http://www.who.int/csr/don/2008_09_24/en/index.html
The article, “Cholera Outbreak in Guinea-Bissau”, by Amanda O’Donnell, discusses a recent outbreak of the fatal disease Cholera, which we discussed in class. The recent outbreak in Guinea-Bissau infected approximately 14,000 people and killed 225 people total before being controlled by the government. The article states that in the past there have been seasonal outbreaks of Cholera that have infected the people because of a lack of water sanitation, but there has not been a recent outbreak like this one. A water engineer states that the infected water is due to a lack of funding that goes towards the water system, and also the pipes are leaking because they are about 45 years old and in need of repair. Another factor in the flawed pipe system is that the population of the capital city has gone from 60,000, when the pipe system was started, to 350,000 now and of that 350,000 only about 20% have access to pipe-born water, which in itself can be contaminated as well. Because of the lack of water, people have been forced to dig wells in their backyards, which is also dangerous because contaminated run-offs usually are in the water. However, people are trying to help clean up this situation. World Bank has started to build water reservoirs in the capital by laying pipes which has cost them about six million dollars so far. Also, the European Commission has signed a 3.9 million dollar project with the capital to improve its water system. One of the reforms that this project plans to bring to help the situation is to put solar powered water points in communities. The last part of the article talks about the fact that Guinea-Bissau has the world’s fifth-highest mortality rates for children in the world. About one in five children die in this capital before the age of five, and Cholera is definitely a factor in most of these child deaths. So, if the city is able to clean up their water system, they should be able to at least reduce the number of people who contract Cholera.
This article made me appreciate how good we have it here in the United States, because we do not have to worry about diseases such as Cholera. I think that we should try to help countries that are in a state such as Guinea-Bissau is in order to save many people’s lives from preventable diseases such as this one. I also found it helpful knowing the information that I learned in class about Cholera and its symptoms, because without it I would not have gotten such a good understanding of this article.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Cholera Kills 15 Per Day in Zimbabwe
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/12/01/zimbabwe.cholera/index.html?eref=rss_world. Capital lacks clean water, cholera kills hundreds in Zimbabwe, CNN.
Four of the nations largest hospitals have shut down and some doctors and nurses have gone on strike because of low wages. Other doctors and nurses refuse to work in fear of contracting the disease while working in the hospitals. Efforts to correct this crisis include importing chemicals from South Africa to treat the water, yet they have been unsuccessful. With the countries economy as awful as it is, Zimbabwe is not able to pay for these chemicals because of their bad records and lack of credit lines. 90% of citizens in Zimbabwe are unemployed and the official inflation rate is said to be over 231 million percent. Movement for Democratic Change president, Thokozani Khupe has asked the government to call on the international community to send food and medicine. He asked the government to put politics aside and to focus on the crisis at hand.
I chose this article because I feel that with all the hustle and bustle of the busy world we live in, we rarely acknowledge how much trouble there is outside of the United States. It is important for us to recognize the epidemics going around in other parts of the world that we simply overlook. I liked this article because it spreads awareness about this disease on one of the most prestigious news websites out there, CNN. By spreading awareness we can hopefully help Zimbabwe and other third world countries suffering from mass cases of Cholera and help them obtain the resources they need to help end this epidemic.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Very Sick, and Now a Curiosity
By DENISE GRADY
Published: December 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22virus.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=infectious%20disease&st=cse
The author of this article, Denise Grady, is a writer in the science department for the New York Times, and also has been writing for numerous magazines such as Discovery and Scientific America. She has a B.S Degree and a M.S in English from the University of New Hampshire. She is a very accomplished journalist, who has been awarded with many awards for her works in the scientific fields. She also received a commendation from the Newspaper Guild for "choice and excellence of crusading journalistic contributions in the areas of science and medicine," in 1986.
http://sciwrite.org/sciwrite/grady.html
In this article Denise focuses on a woman named, Michelle Barnes, and her fight with the very deadly Marburg virus . Ms. Barnes was just getting back from a vacation in Uganda, when she fell extremely ill with this rare virus. Symptoms of hers included a rash, the development of terrible abdominal pain, weakness, being very tired, and confusion. After tests revealed that she had a low white blood cell count and that her kidneys and liver were starting to fail she was hospitalized. After a while her muscles and pancreas started to become inflamed, and doctors had no idea what was going on. Even after having specialists in infectious disease looking up every tropical disease they could think of they got no answer. After a little over a week she left the hospital, but still was affected by abdominal pain, confusion, and exhaustion for over seven months. However, she found an article about a woman who traveled to the same place she did, and had died from something called Marburg hemorrhagic fever. After reading further she found out that it was believed that she caught the viral disease from exposure to bat dropping in the same cave in which she had visited. After being tested again for Marburg, test came back positive, and she was reported as the first case of Marburg virus every reaching North America. There is no cure, or vaccine against this disease, which has a high mortality rate, and one which can easily be transmitted through bodily fluids.
