“Reading the letters made me realize who they were,” Madeleine Fugate, 14, tells PEOPLE

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A globally patented product, WOXheal® topical solution, is effective in treating Diabetic foot ulcers, company claims.

WHO predicts that there will be 10 crore Indians with Diabetes in the next 10 years. Amongst other complications of Diabetes; Diabetic foot ulcer is the most common complication seen in India. Apart from the fact that diabetic foot ulcers are non-healing, they not only hamper the quality of life of the patient, but may also lead to complications such as wet-gangrene, cellulitis, abscess and necrotizing fasciitis all leading to a total or partial foot amputation. Data indicates that 25% of people with Diabetes, will develop a Diabetic Foot Ulcer in their lifetime.

Centaur Pharmaceuticals has announced the launch of a New Chemical Entity (NCE) – WOXheal®. With its dual mechanism of action, WOXheal® claims that it is a unique product in the treatment of Diabetic Foot ulcers, and it will save millions of Diabetics who have to undergo foot amputation globally.

S. D. Sawant, CMD, Centaur Pharmaceuticals, said, “Centaur Pharmaceuticals wasdeeply concerned with the alarming rate of foot amputations in India, and wanted to discover a drug to prevent it. Fifteen years ago, we collaborated with CytoTools AG, Germany, who had this promising molecule for the treatment of Diabetic foot ulcer. We are very happy to offer this ray of hope to people with Diabetic foot ulcer in India.”

A globally patented product, WOXheal® topical solution, is effective in treating Diabetic foot ulcers, company claims.

Randomized clinical trials conducted across India in over 15 clinical trial centres on WOXheal® elucidated that over 90% patients with non-healing diabetic foot ulcer showed reduction in the size of the ulcer, and 75% out of these patients achieved complete healing within 6-8 weeks without any safety issue. The data and outcomes of the trial were submitted to the Indian Regulatory Authority and a manufacturing and marketing approval was granted to Centaur Pharmaceuticals for WOXheal®.

WOXheal® will be readily available in the entire country by the end of the month.

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Despite the emergence of new diseases, scientists all over the world are still as determined to find a cure for the existing life-threatening conditions like HIV/AIDS. Nowadays, scientists are looking into other ways to end the disease on a global scale.

Research is still heavily underway to be able to develop a cure, and MedicalXpress reports that three experts in the field of infectious diseases are currently assessing potential drug candidates in the hopes that they can determine why and where a cure is needed the most and how they can deliver. The researchers; Dr. Steven G. Deeks from the University of California San Francisco, Dr. Thumbi Ndung’u from the African Research Institute in South Africa, and Dr. Joseph M. McCune from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, all found that majority of HIV/AIDS research is found in countries where the disease is not as prevalent but are high in resources.

The three researchers all explain that the breakthroughs made in the research of HIV/AIDS should also factor in the economies and needs of those who need it the most. The disease is especially prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Health Organization states, has the majority of the HIV/AIDS cases in the world. This is where 65 percent of new infections and 75 percent of deaths occur as well. They also point out that there has not been a lot of discussion regarding the practicalities of product development for the region that needs it the most. “Failure early on to define a target product profile risks developing a strategy that fails to be effective.”

Meanwhile, MedicalXpress also reports that a study conducted using animal models found a possible method for eradicating HIV/AIDS from the body. Researchers from the Yerkes National Primary Research Center of Emory University and the University of North Carolina found that the “shock and kill” strategy, which involves waking up the dormant virus from within the immune cells and killing it, may indeed be the way to go in eliminating HIV/AIDS.

The researchers conducted two studies using animal models of HIV/AIDS infection. Both studies had different approaches, but the results of both studies were promising. They found that both approaches disrupted viral latency at levels that exceeded expectations. However, their findings do not suggest a cure just yet as more tests are needed with human subjects should be in the plans.

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The international health body, which released the new HIV testing policy at the end of November, made the recommendation following compelling evidence that rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) produce faster and more accurate results than laboratory-based methods. These newer testing strategies also cost less because they are less complex and can be conducted by health workers with varying degrees of training and experience, rather than specialists.

Because western blotting and line immunoassays can only be performed in laboratories, health facilities have to send blood samples away for testing. This leads to delays in informing people about their HIV status and, for those who are positive, it can also delay treatment initiation.

A systematic review commissioned by the WHO found western blotting and line immunoassays also result in a higher number of indeterminate diagnoses than newer testing strategies, which means people then need to retest. Not only does this cause uncertainty for the individual, if this request is not taken up the opportunity to diagnose is then lost.

The evidence review found that nearly half of all indeterminate results generated by laboratory-based methods related to people living with HIV. This means a significant proportion of HIV positive people experience delays to starting treatment due to these outdated diagnostic methods, which is not only detrimental to their health but also increases the likelihood of onward transmission.

