AIDS: In search of a social solution
Publishers: TWN, Peoples’ Health Movement
Produced by Third World Resurgence
Pages: 154
Price: Third World - US$10.00; First World: US$14.00 (Prices are inclusive of postage cost by air mail.)

TWO decades after HIV/AIDS was discovered, it continues to spread across continents, infecting and killing millions and destroying entire communities. HIV/AIDS attacks every sector of the society, affecting food security, depressing national economies, and rolling back the development gains of the last thirty or more years, as the African experience has shown, especially in the worst-affected countries.

Underlining the pandemic in which women figure disproportionately is the fact that HIV/AIDS thrives in and reinforces conditions of deprivation, poverty, oppression, conflicts, social violence, and social collapse. Hence, combating social inequalities within a country and between countries is fundamental to Health for All.

This means challenging the power structures and policies that engender ill health, be they governments, the World Bank-IMF, unequal trade agreements, structural adjustment policies, corporate-driven privatisation or free-market fundamentalism, all of which have severely affected public health systems particularly in the Third World.

This book is a compilation of 56 articles. Topics include perspectives on HIV/AIDS; socio-economic analysis of HIV/AIDS; patents and access to medicines; fighting discrimination and stigma; AIDS orphans; country studies from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America; women and HIV/AIDS and alternative remedies for HIV/AIDS.

Jointly published by the Third World Network and the People's Health Movement, it is a useful source for campaign and advocacy.

CONTENTS

I           The Millenium’s Plaque

1.   AIDS: A threat to peace and development

2.   The next wave

CIA warns of AIDS a security threat in strategic countries

II            Paradigms and Perspectives

1.   Does HIV cause AIDS? - Mae-Wan Ho
2.   Is there an AIDS epidemic in Africa? - Sam Burcher
3.   A paradigm under pressure - Huw Christie
4.   Uncommon questions - Women’s Health Interaction
5.   Shifting definitions - Charles Geshekter

III            Spreading in the Belly of the Free Market

1.   Africa and the virus of underdevelopment - Rahab S Hawa
2.   Fuelled by debt and IMF-World Bank policies - Africa Action

IV        Fighting AIDS and Patent Rights

1.   Public health versus commercial interests

1. The role of public interest groups in Thailand - Nathan Ford et al
2.   Patents and access to medicines: What can be done - Martin Khor
3.   Public health versus international treaty - An experience with the issue of TRIPS and access to medicines  -  Third World Network - Peoples’ Health Movement
4.   The struggle for cheap drugs and the right to health -  Consumers Association of Penang
5.   AIDS and the medicalisation of poverty - Charles Geshekter
6.   AIDS groups protest US efforts to block generics - Jim Lobe
7.   Activists claim partial victory on export of generic drugs -  Saul Chernos
8.   US drug firm hikes price of public funded AIDS drug

V         Africa: The Mounting Toll

1.   Africa counts its dead - Michael Fleshman
2.   The economic and social impact - Belinda Beresford
3.   Famine and AIDS: A lethal mixture - John Nyamu
4.   Is it wilful genocide? - Rahab Hawa

VI        Effects on the African Economy

1.   The impact of HIV/AIDS on human capital - C N Mwikisa
2.   Business reeling under HIV/AIDS impact - James Hall
3.   Business closes its eyes to the dangers of AIDS - Zarina Geloo

VII       Agents in the Spread

1.   Unsafe injections spread HIV - Nance Upham
2.   Are UN troops spreading AIDS? - Michael Fleshman
3.   As EU expands, HIV and drugs a problem - Stefania Bianchi
4.   Ten per cent of AIDS patients resistant to drugs - IHT

VIII      Fighting Discrimination and Stigma

1.   AIDS: Struggle for human rights in Africa - Joy Ngozi Ezeilo
2.   Nigeria: The right to work
3.   Nigeria: Rights activist seeks to end discrimination - IRIN News

IX        AIDS Orphans: The Neglected Crisis

1.   Confronting the invisible crisis - Michael Fleshman
2.   Malawi struggles with the AIDS orphan nightmare - Gumisai Mutume
3.   Namibia’s orphan crisis set to worsen - IRIN News
4.   How AIDS will disrupt African society - The Economist

X            Reversing the Epidemic

1.   Uganda beats back AIDS - Fred Kirungi
2.   Senegal’s recipe for success - Mamadou Mika Lom
3.   Botswana’s high-stakes assault on AIDS - Roman Rollnick
4.   Cuba’s model in HIV/AIDS battle  - Tom Fawthrop
5.   Haiti: Fighting AIDS through community healthcare - Anne-Christine d’Adeski
6.   Brazil protects public health with free HIV/AIDS drugs -  Matthew Flynn

XI        India: Putting AIDS in Perspective

1.   HIV/AIDS is a development issue - Hari M. John
2.   Controlling the epidemic in India - Asha Krishnakumar
3.   The Indian dilemma: Through the eyes of a visitor - Richard Stern

XII       Asia and Burma: AIDS Time Bomb

1.  

2.   The HIV/AIDS epidemic is at a critical stage - Burma Issues
3.   Spreading across Burma’s borders - Burma Issues
4.   Facing the challenge - Interview with Myat Htoo Razak

XIII      Russia and Eastern Europe: The Young Epidemic

1.          HIV/AIDS: Russia’s underrated epidemic - Tatjana Bateneva & Torsten Brezina
2.      AIDS spreading rapidly in Eastern Europe

XIV     Latin America: Trying to Arrest the Disease

1.   AIDS in Latin America advancing slowly but steadily - Paula Andalo
2.   The Global Fund and treatment access in Latin America.  A critical view - Richard Stern

XV       The Curse of Patriarchy

1.   Women most affected by HIV/AIDS - Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR)
2.   Time to break the silence - A campaign - WGNRR
3.   Violence against women fuels HIV/AIDS - Shereen Usdin

XVI            Alternative Remedies for HIV/AIDS

1.   Alternative AIDS therapy from cheap generics - Sam Burcher & Mae-Wan Ho
2.   Can traditional medicine help AIDS? - Sam Burcher
3.   ‘Pink Panacea’, at last a vaccine against AIDS? - Sam Burcher

XVII            Peoples’ Response

1.   Asian People’s Charter on HIV/AIDS - Peoples’ Health Movement
2.   The Mumbai Declaration - Peoples’ Health Movement