Experts say that it is amazing that she survived, and that no one else caught the deadly disease from her. They have warned that this disease easily could have traveled around the world by plane, and exposed itself to countless of other victims. Denise did a really great job at the end to emphasize how close it was to having an outbreak of this very dangerous disease. Ms. Barnes’s case is considered to be very mild, even though she almost died, and took her over a year to fully recover. This goes to show how deadly this disease really is, only being exposed to a very little amount can cause death.
I choose this article because there is still little known about this disease, and it goes to show how far we still have to go in the field of medicine. We have gone a long way with finding ways to prevent disease and cures, but I do not think we will ever be able to be finished with finding new ways to help cure people and fighting off new diseases. Ms. Barnes has allowed the National Institutes of Health to take blood samples from her in the hope of finding a vaccine and a way to help cure this disease. I find is extremely heart warming to find that she is making a scary situation and turning it into one in which can save the lives of others.
Published: December 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22virus.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=infectious%20disease&st=cse
The author of this article, Denise Grady, is a writer in the science department for the New York Times, and also has been writing for numerous magazines such as Discovery and Scientific America. She has a B.S Degree and a M.S in English from the University of New Hampshire. She is a very accomplished journalist, who has been awarded with many awards for her works in the scientific fields. She also received a commendation from the Newspaper Guild for "choice and excellence of crusading journalistic contributions in the areas of science and medicine," in 1986.
http://sciwrite.org/sciwrite/grady.html
In this article Denise focuses on a woman named, Michelle Barnes, and her fight with the very deadly Marburg virus . Ms. Barnes was just getting back from a vacation in Uganda, when she fell extremely ill with this rare virus. Symptoms of hers included a rash, the development of terrible abdominal pain, weakness, being very tired, and confusion. After tests revealed that she had a low white blood cell count and that her kidneys and liver were starting to fail she was hospitalized. After a while her muscles and pancreas started to become inflamed, and doctors had no idea what was going on. Even after having specialists in infectious disease looking up every tropical disease they could think of they got no answer. After a little over a week she left the hospital, but still was affected by abdominal pain, confusion, and exhaustion for over seven months. However, she found an article about a woman who traveled to the same place she did, and had died from something called Marburg hemorrhagic fever. After reading further she found out that it was believed that she caught the viral disease from exposure to bat dropping in the same cave in which she had visited. After being tested again for Marburg, test came back positive, and she was reported as the first case of Marburg virus every reaching North America. There is no cure, or vaccine against this disease, which has a high mortality rate, and one which can easily be transmitted through bodily fluids.
Experts say that it is amazing that she survived, and that no one else caught the deadly disease from her. They have warned that this disease easily could have traveled around the world by plane, and exposed itself to countless of other victims. Denise did a really great job at the end to emphasize how close it was to having an outbreak of this very dangerous disease. Ms. Barnes’s case is considered to be very mild, even though she almost died, and took her over a year to fully recover. This goes to show how deadly this disease really is, only being exposed to a very little amount can cause death.
I choose this article because there is still little known about this disease, and it goes to show how far we still have to go in the field of medicine. We have gone a long way with finding ways to prevent disease and cures, but I do not think we will ever be able to be finished with finding new ways to help cure people and fighting off new diseases. Ms. Barnes has allowed the National Institutes of Health to take blood samples from her in the hope of finding a vaccine and a way to help cure this disease. I find is extremely heart warming to find that she is making a scary situation and turning it into one in which can save the lives of others.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Hospitals Could Stop Infections by Tackling Bacteria Patients Bring In, Studies Find
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/health/research/07infection.html?ref=science
This article was about bacteria causing infections at hospitals. This article was from the New York Times and was written by Pam Belluck on January 6, 2010. It discussed how doctors can solve the problem of acquiring an infection at a hospital while having surgery. Everyone has millions of bacteria on their body at all times. There is a common bacteria called staphylococcus aureus that many patients can carry before entering a hospital. However, if this bacteria gets into someone's body via an incision, sometimes problems can arise. Dr. Verbrugh carried out a study where he swabbed the noses of patients who were having surgery and were going to be in the hospital for at least five days. He found 500 people who carried staphylococcus aureus and gave them ointment and soap that had antiseptics in it. From this study he found that after surgery the patients were 60 percent less likely to develop an infection. Another study that was done was performed by Dr. Wenzel. He looked at the skin disinfectants that different hospitals use. The most common disinfectant was povidone-iodine, but another one was chlorhexidine-alcohol, which was used in less hospitals. Dr. Wenzel found that the alcohol solution was much more efective at removing harmful or pathogenic bacteria than the iodine one. These two studies were just conducted in the United States.
