Antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids. Photograph: Krista Kennell/ZUMA/Corbis

The United Nations hailed a breakthrough in the fight against Aids with the release of figures showing that the prevalence of HIV has fallen among young people in 15 of the most affected countries.

The news was even better in 12 of those countries, where HIV levels have decreased by 25% among 15- to 24-year-olds. This in response, UNAids believes, to dogged prevention campaigns warning of the dangers of HIV/Aids and the need for people to change their sexual behaviour.

The head of UNAids, which released the report ahead of next week’s International Aids conference in Vienna, said young people were leading a badly needed prevention revolution. But a change in tack was needed in the battle against the virus. ”We are at the defining moment now, where we need to reshape completely the Aids response,” said Michel Sidibé. Rising treatment costs for HIV and the global economic crisis means “the world is demanding change. We cannot continue with the same response. It is not sustainable. It is very clear from public opinion region by region that Aids continues to be a top priority, but they are calling for a paradigm shift.”

Read full article by Sarah Boseley (Guardian UK)

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The communiqué released on June 26 states:
“We reaffirm our strong support to significantly reduce the number of maternal, newborn and under five child deaths as a matter of immediate humanitarian and development concern. Action is required on all factors that affect the health of women and children. This includes addressing gender inequality, ensuring women’s and children’s rights and improving education for women and girls.”     Other highlights in the communiqué include:

FUNDING:
- G8 members committed to mobilize $5 billion of additional funding over the next five years.
- G8 leaders say they “anticipate” that, over the period 2010-2015 the Muskoka Initiative will mobilize significantly greater than $10 billion.

POLICY:
- G8 leaders will assist developing countries to i) prevent 1.3 million deaths of children under five years of age; ii) prevent 64,000 maternal deaths; and iii) enable access to modern methods of family planning by an additional 12 million couples. These results will be achieved cumulatively between 2010-2015.
- The Initiative includes an accountability framework and reporting.
- G8 leaders want this Initiative to give added momentum to the UN-led process to develop a Joint Action Plan to Improve the Health of Women and Children.
- The G8 will support country-led efforts to achieve this objective by making the third voluntary replenishment conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in October 2010 a success. And, they commit to promote integration of HIV and sexual and reproductive health, rights and services within the broader context of strengthening health systems.

Read full summary from Women Deliver

Photo: Allan Gichigi/IRIN

Sarah Boseley -The G20 summit at the end of this week must address the need for safe abortion if it is to bring down death rates in pregnancy, as the Canadian government has pledged - and it must deliver on its former pledge to keep people with HIV/Aids in Africa alive.

Never have the deaths of women in childbirth and the fate of their newborn babies been paid so much attention at so high a level. Hard on the heels of the Women Deliver conference in Washington two weeks ago, luminaries, movers and shakers from the UN, business, governments and civil society have assembled in London for the Pacific Health Summit, which has taken as this year’s theme maternal and newborn health. Conversations are going on among people in a position to make a difference - from the largest pharma companies in the world to major donors like USAID.

And the moment it ends, we are into the G20 summit, where the Canadian government has promised to make maternal and newborn health its legacy issue. It wants the world’s leading nations to sign up to a plan which includes better training for health workers, better nutrition for pregnant women, nursing mothers and their children, immunisation, clean water and sanitation.

Read full article by Sarah Boseley (Guardian UK)

WHO

21 MAY 2010 | GENEVA — The Sixty-third World Health Assembly, which brought together Health Ministers and senior health officials from the  World Health Organization (WHO) Member States, concluded business and closed Friday evening.

“You reached agreement on some items that are a real gift to public health, everywhere. Thanks to some all-night efforts, we now have a code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel,” said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. The delegates adopted resolutions on a variety of global health issues including:

Monitoring of the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals
The resolution expresses concern at the relatively slow progress in attaining the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and at the fact that maternal, newborn and child health as well as universal access to reproductive health services remain constrained by health inequities. Member States noted that MDGs 4 and 5 were lagging behind and agreed to strengthen national health systems as well as take into account health equity in all national policies. They also reaffirmed the value of primary health care and renewed their commitment to prevent and eliminate maternal, newborn and child mortality and morbidity.

Read full news release (WHO)

Women waiting outside clinic. Photo: IRIN/Aubrey

Next to Ministers and  First Ladies, health experts, UN representatives, advocates and youth representatives, this year’s Women Deliver Conference that was held in Washington, D.C. from 7-9 June 2010 also hosted a Parliamentarians’ Forum for the first time which brought together more than 50 Parliamentarians.

