Critical health communication scholars point out that the acceptance of HIV risk prevention methods are bound inside inequitable structures of power and knowledge. Nicola Bulled’s in-depth ethnographic account of how these messages are selected, transmitted and reacted to by young adults in the AIDS-torn population of Lesotho in southern Africa provides a crucial example of the importance of a culture-centered approach to health communication. She shows the clash between traditional western perceptions of how increased knowledge will increase compliance with western ideas of prevention, and mixed messages offered by local religious, educational, and media institutions. Bulled also demonstrates how structural and geographical forces prevent the delivery and acceptance of health messages, and how local communities shape their own knowledge of health, disease and illness. This volume will be of interest to medical anthropologists and sociologists, to those in health communication, and to researchers working on issues related to HIV.
AIDS is a continuing worldwide health crisis. Over 25,000,000 people have died from AIDS, and more than 33,000,000 are infected today. While treatments in the developed world have moved AIDS from a fatal to a chronic, highly expensive disease, it remains the sixth greatest cause of death globally and most of those infected in the developing world don't have access to treatments. Here, the AIDS 2031 Commission's experts report on the first 50 years of the AIDS pandemic: the 30 years that have passed since AIDS was first diagnosed, and the prospects and best plans to address the ongoing worldwide AIDS epidemic over the coming 20 years. The authors address the entire scope of the pandemic: basic science, public health, funding, treatment options, and social and societal impacts and review the full range of possible and recommended responses over the next two decades. They carefully assess the progress that has been made, and both persistent and emerging challenges. Written to be easily understandable by all readers, this book is the single best source of reliable information on where the pandemic stands today, where it's headed, and what can be done to create better outcomes between now and 2031.
The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to national AIDS programmes and partners on the use of indicators to measure and report on the country response. The 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, adopted at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS in June 2016, mandated UNAIDS to support countries in reporting on the commitments in the Political Declaration. The Political Declaration on Ending AIDS built on three previous political declarations: the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS and the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.
HIV/AIDS is a catastrophe globally but nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa, which in 2008 accounted for 67 percent of cases worldwide and 91 percent of new infections. The Institute of Medicine recommends that the United States and African nations move toward a strategy of shared responsibility such that these nations are empowered to take ownership of their HIV/AIDS problem and work to solve it.
"Knowing your epidemic" is essential for everyone involved in the response to HIV. Extensively illustrated with graphs and charts, this biennial report presents concise but comprehensive summaries of major issues in the global AIDS response. Annexes provide HIV estimates and data 2001 and 2007, and also country progress indicators.
As we approach the 25th anniversary of the first recognition of HIV/AIDS in 1981, this book reflects on the international impact of the disease. It has persistently remained a global issue, with more than 50 million people worldwide estimated to have been infected since that date. This ambitious book, written by 165 authors from 30 countries, offers a multi-country comparative study that examines how the response to the common, global threat of HIV is shaped by the history, culture, institutions and health systems of the individual countries affected. Increasingly the shift of health systems has been from prevention only as the main containment strategy, to a strategy that includes scaling up HIV treatment, and care and prevention services, including antiretroviral therapy. Thus, all parts of the health system must be involved; policy makers, healthcare professionals and users of the services have been forced to think differently about how services are financed, how resources are allocated, how systems are structured and organized, how services are delivered to patients, and how the resulting activity is monitored and evaluated in order to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, equity and acceptability of the response. This book is unique in attempting to describe and assess a range of responses across the globe by situating them within the characteristics of each country and its health system. Most chapters combine a health policy expert with an HIV specialist, allowing both a 'top down' health system approach and a 'bottom up' HIV-specific perspective. There are thematic and analytical sections, which provide an overview and some suggestions for solutions to the most serious outstanding issues, and chapters which analyse specific country and organisational responses. There is no perfect health system, but the evidence provided here allows the sharing of knowledge, and a opportunity to assess the impact and reactions, to an epidemic that must be considered a long term issue.