It is slightly unclear about the author's view or tone in this article. The author does a good job at simply telling us the facts of the studies and what scientists learned from these studies. I think it is obvious that the author believes it is a good idea to try and solve the problem of infections at hospitals. Even though the chlorhexidine-alcohol disinfectant is slightly more expensive than the povidone-iodine, it is necessary to spend that extra money because in the long run if less people are acquiring infections after surgery, then that will save a lot of money. One quote that does a great job at summing up this article is when Dr. Wenzel says, “Everybody wins on this. Patients obviously have less morbidity, and hospitals and medical centers and insurers save a lot of money.” Because the author chose to include this quote it can be implied that she is in favor of using extra precautions to insure less infection. There was not any additional information about Pam Belluck. Belluck was not very biased in this article at all, because she just gave the facts and not her opinion at all. This article was mostly just informative.
I decided to choose this article because we have done an entire unit on microbiology, which includes bacteria. I think it is a very fitting and appropriate article in relation to our class. I remember when we learned about normal bacteria flora and how we all have many bacterial cells living both inside and outside our bodies. The bacteria discussed in the article, staphylococcus aureus, can be a beneficial and a harmful bacteria at the same time. About one third of people carry this bacteria and it does not do them any harm. However, it can be harmful if it develops during surgery at the site of an incision. I think it is great that people are taking the time to address a very important issue, and if hospitals follow through with the findings from the two studies, that would greatly reduce that amount of infections that patients while in hospitals.
This article was about bacteria causing infections at hospitals. This article was from the New York Times and was written by Pam Belluck on January 6, 2010. It discussed how doctors can solve the problem of acquiring an infection at a hospital while having surgery. Everyone has millions of bacteria on their body at all times. There is a common bacteria called staphylococcus aureus that many patients can carry before entering a hospital. However, if this bacteria gets into someone's body via an incision, sometimes problems can arise. Dr. Verbrugh carried out a study where he swabbed the noses of patients who were having surgery and were going to be in the hospital for at least five days. He found 500 people who carried staphylococcus aureus and gave them ointment and soap that had antiseptics in it. From this study he found that after surgery the patients were 60 percent less likely to develop an infection. Another study that was done was performed by Dr. Wenzel. He looked at the skin disinfectants that different hospitals use. The most common disinfectant was povidone-iodine, but another one was chlorhexidine-alcohol, which was used in less hospitals. Dr. Wenzel found that the alcohol solution was much more efective at removing harmful or pathogenic bacteria than the iodine one. These two studies were just conducted in the United States.
It is slightly unclear about the author's view or tone in this article. The author does a good job at simply telling us the facts of the studies and what scientists learned from these studies. I think it is obvious that the author believes it is a good idea to try and solve the problem of infections at hospitals. Even though the chlorhexidine-alcohol disinfectant is slightly more expensive than the povidone-iodine, it is necessary to spend that extra money because in the long run if less people are acquiring infections after surgery, then that will save a lot of money. One quote that does a great job at summing up this article is when Dr. Wenzel says, “Everybody wins on this. Patients obviously have less morbidity, and hospitals and medical centers and insurers save a lot of money.” Because the author chose to include this quote it can be implied that she is in favor of using extra precautions to insure less infection. There was not any additional information about Pam Belluck. Belluck was not very biased in this article at all, because she just gave the facts and not her opinion at all. This article was mostly just informative.
