Category Archives: Harm reduction

Health, rights and drugs

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Première Ligne, Geneva’s government-funded safe injection site

Ninety-nine percent of people who inject drugs live in countries that lack adequate harm reduction services, including the three countries with the largest populations of people who inject drugs: China, Russia, and the United States. That is one of the key findings of a new UNAIDS report to which I contributed, Health, rights and drugs: Harm reduction, decriminalization and zero discrimination for people who use drugsThe report also shows that rates of HIV infection are not declining among people who use drugs, and may be on the rise. It calls for urgent action. Continue reading

AIDS 2018: Debates over best use of global funds

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(L-R) Chris Beyrer, Michel Kazatchkine, Anka Van Damm at EECA Roundtable. ©Sara L.M. Davis
The last in a series of four articles on AIDS 2018 for Health and Human Rights.

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July 26, 2018

Steadily growing rates of HIV infection in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) are at the heart of a debate roiling health aid at AIDS 2018. While US funding for the global HIV response increased in 2017, that trend is unlikely to continue and most other donors cut back, according to a new report from Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and PEPFAR argue that given the limited global funding for HIV, they should prioritize investing in Sub-Saharan African countries to reach the largest number of people living with HIV. Middle-income countries are increasingly left to “transition” out of aid and foot their own bill. But critics say EECA governments do not fund services for criminalized populations such as people who use drugs. As a result, 39% of new HIV infections are now occurring amongst people who use drugs in the EECA region, says UNAIDS.

“International aid, and the Global Fund in particular, should not behave like development banks. We should fight AIDS wherever it is, and fund what governments are not willing to fund at the time,” said former Global Fund executive director Michel Kazatchkine. While he congratulated a Russian health official sitting beside him at a roundtable, who asserted that Russia had increased its funding for HIV, Kazatchkine countered, “Funding for prevention in Russia is far from where it should be, and still not at scale.”

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Changes to the Global Fund Eligibility Policy: An overview

Lorrie Graham Assignment for Ausaid China 2006

Harm reduction outreach in China. Photo: Lorrie Graham/AusAID

On May 9-10, the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria will meet in Skopje, Macedonia to approve a new policy on which countries are eligible for funding.

I’ve been immersed in this labyrinthine policy as a consultant for the three civil society delegations on the board of the Fund: Developing Country NGO Delegation, Developed Country NGO Delegation and Communities Delegation. They came together to press for an overhaul of the policy. For a variety of reasons, that didn’t happen.

But there has been some progress; there are some big questions for civil society to weigh in on before May, and some critical areas to monitor if the current version is approved.  Here’s an overview: heads up, it’s a long blog.

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