In sharp contrast, RDTs and EIAs enable people to know their status in a much shorter time period, meaning they can start treatment more quickly if they are HIV positive. The relative-immediacy of these newer methods also means that people who test HIV negative, but are deemed to be at high-risk of infection, can be linked to PrEP straightaway rather than having to wait.

Because non-specialist staff can carry out RDTs or EIAs, HIV testing using these methods can be conducted in community-settings as well as health facilities. This means people from criminalised groups who may be fearful of using clinics despite being at heightened risk of HIV, those who cannot afford the costs associated with clinic visits, and people who are reluctant to access public testing services due to stigma may be more likely to get tested.

Although most countries already favour RDTs, some are still using western blotting and line immunoassays to confirm HIV infection. This is common in a number of Western European countries as well as in parts of Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific. For these countries, moving to more efficient testing methods will initially take time and extra resources but will achieve a greater impact and reduce costs in the longer term. WHO’s policy brief contains a technical checklist of things countries in this position should consider when making the switch, such as the need to retrain laboratory staff to take on supervisory and quality assurance roles.

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If you remember the 1980s, you will likely summon up the image of the Grim Reaper or a black tombstone when asked to think about AIDS. Those images, embedded in our collective memory by two iconic Australian and British public health campaigns of that decade, reveal how AIDS has been both a medical and a cultural epidemic since it was first clinically observed in the US in 1981. In the words of American scholar Paula Treichler, AIDS has always partly been an “epidemic of meanings”.

As we commemorate another World AIDS Day and remember all those who have died, we must remind ourselves of all that is still left to do to eradicate HIV. We must also remember the role culture plays in shaping our understanding of the virus and those living with it.

If we take into account the highly homophobic social context in which news of the condition first started circulating, then its cultural dimensions become all the more important. We must consider what AIDS meant to people in the 1980s and 1990s, and what HIV still means today, at a time when antiretroviral therapies are being used successfully to manage existing infections and prevent new ones.

Take, for instance, these 1987 public service announcements, produced in the US for the State Health Division of Oregon:

These videos highlight some of the key features of the publically-funded AIDS awareness campaigns of the 1980s and early 1990s. Even if we ignore the fact that governments only publicly acknowledged AIDS years after the first known patients (homosexual men) started dying, these and other films of the time are evidence of the impact a homophobic mainstream culture had on the ways AIDS was dealt with in public.

Despite the fact that homosexual men had been one of the demographics most affected by the condition, these campaigns still refused to address homosexuals directly and communicate clearly to them ways in which homosexual sex could be made safer. Instead, they preferred to deal in visual metaphors and allusions aimed at an abstract general public.

Marked by a fear, on the part of the Thatcher and Reagan governments, that speaking directly to homosexuals could be seen as endorsing “deviant” homosexual behaviour, the often moralistic – and publicly-funded – health campaigns released during the peak of the Western AIDS crisis ignored the specific realities of those most affected by the epidemic.

Not only that, but health campaigns and news stories often played with metaphors that were not only deeply sexist and homophobic, but also inspired by the language of warfare. They also mostly chose to endorse celibacy or monogamy rather than educate people about risk-management and safer sex.

A fatal price

In Oregon’s “Revolver” video, for example, promiscuity is posited as the ultimate cause of AIDS. Further, the penis is represented by a gun and the (infected) semen by killer bullets, associating HIV transmission, in most cases unintentional, with murder.

Or consider the image below. Published in the popular science magazine Discover, in December 1985, medical illustrations and considerations about human anatomy are used to portray the rectum as “vulnerable” and the vagina as “rugged … designated to withstand the trauma of intercourse”. As a result, the article concluded “AIDS … is now – and is likely to remain – largely the fatal price one can pay for anal intercourse.”

Even in the realm of art, the earliest representations of HIV and AIDS weren’t any less problematic. When, in 1988, American photographer Nicholas Nixon included portraits of men living with AIDS in his show Photographs of People at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, activists were quick to respond with anger.

In the photos, which led activist group ACT UP New York to protest against the show, emaciated bodies of sick men are portrayed in a way that could be seen as objectifying them. In one image included in the show, the subject – Donald Perham – is depicted as an “AIDS body”, deprived of individuality or agency, his whole existence violently reduced by the camera to the syndrome that would eventually kill him. The photograph tells us nothing about him apart from his name and the health condition that will eventually destroy him. He is portrayed as a living corpse.

A new visual vocabulary

Despite the many counter-narratives of HIV and AIDS that artists and activists have been producing since the 1980s, this mainstream visual imaginary still informs how we picture HIV today and sustains the stigma that remains associated with the virus. While many recent films and TV productions such as How To Survive a Plague (2012), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), The Normal Heart (2014), or 120 BPM (2017), have been revisiting the early years of the AIDS crisis and looking at it from afar, we need a new visual vocabulary to make sense of the virus today, at a time when treatment has made HIV a manageable and untransmittable condition.