I decided to choose this article because we have done an entire unit on microbiology, which includes bacteria. I think it is a very fitting and appropriate article in relation to our class. I remember when we learned about normal bacteria flora and how we all have many bacterial cells living both inside and outside our bodies. The bacteria discussed in the article, staphylococcus aureus, can be a beneficial and a harmful bacteria at the same time. About one third of people carry this bacteria and it does not do them any harm. However, it can be harmful if it develops during surgery at the site of an incision. I think it is great that people are taking the time to address a very important issue, and if hospitals follow through with the findings from the two studies, that would greatly reduce that amount of infections that patients while in hospitals.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
New Form of Malaria Threatens Thai-Cambodia Border
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/28/world/AP-When-Drugs-Stop-Working-Malaria-Fights-Back.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=malaria&st=cse&scp=2
The article is by "Martha Mendoza is an AP national writer based in Mexico City. Margie Mason is an AP medical writer who reported from Cambodia while on a fellowship from The Nieman Foundation at Harverd University." written Dec. 28th, 2009
This article focuses on the growing number of resistant strains of malaria and the causes of this sudden spike. The large jump in the number of people with the resistant strain can be blamed on the fake drugs being sold to "cure" malaria. These fake drugs only contain a small dose of Artemisinin, and are killing people all over the world. This article focuses on the spike in resistant strain malaria in Palin,Cambodia, today.
The effective drug that works to cure malaria is Artemisinin. If a person were to catch malaria and proceed to take a full dose of Artemisinin, they would be cured of the disease. Though when people in poor places like Palin, Cambodia go out to buy drugs they don't know what they are actually getting. Most times when they but the "drugs" they are really getting a fake drug that is just being called Artemisinin. If these drugs were simply no medicine it wouldn't be as bad as what most actually turn out to be. Most of the counterfeit drugs that are found actually contain small amounts of Artemisinin. With these small amounts of Artemisinin people can actually build up and immunity to the drug. When they take only a small amount of the useful drug Artemisinin, the malaria is not cleared from their system and is actually able to build up immunities to the drugs. Then if the person does eventually get to real drugs, it is often too late because the disease has already become resistant to the Artemisinin. The selling of counterfeit drugs is becoming a huge problem and poorer countries; because when people do not have the money to buy reliable drugs they often end up with fake drugs, which will ultimately lead to their death. The people have no way to protect themselves from catching the disease, and when they try to cure it often just end up even sicker. This is a highly recognized problem that is getting a lot of attention today. Many people debate over how to stop the distribution of these counterfeit drugs. Every time they find and take one shipment of them a new shippment simply arrives. This is a problem that is spreading as more and more people become infected with the resistant strain of malaria. I believe we need to find a solution to this problem before it spreads all over the world.
The article is by "Martha Mendoza is an AP national writer based in Mexico City. Margie Mason is an AP medical writer who reported from Cambodia while on a fellowship from The Nieman Foundation at Harverd University." written Dec. 28th, 2009
This article focuses on the growing number of resistant strains of malaria and the causes of this sudden spike. The large jump in the number of people with the resistant strain can be blamed on the fake drugs being sold to "cure" malaria. These fake drugs only contain a small dose of Artemisinin, and are killing people all over the world. This article focuses on the spike in resistant strain malaria in Palin,Cambodia, today.
The effective drug that works to cure malaria is Artemisinin. If a person were to catch malaria and proceed to take a full dose of Artemisinin, they would be cured of the disease. Though when people in poor places like Palin, Cambodia go out to buy drugs they don't know what they are actually getting. Most times when they but the "drugs" they are really getting a fake drug that is just being called Artemisinin. If these drugs were simply no medicine it wouldn't be as bad as what most actually turn out to be. Most of the counterfeit drugs that are found actually contain small amounts of Artemisinin. With these small amounts of Artemisinin people can actually build up and immunity to the drug. When they take only a small amount of the useful drug Artemisinin, the malaria is not cleared from their system and is actually able to build up immunities to the drugs. Then if the person does eventually get to real drugs, it is often too late because the disease has already become resistant to the Artemisinin. The selling of counterfeit drugs is becoming a huge problem and poorer countries; because when people do not have the money to buy reliable drugs they often end up with fake drugs, which will ultimately lead to their death. The people have no way to protect themselves from catching the disease, and when they try to cure it often just end up even sicker. This is a highly recognized problem that is getting a lot of attention today. Many people debate over how to stop the distribution of these counterfeit drugs. Every time they find and take one shipment of them a new shippment simply arrives. This is a problem that is spreading as more and more people become infected with the resistant strain of malaria. I believe we need to find a solution to this problem before it spreads all over the world.
H5N1 Outbreak Overseas in Animals
All we've been hearing about for the past year is H1N1. While Swine Flu has become a very prominent issue in our society, another deadly disease has surfaced in animals in Asia, Europe, the Near East, and Africa. This disease is H5N1, or Avian Influenza.
