AIDS-Related Deaths on the Rise in Middle East and North Africa

Posted December 2, 2014

Rates of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths are rising faster in the Middle East and North Africa than anywhere else globally, says the latest data from UNAIDS. From IRIN:

According to the latest data available from the Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), there are 230,000 people living with HIV in the 21 countries that make up the organization’s definition of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

This is still a very low prevalence of 0.1 percent – compared to parts of southern Africa where one in four people have HIV. Yet while the most-affected regions are now reducing their new infection rates and AIDS-related deaths, and increasing their treatment reach, the opposite is happening in MENA.

In 2013 the region lost 15,000 people to the disease, a 66 percent increase on 2005, and despite new infections declining globally by 38 percent since 2001, in MENA they have risen over the same period

“It’s not the absolute level of HIV in the region that we should be concerned about – serious though it is – but it’s the slope of the growth curve that is alarming,” said Shereen El Feki, a leading HIV activist and former vice-chair of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law.

“For the moment HIV in MENA is a concentrated epidemic among certain key populations – such as men-who-have-sex-with-men, female sex workers, people who use drugs,” she explained. “They are engaged in practices and behaviours that are socially and religiously condemned, and in the vast majority of countries in the region, all three are illegal.”

“These populations are in the shadows, and governments have difficulties engaging with them because even if the Ministry of Health stretches out one hand, then the Ministry of Interior may stretch out the other and put them in prison,” El Feki, the author of Sex and the Citadel, a book exploring sexuality in the Arab world, added.

—————————————-

Global Health and Development Beat

One of South Africa’s largest AIDS awareness groups said the country’s response to the disease is beginning to stall.

Liberia and Guinea have met a Dec. 1 target for isolating 70 percent of people infected with Ebola and safely burying 70 percent of those who die, the World Health Organization said Monday.

In Africa, the fight against stigma goes right to the top. For an African politician who is HIV-positive to be open about their status is still seen as electoral suicide. Campaigners say a lack of prominent role models is hampering their efforts to change attitudes.

More than 3,300 people were tested for HIV Sunday in the Ethiopian region of Gambella, a massive turnout that exceeded expectations among AIDS campaigners who had hoped to test 2,000 people, according to local officials.

As South Africa joins the rest of the world in commemorating World AIDS Day, experts say women below the age of 25 in the country have a high HIV infection rate and studies show they are getting the virus from older men.

The Chair of the UK government’s HIV and AIDS committee says the failure to get drugs to low and middle-income countries is a ‘tragedy of epic proportions.’

Three people have died from H5N1 bird flu in Egypt in the past week, bringing the death toll in the country this year to six, the Egyptian health ministry said on Monday.

A lack of funds has forced the United Nations to stop providing food vouchers for 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, the World Food Programme said on Monday.

WHO targets on isolating Ebola patients and medical burials were missed in Sierra Leone as an NGO warns the virus has reduced country to ‘a nation of mere beggars.’

—————————————-

Spotlight on PSI

Two World AIDS day-related highlights come from the Impact blog on Monday. First up is an explanation of PSI’s new partnership with UNITAID:

With the support of UNITAID, Population Services International (PSI) and its partners, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, University College London and the World Health Organization, will conduct the world’s largest evaluation of HIV self-testing to date. In Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, PSI and partners will pilot HIV self-testing models among different populations. Over the course of the two-year project, nearly 750,000 self-test kits will be distributed.

These pilots will generate crucial information about how to distribute self-test products effectively, ethically and efficiently, and will answer key questions about the feasibility, acceptability and impact of this intervention. The project will use these results, and other emerging evidence, to support the establishment of appropriate policy and to encourage new manufacturers to enter the self-test market. At the end of two years, the self-test market will be poised to dramatically increase access to HIV testing and impact HIV prevention, care and treatment goals.

In a fun post, Regina Moore highlights some of PSI’s work and condom fashion (that is not a mistake). Here are some of the highlights:

During Mozambique fashion week in 2013, PSI Mozambique’s female condom brand, Jeitosa, challenged designers to create runway looks out of condoms. PSI Mozambique used this opportunity to reach women and men with important health information about the female condom. We think Tim would be proud.
Society for Family Health (SFH), PSI’s network member in Zambia, closed out a five year USAID project in September of this year with a bang. To thank the government and supporters for their efforts and showcase the project’s great work, SFH held a celebration where people dressed to impress.
In Cameroon, PSI’s network member l’Association Camerounaise pour le Marketing Social (ACMS) took their looks international. Jetting to Melbourne, Australia for the 20^thInternational AIDS Conference, ACMS wowed visitors to their booth in the Global Village with stunning outfits and the accessories to match.

Of course there are pictures for all three examples! Check them out here.

—————————————-

Buzzing in the Blogs

The Goats and Soda blog from NPR delves into the science behind the spread of Ebola and why it does not get very far through the air. An excerpt:

Here’s an Ebola puzzle for you: If the virus isn’t airborne, why do doctors and nurses need to wear full protective suits, with face masks, while treating patients?

After we dug through studies and talked to scientists, the answer slowly emerged.

Ebola does spread through the air. But not through the airborne route.

Oh goodness! No wonder there’s been such a kerfuffle about how the virus is transmitted.

The story began quite innocently at Harvard University way back in the 1930s. William Wells was a hotshot engineer there at the time. And he was figuring out a slew of important ideas about infectious disease, like the fact that UV light kills bacteria.

One day in 1933, Wells discovered that pathogens (he was studying bacteria) get trapped in tiny droplets of fluid — maybe some mucus when you sneeze or some saliva when you cough. The pathogens stay alive in the fluid and can move through the air inside these droplets.

Clearly this is one way infections spread. But Wells didn’t stop there.

He knew that liquid drops don’t last for long in the air. They take one of two courses:

1. Large droplets fall to the ground because of gravity. (Just like rain)

2. Small drops start evaporating as they fall. Eventually, they become so light that they float in the air. (Just like fog).

“It appears, therefore, that transmission of infection through air may take on of two forms depending upon the size of the infected droplet,” Wells wrote in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1934.