Thirty Years of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Argentina


Book Description

The 1992 creation of the National HIV/AIDS Program was a fundamental step for Argentina to reach the second lowest burden of HIV/AIDS in South America. From 2000 to 2010, Argentina further reduced the already low HIV/AIDS incidence of 15.9 per 100,000 by 25 percent and reduced the burden by 21 percent. This study analyzes the national and inter-provincial burden of disease, the demographics of new HIV cases, the demand and supply-sides of service delivery, and conducts a cost-benefit analysis of the National HIV/AIDS Program over the last decade. Though the National HIV/AIDS Program was an instrumental step towards these achievements, this book also examines other key programmatic innovations that have been essential to the country's success in the fight against HIV/AIDS, including the introduction of universal free antiretroviral treatment; a comprehensive legal framework for sexual and reproductive rights; the introduction of incentives and results-based financing in the HIV/AIDS program; electronic monitoring of supplies and medicines; and implementation of an electronic clinical governance system for improving the quality of care and patient follow-up, among others. Despite high costs of the Program, this study found the Argentine National HIV/AIDS Program is cost-beneficial. From 2000 to 2010, 4,379 potential lives were saved. Nonetheless, the fight against this epidemic poses continuous challenges, including a stubbornly high number of new infections among young men who have sex with men, inequalities in HIV/AIDS rates between provinces, insufficient coverage of HIV diagnostic testing, insufficient HIV testing of tuberculosis patients, low expenditure on HIV prevention, high comparative cost of antiretroviral treatment, and questions regarding the long-term financial sustainability of the AIDS program, considering the increasing number of patients in treatment. 'Thirty Years of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Argentina: An Assessment of the National Health Response' delves into the combination of factors that make Argentina a success story in combating HIV/AIDS.




AIDS in Africa


Book Description

This report presents three hypothetical case studies for how the AIDS epidemic in Africa could evolve over the next 20 years based on policy decisions taken today by African leaders and the rest of the world; and considers the factors likely to drive the future responses of African countries and the international community. The scenarios draw on the age-old tradition of story-telling, rather than using data projections, to explore the wider context of the AIDS epidemic, reflecting the complexity of the subject matter.




Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective


Book Description

In October 1999, the Forum on Emerging Infections of the Institute of Medicine convened a two-day workshop titled "International Aspects of Emerging Infections." Key representatives from the international community explored the forces that drive emerging infectious diseases to prominence. Representatives from the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe made formal presentations and engaged in panel discussions. Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective includes summaries of the formal presentations and suggests an agenda for future action. The topics addressed cover a wide range of issues, including trends in the incidence of infectious diseases around the world, descriptions of the wide variety of factors that contribute to the emergence and reemergence of these diseases, efforts to coordinate surveillance activities and responses within and across borders, and the resource, research, and international needs that remain to be addressed.




Confronting AIDS


Book Description

This revised and updated edition of the pathbreaking report on the global AIDS epidemic outlines the strategic role that government must play in slowing the spread of HIV and mitigating the impact of AIDS. Drawing on the knowledge accumulated in the 17 years since the virus that causes AIDS was first identified, the report highlights policies that are most likely to be effective in managing the epidemic. These include early actions to minimize the spread of the virus, aiming preventive interventions at high risk groups, and evaluating measures that would assist households affected by AIDS according to the same standards applied to other health issues. This revised edition will a valuable resource for public health, policymakers, researchers, and anyone with an interest in this devastating global health crisis.




Cooking Data


Book Description

In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data are never clean; rather, they are always “cooked” during their production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce them. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk examines the ways in which units of information—such as survey questions and numbers written onto questionnaires by fieldworkers—acquire value as statistics that go on to shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how on-the-ground dynamics and research cultures mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise.




Destape


Book Description

Under dictatorship in Argentina, sex and sexuality were regulated to the point where sex education, explicit images, and even suggestive material were prohibited. With the return to democracy in 1983, Argentines experienced new freedoms, including sexual freedoms. The explosion of the availability and ubiquity of sexual material became known as the destape, and it uncovered sexuality in provocative ways. This was a mass-media phenomenon, but it went beyond this. It was, in effect, a deeper process of change in sexual ideologies and practices. By exploring the boom of sex therapy and sexology; the fight for the implementation of sex education in schools; the expansion of family planning services and of organizations dedicated to sexual health care; and the centrality of discussions on sexuality in feminist and gay organizations, Milanesio shows that the destape was a profound transformation of the way Argentines talked, understood, and experienced sexuality, a change in manners, morals, and personal freedoms.







Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries


Book Description

Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.




The Global HIV Epidemics among Sex Workers


Book Description

A global economic analysis of HIV infection amongst sex workers, finding that evidence based and rights affirming interventions are not implemented to the level that their efficacy warrants, and that doing so at scale would be cost effective and deliver significant returns on investment.




A Sociological Study on Emotion Regulation in People Living with HIV/AIDS in China


Book Description

This book explores the experiences and emotional expression of 30 people Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) using qualitative research methods such as “illness narratives,” and analyzes the dilemmas of “sicknesses of the society” including “Acquired Needs Deficiency” Syndrome, “Acquired Expectation Insufficiency” Syndrome, and “Acquired Punishment” Syndrome at the micro, meso and macro levels, so as to investigate higher-intensity negative emotions.In turn, the book draws on the perspectives of conflict and game, structure and function, and system and interaction, in order to propose a dynamic mechanism of emotion and expression, and argues that these negative emotions can be transformed, strengthened and presented through defense mechanisms such as suppression and attribution, which will influence social institutions at the micro, meso and macro levels and even possibly bring about positive changes in the social structure.