According to The Center for Disease Control's acticle, Avian Influenza: Current H5N1 Situation, written in October of 2008 (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/outbreaks/current.htm) infections have broken out among "domestic poultry". These "epizootic" infections are expected to affect humans as well if contact is made with the infected animals. This strand of H5N1 is not particularly deadly however due to the lack of immunity in humans to Avian Flu, this disease could pose a serious problem to the contries where the outbreak is occurring.
Unfortunately for anyone who has been infected with the H5N1 disease, there is no vaccine currently available however two antiviral medications were deemed effective at the time this article was published. While there are some medications for humans, there is no help for the animals that are being infected at a much higher rate than humans. These animals include ducks, cats, dogs, tigers, leopards, and wild stone martens (weasel-like rodents). The high rate of animals being affected increases the possiblity for humans to become infected.
The main countries that have experienced outbreaks of the Avian Flu in the past 5 years include Thailand (2004), Vietnam (2004, 2005, and 2006), Azerbaijan (2006), and Indonesia (2006). Mortality at the time of this article was reported at 60% and the highest mortality among humans was in the 10-19 age bracket.
Several things are being done in an attempt to prevent further spread of H5N1. A ban was placed on bird importation to any affected countries, efforts to develop a vaccine are in motion, and monitoring of the situation by the CDC.
This article was very informative. It's main purpose seemed to be just that, to inform people of what is going on across the sea and that this is a serious problem. While there is no author named, I found the article on the Center for Disease Control website and since we have used the CDC as a resource in class I believe this source is credible and reliable. There were no evident biases as the article provided no one-sided arguments or viewpoints.
I found this article very interesting. We briefly talked about the Avian Flu at the beginning of the school year and I'm glad that I was able to learn more about it. While I don't see any direct connections to things we have done or studied in class, this article is very much related to other articles and blogs written by other people in the class. This information, similar to the information on other people's blogs, demonstrates an issue overseas that we would otherwise have been oblivious to. This information lacks direct connection to our class because it differs greatly from the units we have studied. While some would say it is like the outbreak of Swine Flu here, the strain of Avian Flu today is closer to the original Avian Flu strain and therefore unlike the new and unknown strain of H1N1 today. However if anyone sees any connections to class I would love to hear them!
According to The Center for Disease Control's acticle, Avian Influenza: Current H5N1 Situation, written in October of 2008 (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/outbreaks/current.htm) infections have broken out among "domestic poultry". These "epizootic" infections are expected to affect humans as well if contact is made with the infected animals. This strand of H5N1 is not particularly deadly however due to the lack of immunity in humans to Avian Flu, this disease could pose a serious problem to the contries where the outbreak is occurring.
Unfortunately for anyone who has been infected with the H5N1 disease, there is no vaccine currently available however two antiviral medications were deemed effective at the time this article was published. While there are some medications for humans, there is no help for the animals that are being infected at a much higher rate than humans. These animals include ducks, cats, dogs, tigers, leopards, and wild stone martens (weasel-like rodents). The high rate of animals being affected increases the possiblity for humans to become infected.
The main countries that have experienced outbreaks of the Avian Flu in the past 5 years include Thailand (2004), Vietnam (2004, 2005, and 2006), Azerbaijan (2006), and Indonesia (2006). Mortality at the time of this article was reported at 60% and the highest mortality among humans was in the 10-19 age bracket.
Several things are being done in an attempt to prevent further spread of H5N1. A ban was placed on bird importation to any affected countries, efforts to develop a vaccine are in motion, and monitoring of the situation by the CDC.
This article was very informative. It's main purpose seemed to be just that, to inform people of what is going on across the sea and that this is a serious problem. While there is no author named, I found the article on the Center for Disease Control website and since we have used the CDC as a resource in class I believe this source is credible and reliable. There were no evident biases as the article provided no one-sided arguments or viewpoints.