Further, if AIDS became such a defining spectre haunting gay men during the 1980s and the early 1990s, we need to think about the ways in which gay masculinities and sexual practices are today being shaped and represented in the age of antiretroviral therapies.

That is, in part, the aim of my new research project, funded by a fellowship of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which will look at contemporary representations of masculinity in “post-AIDS” gay pornography. The hope is that it will help us to understand the ways in which the AIDS crisis and its aftermath have impacted the lives, identities, and sexual practices of gay men, rather than just see it in terms of tombstones and grim reapers.

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Global gains made in AIDS fight are under threat due to declining political commitment and funding, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said here on Monday.

At an international AIDS conference, the WHO chief said in 2018, 770,000 people died from HIV and 1.7 million people were newly infected and the vast majority of these cases and deaths occurred in Africa.

An AIDS-free world can be achieved with “innovation, community engagement and political leadership,” he told the opening ceremony of the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) that runs in Dec. 2-7 in Kigali.

HIV pandemic will remain a global challenge in the foreseeable future, said ICASA president John Idoko.

He called upon the governments to seek domestic solutions for a sustainable response against HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said at the opening ceremony that stigma and silence are “real killers” for sexually transmitted infections, as they hinder people from learning and accepting their status.

“Open dialogue saves lives,” the president said.

The conference held under the theme “AIDS-free Africa” drew nearly 8,000 participants including leaders, activists, scientists and researchers from across the world to discuss the role of political leadership, collaboration and innovation in advancing efforts to end AIDS by 2030.

More than 37 million people were living with HIV worldwide in 2018, where Africa accounted for about one in every 25 adults infected with the virus, according to the WHO.

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NAIROBI, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) — As the 31st World AIDS Day approaches on December 1, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday launched a social media campaign to raise awareness about HIV and Aids among African youth amid their vulnerability to the disease.

Senior officials said the campaign dubbed  The Tea On HIV aims to reach out to one million adolescents and youth in Africa with information on how they can prevent themselves from contracting HIV and how to live positively with it.

“This social media campaign aims to equip young Africans with the right information to start breaking the barriers that prevent them from getting support,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.

Nearly 1.5 million out of the 1.6 million adolescents living with HIV globally by 2018 were in the Sub-Saharan African region, according to the data from WHO.

Moeti said that investment in youth-friendly reproductive health services are key to revitalize war against HIV and Aids in Africa that accounts for more than 70 percent of 30 million people living with the disease globally.

According to the UNAIDS data, only one in three young people globally has comprehensive knowledge about HIV and seven out of 10 young women(aged 15-24 years) in sub-Saharan Africa do not have comprehensive knowledge about HIV.

Frank Lule, medical officer HIV/Aids treatment at WHO Regional Office for Africa, said that 4 out of 10 new HIV infections are concentrated in the 15 to 24 years age bracket in the continent thanks to vulnerabilities linked to poverty and limited information about the disease.

“There has been inadequate awareness about HIV and Aids among adolescents and youth in this region and the new campaign will ensure they have access to knowledge on prevention and management of the disease,” said Lule.

He said that the social media-fueled HIV and Aids awareness campaign will provide a platform for African youth to share knowledge, experience and best practices geared towards the elimination of the disease by 2030.

Catherine Ngugi, head of programs at Kenya’s National Aids and STIs Control Program (NASCOP), said that robust interventions that include awareness campaigns and economic empowerment is key to reduce HIV infections among the youth.

“We need to look at the other drivers of higher infections among the youth that include lack of access to education, quality health care and jobs,” said Ngugi.

She said that Kenya has developed youth-friendly HIV and Aids interventions as government data indicate that this demographic accounted for more than 51 percent of new infections in the recent past.

Doreen Moraa, a 27-year-old Kenyan campaigner living with HIV, said that leveraging on social media platforms is key to influence behavior change among youth at risk of contracting the Aids virus.

“On my Facebook page, I have declared: I am HIV-positive. I am not sick. I am not sad. I am not dying. I am just a fabulous host to a tiny virus.” said Moraa in Nairobi.

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The World Health Organization has issued new HIV testing recommendations to help countries expand treatment coverage and reach the estimated 8.1 million people living with HIV who have not yet been diagnosed. The WHO guidelines were released on Wednesday ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1 and the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA2019), which will take place in Kigali, Rwanda on December 2-7.

“The face of the HIV epidemic has changed dramatically over the past decade,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press release. “More people are receiving treatment than ever before, but too many are still not getting the help they need because they have not been diagnosed.”

The launch of the WHO guidelines comes right on the heels of a UNAIDS report published Wednesday that highlighted mixed success in tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Access to HIV treatment has expanded and new HIV infections have declined by 28% from 2010 to 2018 in eastern and southern Africa, the region most affected by HIV, but women and girls are still disproportionately affected. Four out of five new HIV infections among adolescents in the Sub-Saharan Africa region occur in girls. Additionally, new HIV infections are increasing in eastern Europe, central Asia, northern Africa, and parts of Latin America.

