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<<AIDS in China>>
I also attached an article about China developing a new drug to fight HIV/AIDS to this entry, its at the bottom. Its a new drug that stops the virus from entering the body cells.
Anyway, China has a unique situation in terms of HIV/AIDS. There are many characteristics of China that makes this so. First of all, China has a very dense population (as we all know China has a population of about 1.26 billion, 22% of the world population). China is also a second world country, not as developed as the US. China is also has a communist government, meaning the government has more power over its people. All these factors make China a unique case.
China has a HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 0.1% (1 out of ever 1000 at risk person is infected), with about 840,000 living with HIV, 30,000 deaths, and only about 80,000 people are being treated. HIV/AIDS in China spread in several ways: lack of awareness, primitive blood handling techniques, and drug use.
Blood donations in China did not go under complete HIV screening until 2001. Blood in China is actually commercial. Many poverty stricken people would sell their blood, and HIV/AIDS is always more prevalent among the poor. Sometimes this unscreened blood would all be mixed together, infecting the entire batch, and then distributed to further infect others.
Drug use is also a big problem in China. 50% of all drug users in China use needles, increasing the risk of HIV transmission through sharing needles.
These numbers also probably underestimates because there is huge underreporting in many rural areas. The government did not even address that HIV/AIDS was a problem until 2001.
Now China is doing more to fight HIV/AIDS within its boarders. The Health Ministry is using $25 million to do several things including: provide domestically made treatment, education for high-risk groups, and to train doctors and nurses to give treatment. The government also now has zero-tolerance for drug users, and is releasing news stories, articles, testimonies and TV programs to increase awareness among the population. And of course, it has increased blood screenings to test for HIV.
CHINA: "Chinese Company Develops New Drug to Fight HIV/AIDS"
Agence France Presse (07.11.05)
A Chinese pharmaceutical maker has developed a new HIV drug that aims to block the virus from entering cells, the China Daily reported today. FusoGen Pharmaceuticals is currently testing the drug, a fusion inhibitor, in clinical trials. Zhou Genfa, FusoGen's chairperson, said the drug is modeled after the US-developed Fuzeon - the first drug in a new class of fusion inhibitors - but employs a different molecular modeling. The drug, which has been registered as a new medicine with China's State Food and Drug Administration, will likely hit the market at the end of next year and will be priced "significantly" lower than Fuzeon, which can cost $20,000 per patient per year, said Zhou. | | |
| <<WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING: THE JERUSALEM USA MULTICULTURAL PROJECT>>
hey, sorry I haven't updated in a while... been plenty busy with stuff ever since school ended. Let me give a litte report of whats been going on:
Well, I can first tell of the JUMP program. The "official" web site for it, where it explains most of the things, is up finally. Here's the link: http://www.waitteam.org/israel_home.htm
I'll give a breif summary here: Well, JUMP stands for the Jerusalem USA Multicultural Project. It is a joint effort by three organizations, the WAIT team (Washington AIDS International Teens), Service for Peace (They also have a web page for the JUMP project: http://www.serviceforpeace.org/gpm/israel/index.htm) and the Municipality of Jerusalem's (www.jerusalem.muni.il) Multicultural Dance Troupe. Service for Peace is a organization who's goal is to promote peace through service projects. The Multicultural Dance Troupe, based in Jerusalem, is a dance crew made up of Israelis, Palistinians, Muslims, and Jews. Its goal is peace through dance. The reason we all joined up was because we all shared a common goal of peace (in order to really fight world wide AIDS, it would require international cooperation, peace), and the WAIT team and Multicultural Dance Troupe both use dance to express thier messages.
So anyway, this whole thing is an exchange project. Last Febuary, the WAIT team and Service for Peace traveled to Israel to do performances and service projects. Now this July, the Multicultural Dance Troupe came here to America to do performances here in Maryland and New York. So anyway, I was really busy with this project since all the organization and preperation was done by people like me perhapes two weeks before hand, and then the actual project was two weeks long. So, make sure to check out those websites to find out more about the JUMP program if you're interested. | | |
| <<WAIT Team Performances June 4th, 5th>>
Hey guys. Thought maybe something interesting to put on this website would be some reports on what me and the WAIT team are up to every once in a while. Yep, we're fighting HIV/AIDS everyday through our performances so anyone who saw us perform at the Mill might be interested.
First, anyone might want to check out our breakdance act:<<http://www.waitteam.org/Music%20Video/Video/BreakDance%20Israel%20WMV.wmv>>, and one of our dance acts: <<http://www.waitteam.org/Music%20Video/Video/18th%20Rose%20Is%20Rose-%20WMV.wmv>>.
Get a feel on the kind of stuff we do.
Anyway, our first performance was at this health festival near this Muslim mosque. It was pretty cool, we even got to pray with them. We did our breakdance act, our skit explaining how HIV/AIDS works, we sang "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, did "A Rose is a Rose Dance", we sang "Hero" by Superchick, and then concluded with our final act where we invited the audience to dance with us in a circle. It was a hot day, but the crowd was pretty responsive. Afterwards, there was free HIV testing, but we had to leave right after. It was a good success.