I found this article very interesting. We briefly talked about the Avian Flu at the beginning of the school year and I'm glad that I was able to learn more about it. While I don't see any direct connections to things we have done or studied in class, this article is very much related to other articles and blogs written by other people in the class. This information, similar to the information on other people's blogs, demonstrates an issue overseas that we would otherwise have been oblivious to. This information lacks direct connection to our class because it differs greatly from the units we have studied. While some would say it is like the outbreak of Swine Flu here, the strain of Avian Flu today is closer to the original Avian Flu strain and therefore unlike the new and unknown strain of H1N1 today. However if anyone sees any connections to class I would love to hear them!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
South African President Announces New AIDS Policy
An article from the New York Times, December 2, 2009 entitled: "Breaking With Past, South Africa Issues Broad AIDS Policy" by Celia W. Dugger (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/world/africa/02safrica.html?pagewanted=print)
The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, declared on December 1st (World AIDS Day) that drug therapy for HIV-positive women and babies is to be improved and will now start much earlier. This is an attempt at ensuring that all babies are born healthy. The new policy is in response to the new treatment guidelines issued by the World Health Organization the day before the president's address. The early treatment of newborns will be attempting to lower child mortality in South Africa, as the country is one of only four countries where the level of child mortality has worsened since 1990. South Africa has more HIV-positive inhabitants than any other nation in the world. President Zuma stated, "We have no choice but to deploy every effort, mobilize every resource and utilize every skill our nation possesses." He says that by April, the government would begin treating those who are HIV-positive with tuberculosis earlier, as tuberculosis is the leading killer of South Africans with HIV. The number of deaths due to tuberculosis has more than tripled in South Africa since 1997.
The former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, spend nine years in office questioning whether HIV even caused AIDS and suggested that antiretroviral drug treatment could be harmful. He once said he had never known anyone who had died of AIDS. Harvard researchers estimate that 330,000 people died prematurely due to lack of treatment because of Mbeki's delay in the use of these drugs. This includes 35,000 babies. The Congress of South African Trade Unions said that Mbeki should apologize to the nation for his failures in fighting an epidemic that it describes as "destroying more lives than any invading army in history." Also, the Young Communist League has demanded that he be prosecuted for genocide.
As well as the South African government's new policy against the HIV epidemic, the United States will be giving South Africa $120 million over the next two years to help buy the desperately needed antiretroviral drugs to treat the disease. This is on top of the $560 million they were already planning on giving South Africa in the 2010 fiscal year to fight the epidemic.
I personally think this announcement is a great thing. The previous president seemed not to really care much about the effect that HIV has on the people of South Africa. Zuma's policy seems like it could be a new beginning and if the government keeps up with the effort, hopefully it will make a difference in the lives of many people. It also helps raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic and may lead others t0 take greater action against the disease. I believe that this is a huge step in the fight against the AIDS epidemic.
Here is an interesting video I found about the topic of the article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JPesVItjik
The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, declared on December 1st (World AIDS Day) that drug therapy for HIV-positive women and babies is to be improved and will now start much earlier. This is an attempt at ensuring that all babies are born healthy. The new policy is in response to the new treatment guidelines issued by the World Health Organization the day before the president's address. The early treatment of newborns will be attempting to lower child mortality in South Africa, as the country is one of only four countries where the level of child mortality has worsened since 1990. South Africa has more HIV-positive inhabitants than any other nation in the world. President Zuma stated, "We have no choice but to deploy every effort, mobilize every resource and utilize every skill our nation possesses." He says that by April, the government would begin treating those who are HIV-positive with tuberculosis earlier, as tuberculosis is the leading killer of South Africans with HIV. The number of deaths due to tuberculosis has more than tripled in South Africa since 1997.
The former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, spend nine years in office questioning whether HIV even caused AIDS and suggested that antiretroviral drug treatment could be harmful. He once said he had never known anyone who had died of AIDS. Harvard researchers estimate that 330,000 people died prematurely due to lack of treatment because of Mbeki's delay in the use of these drugs. This includes 35,000 babies. The Congress of South African Trade Unions said that Mbeki should apologize to the nation for his failures in fighting an epidemic that it describes as "destroying more lives than any invading army in history." Also, the Young Communist League has demanded that he be prosecuted for genocide.
As well as the South African government's new policy against the HIV epidemic, the United States will be giving South Africa $120 million over the next two years to help buy the desperately needed antiretroviral drugs to treat the disease. This is on top of the $560 million they were already planning on giving South Africa in the 2010 fiscal year to fight the epidemic.
I personally think this announcement is a great thing. The previous president seemed not to really care much about the effect that HIV has on the people of South Africa. Zuma's policy seems like it could be a new beginning and if the government keeps up with the effort, hopefully it will make a difference in the lives of many people. It also helps raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic and may lead others t0 take greater action against the disease. I believe that this is a huge step in the fight against the AIDS epidemic.
Here is an interesting video I found about the topic of the article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JPesVItjik
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