WHO estimates that at the end of 2018, there were 36.7 million people with HIV worldwide. Of these, 21% have not yet been diagnosed. Expanding testing for HIV helps ensure that people are diagnosed early and can start treatment. Testing also helps identify people who are HIV-negative but may be at high risk for contracting the infection and link them to appropriate and effect prevention services.

Both publications highlight that key populations such as injecting drug users, sex workers, transgender people and prison populations are at higher risk of testing positive for HIV, but may be less engaged in HIV decision-making and have less access to healthcare services. Additionally, in countries where high proportions of people have already been tested and treated, it can be difficult to reach the remaining proportion of people living with HIV who have not yet been tested, according to WHO.

The new “WHO consolidated guidelines on HIV testing services” recommends strategies for expanding a package of HIV-related services to those hardest to reach including:

• Adoption of a standard HIV testing strategy which uses three consecutive reactive tests to provide an HIV positive diagnosis. Previously, most high burden countries were using two consecutive tests. The new approach can help countries achieve maximum accuracy, particularly in high-prevalence settings.
• Use of HIV self-testing as a gateway to diagnosis based on new evidence that finds people who are at higher HIV risk and not tested in clinical settings are more likely to be tested if they can access HIV self-tests.
• Implement social network-based HIV testing to reach key populations who are at high risk but have less access to services, and use peer-led, innovative digital communications such as short messages and videos to build demand and increase uptake of HIV testing.
• Focus on community-based delivery of rapid testing through lay providers for relevant countries in the European, South-East Asian, Western Pacific and Eastern Mediterranean regions. Rapid testing methods cost less and can provide results up to 2-3 weeks earlier than traditional laboratory-based diagnostic tests.
• Use HIV/syphilis dual rapid tests in antenatal care as the first HIV test to help eliminate mother-to-child transmission of both infections.

Power to Choose, Power to Know, Power to Thrive, Power to Demand

The UNAIDS report, Power to the People, found that significant progress has been made in expanding access to treatment, with an estimated 24.5 million people with HIV accessing anti-retroviral drugs and other therapies. However, progress to slow HIV transmission has stalled, and an estimated 1.7 million people were newly infected with the virus in 2018.

In Eastern and Southern Africa, the hot spots of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, new infections declined by 28% between 2010 and 2018. However, outside of eastern and southern Africa, new HIV infections have declined by only 4% since 2010. Of concern is the rise of new HIV infections in certain regions. The annual number of new HIV infections rose by 29% in eastern Europe and central Asia, by 10% in the Middle East and North Africa and by 7% in Latin America. the report notes.

“In many parts of the world, significant progress has been made in reducing new HIV infections, reducing AIDS-related deaths and reducing discrimination, especially in eastern and southern Africa, but gender inequality and denial of human rights are leaving many people behind,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS in a press release.

The report aims to highlight the importance of including people and communities affected by HIV in HIV service delivery and policy-making. Specifically, stigma and discrimination can still prevent people from seeking knowledge on how to prevent HIV transmission, or accessing diagnosis and treatment.  But when people living with HIV are empowered, these barriers are more frequently overcome. Specifically, the report notes four areas of empowerment for programmes to target:

• Power to Choose – The report finds almost 40% of adult women and 60% of adolescent girls (aged 15–19 years) in sub-Saharan Africa have unmet needs for modern contraception. Family planning services are closely tied to HIV treatment and prevention services. In sub-Saharan Africa, young women’s uptake of medicine to prevent HIV—pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)—is high in projects that integrate PrEP into youth-friendly health services and family planning clinics and when provision of PrEP is separated from treatment services.
• Power to Know – Knowledge of HIV among young people is alarmingly low in many regions. In countries with recently available survey data, just 23% of young women (aged 15–24 years) and 29% of young men (aged 15–24 years) have comprehensive and correct knowledge of HIV. This can lead to people finding out their HIV status too late, sometimes years after they became infected, facilitating transmission and leading to a delay in starting treatment.
• Power to Thrive – Certain populations are being left behind. In 2018, 160 000 children (aged 0–14 years) became newly infected with HIV, and 100 000 children died from an AIDS-related illness. In Eswatini, a recent study showed that adolescent girls and young women who experienced gender-based violence were 1.6 times more likely to acquire HIV than those who did not. The same study also showed that economic empowerment of girls and women helped reduce new HIV infections among women by more than 25% and increased the probability of young women and girls going back to school and finishing their education.
• Power to Demand – There have been reports of crackdowns, restrictions and even attacks on groups and campaigns supporting key populations most affected by HIV. Some governments refuse to recognize, support or engage community organizations in their national responses to HIV and are subsequently missing out on their enormous potential to reach the people most affected by HIV.

