HIV/AIDS AND POVERTY

The crucial link between HIV/AIDS and poverty continues to be a theme of U.S. and international media coverage, connecting maternal and infant mortality, children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and worldwide funding to combat the epidemic. HIV/AIDS experts agree that while steep price cuts for anti-retroviral drugs by some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies were an "important and welcome step," the move will have a limited effect until a host of other issues are dealt with. These include "combating the grinding poverty that makes almost any charge unaffordable, creating a health care infrastructure to deliver the drugs and monitor their use, and educating people about HIV/AIDS," according to The Washington Post June 12. In addition to the United Nations' Global AIDS Fund, another effort, a 53-nation continental body called the African Union, was launched to promote peace and combat poverty and HIV/AIDS, according to a June 11 Agence France Presse story. link

HIV/AIDS trends reflect the epidemic's effect on world population. According to the latest chart from the UN Population Division, five developing countries have at least 2 million people living with AIDS/HIV: Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Life expectancy is projected to drop by at least 17 years by 2005 in South Africa, the Associated Press reported June 7. India is "teetering on the brink of becoming another sub-Saharan Africa" in its HIV/AIDS infections, Newsweek asserted June 11. According to the World Health Organization's latest figures, 3,860,000 Indian men, women and children were carrying the HIV/AIDS virus at the end of 2000 - second only to South Africa's 4.2 million infected people. In the Cote d'Ivoire, some 600,000 children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS, Minister of Family, Women and Children Henriette Lagou said in a report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, as reported in a story disseminated by Africa News. http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010607/22/un-aids
http://www.msnbc.com/news/581963.asp
http://allafrica.com/stories/200106070309.html

Funding the global HIV/AIDS fight continues to be debated in the United States. While applauding the administration's recent $200 million contribution to a global trust fund to fight HIV/AIDS, U.S. House Democrats said far more funding was needed to make a dent in the spreading pandemic, Reuters reported June 7. Lawmakers praised a bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) that would boost direct U.S. spending on HIV/AIDS in Africa and other developing regions to more than $1 billion in the next two fiscal years, an increase of nearly $300 million over the White House proposal. link

SAVING WOMEN'S LIVES THROUGH INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING

The theme of "Saving Women's Lives" was echoed through this week's launch of a campaign to increase awareness of worldwide maternal mortality. More women are at risk in developing countries where access to health care is limited, experts from the United Nations Population Fund and Family Care International said at a Manhattan Press briefing on the campaign, "Saving Women's Lives," as reported in the New York Daily News June 8. The collaboration's primary focus, reported by Women's Enews June 11, is to call public attention to the "global problems of maternal mortality and violence against women." Most violence against women is inextricably linked to male power, privilege and control, according to a June 8 story disseminated by Africa News. http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-06-08/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-114116.asp   [http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/579

The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health joined several divisions of the United Nations to release studies on the effects of increased immigration to major cities in Asia, Africa and South America on the environment and living conditions of the poor. The Hopkins report found that rapid growth has overwhelmed the capacity of municipalities to respond, "Over 6 million people in cities of developing countries cannot meet their basic needs for adequate shelter, water, food, health and education," the report said, according to The Washington Post June 11. The study concluded that while these "megacities" face "unprecedented" challenges, a number of steps can make cities more livable and at the same time protect the environment. These include increased family planning, better urban planning, more public transportation, and better sanitation and water use policies. link

In addition, the Associated Press reported June 5 that the United Nations released its "State of the World's Cities" report, which found that more than 1 billion people live in slums and squatter communities worldwide, increasing the pollution from cars, factories and sewage that threatens public health. In Asia, another report on urbanization by the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific listed "poverty and the disappearance and disturbance of ecosystems" as reasons why an estimated 800 million Asian rural dwellers are expected to relocate to cities in the next 20 years, as reported by the Associated Press June 6. link

Another area of concern for the urban poor in most developing countries is that many face an increasing threat of malnutrition and health risks linked to unsafe food, warned the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a June 4 Agence France Presse story. The FAO said that food insecurity was becoming an extremely pressing social and political issue as the number of unemployed people, poor women, the elderly and children was growing fast.

OTHER POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH NEWS

In developments on the global gag rule, the New York City-based Center for Reproductive Law and Policy filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Andrew Natsios, Chief Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, accusing them of curbing the free-speech rights of overseas groups that provide reproductive health services to women, according to June 7 stories by The New York Times, Associated Press and other U.S. and international outlets. link

A Dutch-based project titled Women on Waves received major media attention when it announced it would sail a boat to Ireland, where abortion is still illegal, and perform abortions offshore in international waters, according to June 11 stories by The New York Times, Associated Press, National Public Radio and Agence France Presse. Lack of permits to carry passengers aborted the voyage late last week. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/11/world/11SHIP.html
[NOTE: For a comprehensive story, see The New York Times' June 17 story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/world/17IRIS.html

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Rotary International announced a partnership "to tackle the planet's population explosion," as reported by the Associated Press June 7. At the U.N. news conference, Frank Devlyn, president of Rotary, which has 1.2 million members in 164 countries and 35 other geographical areas, and UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to work together on projects to address the challenges of a global population that has topped 6 billion and is increasing by 77 million people every year, mainly in the world's poorest countries. link

OPINIONS AND EDITIORIALS

In a June 15 Washington Post commentary, experts from Harvard University's Center for International Development and the Harvard Medical School described recent comments by President Bush's new chief of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Andrew Natsios, as "disturbing, if not alarming." When it comes to treating African HIV/AIDS patients, Natsios said, "USAID cannot get it done" because Africans "don't know what Western time is" and are thus unable to take their anti-retroviral drugs on the required regular schedule. link

In her June 13 Washington Post column, Judy Mann posed the question, "Will the switch in the Senate be enough to protect women at home and abroad?" She answered, "That's probably going to depend on how much the members hear from people who stand to lose. Bush has shown his cards, and women's reproductive health care isn't in them. Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans are the best bet for restoring contraceptive coverage to federal employees and for getting rid of the global gag rule." link

Alex Sanger, chairman of International Planned Parenthood Council, wrote a response to Mary Hart's May 23 column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "There is a Silver Lining to Global Aging." Hart, he wrote, had "erroneously" stated that "most developed nations are experiencing rapidly shrinking populations" and that "the United States is the only major nation in which population is not declining." Sanger pointed out that neither statement was true and that Hart and her sources had confused fertility rates with population growth. [NOTE: To view Hart's column, go to: link

The above analysis was written by Ketayoun Darvich-Kodjouri and Kathy Bonk at the Communications Consortium Media Center, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-8700.

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