On Sunday, we were invited to a event at the SIFU church. "Sifu" means "praise" in Swahili. The SIFU church is all about giving important messages through dance, so the event was celebrating their anniversary through their different dance showcases. The WAIT team met up with the SIFU Dance Company at a previous performance so we were invited to perform at the event as well. It was a short performance: breakdance, skit, and song. Still, our message of abstinence to stop HIV infection was accepted well.
Anyway, something I was thinking about something after this weekend. The audience we performed for on Saturday was mostly Muslim, while the audience on Sunday was mostly Christian. I think its really cool how we are able to perform in front of such diverse audiences. But seriously, everyone needs to hear the message of HIV/AIDS simply because everyone is a target of this non-curable, 100% deadly disease. No one should be deigned this message. WAIT team makes sure that we take all the performances we can get, and never turn down anything (unless absolutely necessary). Our message is pure reality based, only taking about the hardcore scientific facts about why everyone should avoid HIV at all costs. This way, we can go into all schools and all churches (all with any health fair). WAIT team is even getting a performance at Mr. Eastham's church.
Make sure to check the WAIT team out. I'll be posting more on our events every week or so. | | |
| ---AIDS in the USA---
So some stuff closer to home may be better. So what's the HIV/AIDS situation here in the USA?
Well, AIDS has existed in the USA for about 20 years, starting with Patient Zero. Patient Zero was a gay flight attendant from Canada who became the first known AIDS case in USA. He unfortunately infected other gay men in the US. He is also a reason why people first began to think that HIV only infected gay people (in fact HIV was first called GRID: Gay-Related-Immunodeficiency). However, we know now that this is not the case.
Anyway, an estimated 850,000 to 950,000 people are living with HIV in the US. About 43,000 people are diagnosed with AIDS (the final stage in HIV infection), and 18,000 people have died from AIDS. Baltimore is the 3rd highest metropolitan area in number of AIDS cases. The number of new Maryland HIV/AIDS cases in 2003 was 1,570, and in total about 27,000 cases. DC is the 5th highest among metropolitan areas with AIDS cases (25,000). I heard that about 1/20 people in inner city DC is infected with HIV.
The situation is pretty bad. Once again, half of the HIV/AIDS cases is youth between 15 and 24 years old.
The main strategy against AIDS in America is providing treatment through Medicare and Medicaid. However, there are still many problems: about half of the people infected are not receiving care because they do not know they are infected, and the rules for eligibility for care are being debated and changed.
Regarding prevention, there is a huge dispute over what kind of sex education is necessary. It is mainly a dispute between safe sex or abstinence. There is also a dispute over the role of the government versus the role of the community. Every once in a while, I will update with the different disputes and developments. Currently, there is a compromised approach most of the time: it includes abstinence, but not as a priority over condoms. The US requires some funds to go to abstinence only programs, and President Bush wants to double the current funds towards such programs.
Currently, the situation hasn't improved that much over the recent years (and is actually getting worse). I'll be commenting with my opinion on the US situation in later posts. But, just keep in mind that HIV/AIDS infects every country. Future posts will include the situation in China, India, Russia, and Uganda. Look forward to those.
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---AIDS in Africa---
So the first country/region would be Sub-Saharan Africa. When most people with HIV/AIDS, they also think Africa, and how Africa is the country that suffers the most from AIDS. This is true, but let us not forget about how HIV/AIDS is a great danger to all countries.
Yes, a major focus with the AIDS epidemic is Africa, so it is what I analyzed first. Lets start out with some statistics: Approximately 25.4 million people are living with HIV in Africa within the Sub-Saharan region. There have been about 2.3 million deaths in this region caused by AIDS. About 2 million of the people living with HIV are children under 15 years old. AIDS has caused about 12 million orphans in this region as well.
Sub-Saharan Africa has about 10% of the world population, but it has about 75% of the HIV cases. UNAIDS says that if the current situation continues, around 80 million Africans will die from HIV/AIDS by 2025.
In many developing countries, AIDS has become more than just a health problem. The disease has become a major issue with the military, education, industry, economy, agriculture, and human resources in general. AIDS is stunting the growth of society in Africa. It is destroying families, killing the breadwinners of the family, and causing orphans. In turn, the other family members may have to turn the prostitution to get money, which further spreads the disease. The young men and women of society are getting infected, and cannot combat the virus, nor expand and develop their country. It is even decreasing school enrollment.
Society has also created a prejudice against HIV positive people. These people are black listed, no one offers them jobs. Sometimes, their family abandons them as well. Because of this, people are unwilling to get tested, creating a further lack of awareness.
So basically, the cause of the spread of HIV in Africa is due to a lack of awareness and poverty (a common characteristic among many countries.) This has made Africa the focus of many international efforts, mainly because Africa can't do much for itself. However, due to poverty and underdevelopment, a lot of effort as been put to waste. I once read an article about how in Swaziland, a huge expensive computer was completed that would help in the distribution of treatment to HIV patients. However, they couldn't even turn it on because of the common black outs that happened often. Its these kind of things that cause so much frustration and need for more productive strategies.
So, this is the situation in Africa. I hope this helped get a better feel on the seriousness of the situation.
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