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According to the World Health Organisation, obesity represents a rapidly growing threat to the health of populations in an increasing number of countries. This is indeed a cause of concern. Obesity can lead to coronary heart disease, hypertension, stroke, certain types of cancer and non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Other health risks include gallbladder disease, dyslipidaemia, osteoarthritis and gout, and pulmonary diseases, including sleep apnoea.

Obese Women Less Likely To Use Oral Contraceptives: Study

Now a study says that it an also affect your sexual health. A study at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale in Paris says that the ‘rate of unplanned pregnancies is four times higher among single obese women than normal weight women’. This is despite them being less likely to have been sexually active in the past year. Researchers also say that obese women are less likely to seek contraceptive advice or to use oral contraceptives. They noted that obese men have fewer sexual partners in a 12 month period. They are also more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction and develop sexually transmitted infections than normal weight men.

This is the first major study to investigate the impact of obesity on sexual activity and sexual health outcomes such as sexual satisfaction, unintended pregnancy and abortion. The study was published in the British Medical Journal.

Obese Men More Likely To Suffer From Erectile Dysfunction: Experts

For the purpose of the study, researchers undertook a survey of sexual behaviours among 12,364 French men and women between the ages of 18 to 69 years. Among the participants 3,651 women and 2,725 men were of normal weight. The other 1,010 women and 1,488 men were overweight. The rest 411 women and 350 men were obese. Researchers saw that obese women were ‘30 per cent less likely to have had a sexual partner in the last 12 months. Obese men were 70 per cent less likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the same period and were two and half times more likely to experience erectile dysfunction’.

However, sexual dysfunction did not have a link with BMI among women. Researchers also noted that obese women under 30 were less likely to seek contraceptive advice or use oral contraceptives. They were also more likely to report an unintended pregnancy. Obese men under 30 were far more likely to have had a sexually transmitted infection. Obese women were also five times more likely to have met their partner on the Internet. They were more likely to have an obese partner, and less likely to view sex as important for personal life balance.

Looking at the results of the survey, researchers concluded that ‘the scale of the problem and the magnitude of the effects (particularly the fourfold increase in risk of unintended pregnancy among obese women) warrants focused attention. In terms of targeting advice and care, a considerable proportion of the population is obese, is easily identified as such, as is at increased risk in terms of poorer sexual health status’.

Lose Weight Now

Now you have all the more reason to lose weight. It will help you reduce your risk of many health complications. It will also give a boost to your sexual health. Start exercising and leading an active life. Eat well-balanced and nutritional meals to keep obesity at bay. Have more of fruits and vegetables. Get regular check-ups done to rule out any medical reason behind your weight gain. Timely treatment of any such condition will go a long way in ensuring a healthy and fit life.

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ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) — China has been making direct and indirect contribution to Africa’s efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria on the continent, an official of the African Union (AU) said.

Speaking to Xinhua exclusively on Wednesday, Benjamin Djoudalbaye, AU Acting Head of HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, noted that China’s contribution to the Global Fund, which is to fight against the major deadly diseases, is one of the indirect support areas in the fight against HIV/AIDS on the African continent.

The World Health Organizations (WHO) says HIV continues to be a major global public health issue. In 2018, some 770, 000 people died from HIV-related causes globally.

There were approximately 37.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2018, with 1.7 million people becoming newly infected in 2018 globally. And 62 percent of adults and 52 percent of children living with HIV were receiving lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2018.

Africa is the most affected region, with about 25.7 million people living with HIV in 2018; and the continent accounts for almost two thirds of the global total of new HIV infections, according to WHO.

Reiterating that Africa is one of the most affected regions by HIV/AIDS in the world, the AU Acting Head of HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria said the continent has achieved remarkable results in the past two years, despite the success stories are with disparities.

“For the last couple of years, I think we are on the (trajectory) in controlling HIV today on the continent, ” the official said, adding people have access to treatments and efforts were made to reduce maternal mortality and mother to child transmission of HIV.

“The new infections are going down in parts of the continent but despite all these efforts the disparities exist,” he said.

In addition to the indirect contribution through the Global Fund, China forged a very good partnership with the 55-member pan-African bloc, whereby it provides supports, including among others training for experts who have indispensable role in the fight against the HIV/AIDS.

“For us, as the African Union, we have a very good collaboration with China. And recently two of my two members went to China and were trained on HIV control. So, this type of action programs do exist between China and the African Union Commission,” he said.

Reiterating that Africa has achieved remarkable results in the anti-HIV/AIDS interventions, the acting head mentioned Botswana and Rwanda as two success stories on the continent.

“I can tell you two success stories; a country like Botswana has virtually eliminated mother to child transmission of HIV; that is a success story; and the second success story is that a country like Rwanda will control HIV, as a program of Public Health, before 2030,” Djoudalbaye has noted.