“The biggest enemy of women’s health and rights is political indifference”, Jill Sheffield, President of Women Deliver remarked during the opening plenary session.

Ms. Safiye Çağar, Director IERD, UNFPA highlighted the important role Parliamentarians have in achieving maternal health and universal access to reproductive health until 2015. “You are responsible for listening to your constituents, to represent them adequately and to act as legislators”, Ms Çağar emphasised. Mr. Bert Koenders, former Minister for Development Co-operation of the Netherlands said that the role of Parliamentarians is underestimated. “Politicians need to break the silence that still surrounds MDG 5 and sexual and reproductive health and rights”, Koenders remarked.

The Parliamentarians’ Forum culminated in a Parliamentarians’ Statement. Amongst others, Parliamentarians called for additional US $12 billion a year to be invested in women and girls and  to actively work towards the establishment of a global funding mechanism for family planning, mothers and children with other international donors. The statement urges Ministers to establish realistic and verifiable annual action plans for reaching individual MDG targets with a special emphasis on MDG 5 to be presented at the UN High Level Meeting on the MDGs and commit to take a leading role in communicating the societal, economic, political and cultural benefits of investing in women and girls to key stakeholders. Parliamentarians were united in the necessity to pressure governments to deliver for women and girls, the need to reduce barriers for access to quality family planning services and the centrality this plays for the status of women in society as well as the need to improve co-operation between countries and continents.

Read full article from Women Deliver

ILO Ribbon

GENEVA (ILO News) – Governments, employers and workers meeting at the annual conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) today adopted a new international labour standard on HIV and AIDS - [pdf 1597 KB] - the first international human rights instrument to focus specifically on the issue in the world of work.

The standard is the first internationally sanctioned legal instrument aimed at strengthening the contribution of the world of work to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support and contains provisions on potentially life-saving prevention programmes and anti-discrimination measures at national and workplace levels. It also emphasizes the importance of employment and income-generating activities for workers and people living with HIV, particularly in terms of continuing treatment.

Dr. Sophia Kisting, Director of the ILO Programme on HIV and AIDS and the World of Work said that “with this new human rights instrument we can harness the strength of the world of work and optimise workplace interventions to significantly improve access to prevention, treatment, care and support. We cannot do it alone but this standard will, I believe, provide a major contribution to making the dream of an AIDS-free generation a reality.”

Read full press release

Mine worker in Zambia

Geneva, 14 June 2010 –The Committee on HIV/AIDS and the world of work adopted its report today, together with the final text of the Recommendation on HIV/AIDS which will be submitted for adoption to the plenary session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) later this week. High-level engagement and consensus on the urgency to act prevailed during this second and final round of discussion for the formulation of the first international human rights instrument to focus on HIV/AIDS and the world of work.

Throughout the amendment process, committee members worked at formulating a recommendation all-inclusive in scope and as practical as possible. Universality of human rights, feasibility, efficiency, sustainability, and accountability were kept at the forefront of all discussions, spurred by a great sense of urgency to address the HIV pandemic.

The report and the recommendation adopted by the Committee will be presented on 16 June to the plenary session of the 99th international Labour Conference. The record vote will take place on 17 June. The proposed Recommendation on HIV/AIDS and the world of work and the attached resolution will require a 2/3 majority vote to be adopted.

Read full article from ILO

Women Deliver

The Women Deliver 2010 conference ended on Wednesday with new energy and commitments for action for women’s health from members of parliament, young people and the rest of the more than 3,000 participants.

Women Deliver founder and president Jill Sheffield said the three-day gathering was, in Winston Churchill’s words, “not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning” in the drive to halt the global toll of women’s deaths and disabilities from pregnancy-related causes.

At least one woman dies every 90 seconds from such causes and another 20 suffer infection or disability, while four million newborns die every year. These grim numbers actually represent improvements over the last 20 years, during which many international gatherings have pledged investments in women that failed to materialize.

A comprehensive report tracking progress in maternal and child health was launched on June 8 at the Women Deliver conference. According to the Countdown to 2015 decade report (2000-2010), a lack of skilled attendants at birth accounts for two million preventable maternal deaths, stillbirths and newborn deaths each year, in spite of remarkable progress in some poor countries. The report argues that achieving MDGs 4 and 5 (on maternal and newborn health) is possible by the deadline year 2015, but only a dramatic acceleration of political commitment and financial investment can make it happen.

Read full article by Joanne Omang at womendeliver.org