Secretary-General Annan Urge Nations To
Increase Contributions to Global Fund

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18070

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson yesterday, on the eve of his first board
meeting as chair of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, urged other nations to match the U.S. commitment to fighting
HIV/AIDS, USA Today reports. "We are active players, we are going to
continue to be active players, and we want other members of the world
community also to shoulder the burden," Thompson said (Sternberg, USA
Today, 6/4). Although the five-year, $15 billion global AIDS bill (HR
1298) recently signed into law by President Bush authorizes up to $1
billion to go to the Global Fund, the amount actually appropriated may be
less and is contingent upon the contributions of other countries. Under the
measure, the United States can contribute up to $1 billion to the fund only
if that amount totals no more than one-third of the fund's total
contributions. Therefore, in order for the total $1 billion to be
appropriated, other nations must contribute more money (Kaiser Daily
HIV/AIDS Report, 5/27). Thompson said that he and U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan plan to lead a delegation of corporate executives, entrepreneurs
and others on a trip to Africa this fall. "If I can get people to travel
to Africa and actually see some of the orphans ... that is the best way I
can get them to see the problem and contribute," Thompson said (Fox,
Reuters/Yahoo! News, 6/3). At the G8 Summit on Monday in Evian, France,
Annan pressed world leaders to contribute more to the fund (PlusNews, 6/3).
Thompson yesterday also announced that he would not stay for a second term
as HHS secretary if Bush is reelected in 2004. When asked if he planned to
stay on through 2004, Thompson said, "I would think the fact that I'm here
taking on the Global Fund, building a new command center, going to Africa,
is a pretty good indication I'm going to be here for awhile. Let's leave
it at that" (AP/St. Paul Pioneer Press, 6/4).

GLOBAL CHALLENGES

2. Chile, Global Fund Sign $13.6 Million Grant for AIDS Treatment,
Prevention Programs

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18071

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos at the Presidential Palace in Santiago on
Monday signed a $13.6 million grant agreement with the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to accelerate the country's HIV/AIDS
prevention and treatment programs, according to a Global Fund release. The
grant, which will be disbursed over the next two years, will be used to
increase the provision of antiretroviral therapy, "ensuring 100% access" to
medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS. In addition, the grant will be
used to improve integrated health care for HIV-positive people; prevent
mother-to-child HIV transmission; increase prevention activities; and
"support alliance building between HIV-positive people and the public,
private and nongovernmental sectors in order to reduce stigma and
discrimination," according to the release. The signing marks the
conclusion of the Global Fund's $71.35 million first round of grant
agreements for five countries in the Caribbean and Central and South
American region. A second round of grants is being negotiated and is
expected to bring $95 million to seven additional countries in Latin
America (Global Fund release, 6/2).
3. AIDS Advocates Hold Congressional Briefing, Conference Call on AIDS
Orphans

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18072

Leading AIDS advocates and pop star Alicia Keys on Tuesday participated in
a congressional briefing on the need to assist children affected by
HIV/AIDS, appropriate money to fund the global AIDS bill recently signed by
President Bush and discuss the upcoming board meeting of the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, according to a Hope for African
Children Initiative release. The briefing, which was sponsored by HACI,
was moderated by Center for Strategic and International Studies Director
Dr. Stephen Morrison and included U.N. Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa
Stephen Lewis and HACI Executive Director Dr. Pat Youri. Before the
briefing, Lewis and Youri were joined by South African Archbishop Desmond
Tutu and Columbia University Earth Institute Director Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in
a telephone press conference call addressing the issues (Hope for African
Children Initiative release, 6/3). "The continent is bleeding," Youri
said, adding that Africa has approximately 11 million AIDS orphans, a
figure that could almost double in the next 10 years if nothing is done to
address the epidemic. Tutu, a "longtime campaigner" on behalf of AIDS
issues, appealed to Western governments to increase their contributions to
AIDS prevention and treatment programs and to African governments,
including his own, to "take the AIDS epidemic more seriously" and to
provide antiretroviral medications, according to Reuters/Yahoo! News
(Pleming, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 6/3). The briefing was sponsored by Rep.
Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) (HACI release, 6/2).