Speaking of the challenges, Djoudalbaye says funding and resistance to the drug are among the two major challenges in Africa, while the health system is also there as far as the fight against HIV/AIDS is concerned.

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The world has eradicated the smallpox virus. All but two nations have eradicated polio, with India certified as polio-free by the WHO since 2014. There is a chance that the world may be free of the virus in the next few years. Could typhoid fever be the next big success story?

Last year saw the development of a domestically produced vaccine, sparking renewed hopes that the disease may be eradicated in the near future. The vaccine, produced by Bharat Biotech, was analysed in a study at Oxford University. 

The study produced overwhelmingly positive results. It was found that the vaccine showed a protection rate of up to 87 percent against typhoid fever. In addition it was noted that the vaccine is safe to use in children beneath the age of two. This was of huge significance as the widely used vi-ps typhoid vaccine cannot be used in that age group.

The vaccine was hailed as a breakthrough by both media and journals such as Nature, which named the vaccine one of the “treatments that made headlines in 2018.” “The WHO has approved a vaccine against typhoid fever, called Typbar TCV, short for typhoid conjugate vaccine,” the journal wrote. “This vaccine is the first conjugate vaccine — a vaccine in which a weak antigen [of the typhoid germ] is attached to a strong antigen [from the tetanus germ] to elicit antibody responses — against a bacterial disease [typhoid] that “affects up to twenty million people annually”.”

Typhoid fever is a gastrointestinal infection caused by Salmonella enterica typhi bacteria. The disease is passed on through contact with infected faecal matter. This is often due to poor hygiene practices such as neglecting to wash one’s hands. This is a matter of concern in India as hygiene practices are often overlooked, both in the home and in the settings such as hospitals and schools – exacerbated by a lack of sanitation infrastructure.

Outbreaks also occur in situations where sewage systems are compromised or drinking water supplies are contaminated. The aftermath of August’s floods in Hyderabad have been the cause of outbreaks of typhoid fever in addition to numerous other water-borne diseases, as the rising waters damaged sewage systems and septic tanks around the city.

Open defecation is also a significant driver of typhoid fever cases. As some with the condition remain asymptomatic, they may pass on the condition to others without ever being aware of their own infection. If defecation occurs near a water source, as may be the case in rural villages, this places the entire community at risk.

Bharat Biotech’s vaccine success story not only gives hope for the reduction in cases of typhoid fever, but underlines the fact that India’s domestic production of vaccines may be the key to future success stories in the vein of of polio and smallpox.

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HIV/AIDS has gone from a mysterious deadly illness to a manageable chronic disease. But a lot happened in the roughly four decades it took to get there. And, according to the American activist David Barr, there’s much that needs to be done to ensure the gains are not reversed.

Barr has seen almost everything in his 35 years of fighting the epidemic, from the early gatherings in the 1980s of the pioneering activist group ACT UP to the roll-out of treatments that saved millions of lives, including his own.

Looking back at his life’s work, and the seminal efforts in the United States that helped launch a global movement, Barr broke down the six stages of the battle against HIV/AIDS.

Fear 

To be gay in the 1980s was to be scared. There was a disease infecting your friends, and someday it might come for you, too — if it hadn’t already.

Lawyers around the U.S. were calling the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, where Barr was working, asking what they could do for clients who had been kicked out of doctor’s offices, thrown out of apartments, or fired.

There wasn’t much they could do. By 1985, the U.S. government had just licensed an antibody test that screened for HIV, the precursor to AIDS, which had already claimed thousands of lives in the U.S.

Lambda was advising the gay community not to take the test because there was nothing protecting people should they test positive. Texas had tried, after all, to pass a law forcing those who tested positive to be quarantined.

And what were you supposed to do if you tested positive anyway? That just meant you were afflicted by an illness for which there was no cure.

“And in the midst of all of it, our government wasn’t responding at all,” Barr said.

So the gay community developed their own legal responses, introduced education about how to keep from catching the disease, and put in place social work services. And they began to fight back.

Fight

In New York City in the late 1980s, Monday nights at the newly established AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) meetings were the place to be. By the summer of 1987, hundreds of gay people made their way to take part.

“People were sick and dying all around us, constantly,” Barr said. “It felt like we were in a war zone.”

In a politically charged time, ACT UP was the angry activist group. Their first action was to protest the high price for the antiretroviral azidothymidine (AZT), the only treatment on the market for people living with HIV.

In October 1988, ACT UP took the fight to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in suburban Maryland, donning lab coats with their hands painted red with fake blood, demanding a government response. They wanted more studies on HIV/AIDS, and they wanted quicker access to possible treatments.

“That was really the demonstration where the national AIDS movement was born,” Barr said.

