5 December 2011, 06:00 a.m.

The International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) was opened Sunday the 4th of December 2011, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the presence of former U.S. president George W. Bush and the Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi. 

This theme for the 16th edition of the ICASA conference, 'OWN, SCALE-UP & SUSTAIN', was chosen to highlight the conference as an advocacy platform to mobilize African leaders, partners and the communities with the intent of increasing ownership, commitment, and support for the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The five-day ICASA 2011 conference has drawn more than 5,000 experts and activists from around the world for an exchange of ideas and best practices in the fight against AIDS.

Funding concerns were high on the agenda among the participants as HIV/AIDS funding has diminished in recent years due to the global economic recession.

The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which so far has paid for some 70 percent of anti-retroviral drugs distributed in Africa, announced it would not hold a new fund-raising round for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programmes.

An estimated 22.9 million of the 34 million people who are infected with the Aids virus worldwide live in sub-Saharan Africa, with the majority in eastern and southern Africa.

The year 2011 marks the 30th year after AIDS was first discovered as a new disease; 10 years after the UNGASS Political Declaration on AIDS; and 5 years after the Global Declaration towards Universal Access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

Background

ICASA is one of the major international AIDS conferences happening in Africa. Its current biennial hosting alternates between the Anglophone and Francophone African countries. ICASA 2008 was held in Dakar, Senegal.

ICASA provides a forum for exchange of scientific knowledge, experiences and best practices in Africa and around the globe in all dimensions of HIV/AIDS and STIs. Most importantly, ICASA serves as a platform for sharing of progress towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in the continent, which is the milestone of MDG 6.

The participants at ICASA include heads of States and Governments, Eminent Scientists, renowned health workers, high-level policy makers, people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV), community and opinion leaders as well as activists working in the fields of AIDS, STIs as well as Tuberculosis & Malaria.

It also encourages the participation of young researchers, health care workers, and community representatives from the developing world by providing scholarships.

Objective

This High-Level Conference will seek to promote sectoral achievements in AIDS response and to strengthen the partnership among governments, civil societies, and development partners.

The specific objectives of ICASA 2011 are:

· To serve as an advocacy platform to mobilize African leaders, partners and the communities to increase ownership, commitment and support to the response.

· To provide a forum for exchange of knowledge, skills and consolidation of experiences and best practices in Africa and around the globe to scale up evidence-based response on HIV/AIDS/STIs, TB and Malaria to achieve the MDGs.

· To use as a forum to link and hold accountable political and national leaders, the scientific community, practitioners, communities, civil societies, the private sector and partners to scale-up and sustain the response.

· To create opportunities to define priorities and set policy and program agenda to enhance mobilization and effective utilization of resources.

24 March 2012, 06:00 a.m.

To create awareness about the global epidemic, the World Health Organization declared March 24 as World Tuberculosis Day. It commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he diagnosed the cause of TB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB).

Tuberculosis — one of the world’s oldest diseases — remains an epidemic, causing the death of several million people every year. No country is unaffected by it, although Africa and Asia account for 85% of all cases. India and China collectively represent 35% of TB incidents globally.

Aim

The Stop TB Partnership, a network of organizations and countries fighting TB, organizes the day to highlight the scope of the disease and how to prevent and cure it.

Theme 2012

The theme for 2011 is “Innovation: On the move against Tuberculosis”, and it is the second year of a two-year campaign to inspire innovation in TB care and research.

Commemorative Events 

Despite political unrest in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan and Tunisia, commemorative events will continue, according to the World TB Day website.

Kenyans will be able to go for free TB screening, South Africa is launching a month-long campaign to raise awareness, while Namibia is launching a “World TB Day Road Show”.

The organization Stop TB Partnership features their complete list of events and news.

Messages of Inspiration

The Message of Inspiration of by Dr L Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership focus on “the people most affected by childhood TB and those who can do the most to stop it”, while The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr Ban Ki-Moon, in his message ”... call(s) for intensified global solidarity to ensure that all people are free from fear of tuberculosis and its devastating effects.  Let us vow to end the neglect of TB and to end deaths from this disease in our lifetime.”

So much more can be done

Despite the alarming statistics, TB is a curable disease. In the majority of cases, over 90% of people who have drug-susceptible TB can be cured within six months by taking combinations of first-line drugs. If a person is affected with multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), of which there are about 500,000 cases every year, a more challenging approach is required. The second-line drugs are more expensive, cause more severe side-effects and take up to two years to be effective. The cure rates for MDR-TB range from between 50 -70%.

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