A kaisernetwork.org HealthCast of the briefing will be available online by
12 p.m. today.
4. Hepatitis C Epidemic in Egypt Result of Improperly Sterilized Needles
Used in Government Bilharzia Treatment Campaign

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18073

Salon.com on Monday profiled the hepatitis C epidemic in Egypt, which
public health experts believe was unintentionally spread through the use of
improperly sterilized needles during a government campaign to treat an
outbreak of bilharzia, a waterborne disease that can cause bladder cancer
and death. The anti-bilharzia campaign was conducted starting in the 1920s
and ramped up in the 1960s, years before the hepatitis C virus was
identified in 1989. Hepatitis C, which is three to four times as prevalent
as HIV worldwide, has not received much attention as a major public health
issue, and the World Health Organization predicts that its prevalence will
continue to climb until between 2015 and 2035. In Egypt, an estimated 12%
to 15% of the population carries the virus, which is a "viral time bomb,"
since most people do not realize that they are infected, according to
Salon.com. HCV leads to serious complications such as cirrhosis and
end-stage liver disease in 20% of patients, while between 20% and 50% of
patients seem to be able to nearly rid themselves of the virus. In a
predicament similar to that of HIV, treatment for hepatitis C is
prohibitively expensive in Egypt -- $20,000 for an antiviral regimen and
hundreds of thousands of dollars for liver transplants -- and is hindered
by an unwillingness to get tested until the late stages of the disease and
cultural taboos encouraging fatalism about contracting the virus, Salon.com
reports (MacKeen, Salon.com, 6/2).

PUBLIC HEALTH & EDUCATION

5. Surviving Members of TLC Launch 'Dialogues' HIV/AIDS Education Initiative

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18074

Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas of the R&B group TLC on
Tuesday helped to launch Agouron Pharmaceuticals' national HIV/AIDS
education initiative, "Dialogues: Education and Treatment for a Well
Planned Future" (CBS News.com, 6/3). The Dialogues program, which offers
basic HIV information and tools to patients so they can work with their
doctors to "get involved in their own care," was started by the Association
of Nurses in AIDS Care, the American Public Health Association and the
National Association of AIDS Education and Training Centers, in association
with Agouron Pharmaceuticals, a Pfizer company. The program provides free
printed materials, which can be ordered by phone or online, that offer
"easy-to-understand" HIV/AIDS information and "quick-reference" materials,
including medical term definitions. Thomas said, "When you access the
program, you'll learn what you need to know to talk to your doctor and set
up a strategy for living with HIV, which is a plan to keep you here"
(Dialogues release, 6/3). In December, the first recipient of the Lisa
Lopes AIDS Scholarship, named in memory of the third member of TLC, Lisa
"Left Eye" Lopes, who died in a car accident, was announced. Health
experts from the Kaiser Family Foundation, AIDS Action, SIECUS, Advocates
for Youth and LIFEbeat, as well as the remaining members of TLC and MTV
executives, select recipients of the scholarship. The scholarship is
sponsored by LIFEbeat and MTV as part of its "Fight for Your Rights:
Protect Yourself" campaign (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/11).
6. Washington Post Profiles Baltimore, Md.-Based HIV/STD Prevention
Outreach Program Aimed at Sex Workers

Access this story and related links online:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18075

The Washington Post on Tuesday profiled YANA, or You Are Never Alone, a
Baltimore, Md.-based not-for-profit organization that promotes the
"collective healing and survival" of female sex workers. The group,
founded in 1996 by social worker Sid Ford, helps hundreds of women each
year by providing pamphlets on sexually transmitted diseases and free
condoms, as well as other outreach services, to men and women. The "condom
ladies" of YANA -- former prostitutes who distribute the condoms and
information on the streets of Baltimore -- recently completed a 10-session
AIDS education program called the SISTA, or Sistas Informing Sistas About
Topics on AIDS, Project. The program was funded with a $52,000 grant from
the Maryland AIDS Administration, which targets Baltimore because the city
accounts for more than half the HIV/AIDS cases in the state, according to
Liza Solomon, the administration's director. The YANA approach, which is
"part of a wider 'harm reduction' philosophy'" that has "gained credence"
among many people who work with sex workers, is similar to that of a group
in Washington, D.C., called HIPS, or Helping Individual Prostitutes
Survive. Cyndee Clay, HIPS' executive director, said, "Leaving the streets
is a process, not an event. Harm reduction celebrates the steps within the
process." Currently, YANA is preparing to apply for another grant from the
state AIDS administration and is looking to "continue and even expand" work
with the SISTA Project, the Post reports (Otto, Washington Post, 6/3).

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