Drugs

As the camaraderie of the early years began to fray, Barr and other members of ACT UP broke off in 1991 to form their own group, Treatment Action Group (TAG), to begin a new phase of activism. Rather than fight the power, they’d try to harness it. “I didn’t need to take over the FDA,” Barr explained. “I needed to get into the room with FDA.”

In 1993, AIDS claimed around 40,000 lives in the U.S. alone.

That year, Barr and four other members of TAG protested a conference in Berlin, where a doctor planned to say that taking AZT and two other analogs, ddI or ddC, was effective for a particular group of people. Barr and his fellow activists stormed in to tell the crowd that her results were skewed, and the drugs were actually not effective at all. The group of five marched out to applause and the feeling of triumph.

“We had made our point,” he said.

But later, as they sat in a park, the reality of what that meant hit them: They were left without a cure. “We were the ones who were going to suffer from this,” he explained.

Turning point

The mid-1990s were a time of guarded optimism. Patients who had signed up for clinical trials and an expanded access program were taking what was informally known as the AIDS cocktail, and it seemed to be working: “People getting up from their deathbeds — literally,” Barr said.

The pills were difficult to take. Patients couldn’t miss a dose. The side effects could be harsh. But they were working. By 1996, antiretrovirals were available on the market for anyone with the virus — not just those in the expanded trials. The FDA, having recognized the urgency, was flagging new treatments for approval, with less data than was needed for any other group of drugs before it. That was the first year that death rates began to decline.

“There was certainly some elation,” Barr said. “But there was also this odd guilt, because why am I alive, and my friends aren’t? How did I get lucky, and they didn’t? There was no rhyme or reason to any of it.”

Global battle

The fight against HIV/AIDS went worldwide in the 2000s.

The momentum began at the XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2000, when activists in the country took their national fight to the global stage.

The Global Fund and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the two main revenue streams for HIV/AIDS funding, were put in place. The World Health Organization set a goal of getting 3 million people into treatment by 2005 — “a very ambitious target at the time.”

HIV/AIDS activists teamed up around the world. Some faced “much greater challenges” than in New York, and their collaborative work built momentum and help rake in money.

“We were making the right argument at the right time,” Barr said.

Fragile success

Barr says the fight has only gotten more difficult. Funding for HIV/AIDS has remained relatively flat. A 2019 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS found that donor governments’ spending hasn’t changed much in the last year. Donors are also less inclined to give money for HIV-specific work.

Meanwhile, the number of people living with HIV continues to rise. “Every year you have a flat budget it’s like a cut,” Barr said.

U.N. member states signed up to 90-90-90 targets in 2014, pledging to ensure that by 2020, 90 percent of people with HIV will know their status, 90 percent of those diagnosed will be on antiretroviral therapies, and 90 percent of those receiving therapy will have succeeded in repressing the virus. But they have not come up with the money to make that happen.

Barr objects to how UNAIDS and PEPFAR frame their messaging. They claim “we’ll meet the targets, and we’ll end AIDS,” he said. “That’s not true.” Those starting treatment now will have to maintain it for decades. “Those bills are going to keep coming in,” he said.

Then there’s sex and drugs — as the fear subsides, a whole new generation is growing up now who has not learned the lessons from the 1980s and 1990s.

“The success we have made is remarkable,” Barr said, “but it’s incredibly fragile.”

“If the response is not sustained and maintained, we’re going to lose the tools we’ve miraculously been able to develop [over the decades],” Barr warned. “And then we’re back to 1986.”

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Data from World Health Organization (WHO) shows that tobacco kills nearly six million people in a year. The situation is equally bad in India, with estimated number of tobacco users being 274.9 million as per the Global Adult Tobacco Survey India (GATS). This includes 163.7 million users of only smokeless tobacco, 68.9 million only smokers, and 42.3 million users of both smoking and smokeless tobacco. The negative impact of tobacco on lungs is well known but what is lesser known is that it also narrows your arteries, hardens their walls and makes your heart beat faster, which increases your blood pressure. It stresses your heart and sets you up for a heart attack or stroke.

Moreover, the response to anti-hypertensive drugs in smokers is usually impaired, since biochemical and metabolic interference exists between cigarette smoking and the drugs. For this and other reasons, it is advisable to give up tobacco in any form. To quit smoking is not a single, overnight event; it is a journey. By quitting, you will improve your health and the quality and duration of your life, as well as the lives of those around you.

Hypertension: Going Hand In Hand With Diabetes

Reportedly, people with diabetes are about twice as likely to have high blood pressure. At an average every two of the three diabetics will have hypertension too. In diabetes, an over supply of sugar and insulin in the body causes inflammation, which then damages and stiffens your artery lining, allowing plaque to build up. This process eventually increases your risk of hypertension, heart attacks and strokes. It is widely believed that someone who has high body fat content, is obese, eats high-sodium diet or follows a sedentary lifestyle is vulnerable to both these conditions. Diabetes along with hypertension can be lethal as they heighten the risk of further complications including heart attack or a stroke, kidney diseases and visual impairment.

People with diabetes must make conscious efforts to keep their blood pressure levels in control. Making small changes to your lifestyle goes long way in maintaining your blood pressure and taking control of your life and health. Prevention is the only cure for these complications. It is important to take regular diabetes test and blood pressure check, and adopt a healthy and stress-free lifestyle complete with balanced diet, exercise, yoga and meditation.

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MANILA, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) — The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday an estimated 120,000 additional people in the Western Pacific region are still being infected with HIV each year, with a significant increase in new infections in the Philippines.

WHO said current HIV prevention efforts in the region focus on key populations, such as men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and sex workers.

“These efforts include the use of antiretrovirals as pre-exposure prophylaxis, community-based HIV testing and partner notification, and transitioning to newer and more effective drug regimens,” WHO said in a statement.

The good news is that more and more HIV patients in the region have access to HIV treatment, the United Nations health agency added.

WHO noted “progress” in access to HIV treatment in the region, which has grown from 34 percent in 2014 to 59 percent in 2018, with 1.11 million of an estimated 1.9 million people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment.

WHO said hepatitis remains “a key challenge” for the region, with an estimated 115 million people with chronic hepatitis B infection and 14 million with chronic hepatitis C infection.

Currently, WHO said only 17 percent are diagnosed and a mere 3 percent are receiving treatment.

Chronic hepatitis B and C are the most common causes of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer, according to WHO.

At the 17th session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific being held in Manila since Monday, health leaders agreed to develop a nine-year action plan to eradicate hepatitis.

“Delegates emphasized the need to overcome barriers to testing and treatment, since too few people are aware they are infected with hepatitis, or receive the medications to treat it,” WHO added.

WHO said it will continue working with countries, experts and partners to develop a hepatitis regional action plan for 2021 to 2030.

Responding to rising rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in some countries, delegates also welcomed support from WHO to estimate the number of people infected, intensify surveillance and update treatment guidelines.

WHO said stigma, discrimination and inequitable access to services, particularly among key populations, still pose challenges in the region for those with HIV, hepatitis and STIs.

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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Wednesday opened a drive to raise $14 billion to fight the global epidemics but face an uphill battle in the face of donor fatigue.

Host President Emmanuel Macron is to chair the final day of the two-day meeting in the French city of Lyon on Thursday and meet African heads of state.

The fund has asked for $14 billion, an amount it says would help save 16 million lives, avert “234 million infections” and place the world back on track to meet the UN objective of ending the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria within 10 years.

“I count on every one of you to bring together the financing necessary to give the Global Fund the means necessary to support the worst affected countries,” said French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn as the meeting opened.

“We are here to send a strong signal. A collective, universal and ambitious signal,” she added. 

The UN’s World Health Organization says 770,000 people died of HIV-related causes last year. Tuberculosis, a high risk for HIV-positive people, claimed some 1.7 million lives in 2017, and malaria more than 430,000.

– ‘Anything more a success’ –

The meeting is the sixth to replenish the fund since it was set up in 2002, with prominent supporters including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and U2 lead singer Bono in attendance.

But officials said ahead of the meeting that collecting such a large sum could prove challenging, especially as global attention moves from AIDS towards fighting climate change.

Anything more than the $13 billion pledged at the fund’s last meeting three years ago in Montreal “will be considered a success”, said an official in the French presidency.

Macron, however, made it clear at the UN General Assembly in September that he expected no less than $14 billion, saying “no-one any longer can understand” that people are unable to access medicines for the deadly disease trio.

NGOs insist even more is needed — as much as $18 billion. 

– ‘Less not acceptable’ –

Some countries have announced their contribution. The US is the number one donor with a $4.68 billion contribution voted by Congress.

Britain is set to pledge $1.7 billion and Germany $1.1 billion. It remains to be seen what France will contribute, although Macron has vowed it will be worthy of the country’s historical status as the Fund’s number two donor.

France also wants the private sector to play a bigger role, and the fund is seeking $1 billion of the total from the business world.

“No amount less than $14 billion will be acceptable,” the AIDES and Coalition PLUS NGOs said in a statement, urging France to ramp up its contribution by 25 percent.

“We are here to remember that behind this financial bargaining there are human lives,” said AIDES president Aurelien Beaucamp.

AIDES said that as things stand now, the meeting risks falling $200-$500 million short of its target.

Macron will meet leaders including Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou and Cameroon President Paul Biya, while Rwandan President Paul Kagame is also set to be in attendance.

The Global Fund groups states, NGOs and private firms to support public health programmes around the world, investing about $4 billion every year.

It says it has helped save 32 million lives and provided prevention, treatment and care services to hundreds of millions of people, while the number of deaths caused by AIDS, TB and malaria each year has been reduced by 40 percent since 2002 in countries where the Fund invests.

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