Congress Must Honor Obama’s Global Fund Commitment “There are some encouraging signs in the epic battle against AIDS and HIV infections. … But those bright spots dim considerably in the face of the fact that about 7,100 people a day become infected. And that’s why the WHO continues to mark…

USAID-Backed Program Facilitates Male Circumcisions In Zimbabwe The Canadian Press reports on how a USAID-backed program operating in Zimbabwe is helping provide male circumcision services. Despite what the article describes as tension between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the U.S., the “program, begun in May 2009, has carried out 12,000 circumcisions. The U.S.…

Media outlets continued to track the major developments in HIV/AIDS this week, including: prevention research using an antiretroviral; new UNAIDS estimates of HIV/AIDS around the world; and Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on condoms for HIV prevention.

The Guardian examines the future of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as it enters its second decade, writing, “Despite its staggering successes — including helping put 3.3 million people on AIDS treatment, 8.6 million on anti-tuberculosis treatment and providing 230 million insecticide-treated nets for the prevention of malaria — the fund’s recent troubles had threatened to overshadow its accomplishments as it prepared to mark a decade as the world’s main financier of programs to fight these three global epidemics.” The news service highlights a $750 million pledge to the Fund by Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discusses recent managerial changes within the Fund, and quotes a number of experts about future challenges (Kelly, 2/2).

As part of its “AIDS Turning Point” series, GlobalPost examines how the United States and its African partners are designing clinical trials at four African sites to test whether a combination of prevention methods and strategies — “notably the vaccine-like preventative effect on transmission when someone starts taking AIDS drugs, as well as the life-long protection afforded to many due to male circumcision” — could “put them on the road to a Holy Grail: the numbers of HIV infections tumbling down.”

Noting that “[t]he XIX International AIDS Conference [AIDS 2012] has just come to a close amid much talk of the beginning of the end of AIDS, turning the tide on HIV and even a potential cure,” Julio Montaner, former president of the International AIDS Society (IAS) and director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, writes in a Globe and Mail opinion piece, “It is now more certain than ever that we have the tools, medicines and expertise to stop this epidemic.” He continues, “However, without the political will to expand antiretroviral treatment to everyone in need, the audacious goals set before us in Washington last week will never be met and infection may spiral out of control once again.” He writes, “Politicians have paid little more than lip service to supporting the rollout of antiretroviral treatment in their home countries and around the globe,” and concludes, “Treatment as prevention represents the fundamental building block to achieve our goal. We must find the resolve to deliver on the promise of an ‘AIDS-free generation'” (7/30).

“The XIX International AIDS Conference [AIDS 2012] drew to a close Friday without the physical presence of President Obama but with a full cast of other high-profile U.S. politicians who expressed their commitment to ending the disease,” CQ HealthBeat reports (Norman, 7/27). The conference closed “with the message that getting treatment to more of the world’s 34 million people with HIV is key to curbing the epidemic, short of a vaccine and cure that still are years away,” the Associated Press adds (Neergaard, 7/27). “Presenters at AIDS 2012, from senior government officials and heads of international organizations to civil society leaders and scientists, all echoed that for the first time in the history of AIDS, an end to the epidemic is on the horizon,” an UNAIDS feature article writes, adding, “However, speakers cautioned that there are still numerous challenges that must be addressed before the international community reaches zero new HIV infections and zero AIDS-related deaths” (7/27).

Noting more than 20,000 international HIV researchers and activists will gather in Washington, D.C., for the AIDS 2012 conference later this month, the Associated Press writes that there is “a sense of optimism not seen in many years — hope that it finally may be possible to dramatically stem the spread of the AIDS virus.” “‘We want to make sure we don’t overpromise,’ Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health’s infectious disease chief, told the Associated Press,” the news service notes, adding, “But, he said, ‘I think we are at a turning point.”

“Ahead of the International AIDS Conference next week in Washington, D.C., Martin Bloem, chief of Nutrition and HIV Policy at the World Food Programme, shares the impact of food and nutrition on the HIV response,” in this post in the ONE Blog. “Scientific evidence and our own experience shows that nutrition activities for people living with HIV — including nutritional assessments, counseling, education and fortified food for malnourished patients — has significant impacts on the health of patients, on their ability to stay on treatment and on the effectiveness of treatment,” he writes (7/19).

“What stands out in my mind from this week’s presentations [at the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012)] is that [HIV] interventions previously proved to work in controlled clinical trials are now — over and over again — proving effective outside the research setting, in the real world, in poor and rich communities alike. The pieces are coming together,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, writes in a Washington Post opinion piece. He discusses several of the interventions, including the scale up of antiretroviral therapy (ART), treatment as prevention, voluntary medical male circumcision, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). “Ending the HIV pandemic is an enormous and multifaceted challenge, but we know it is possible,” Fauci writes, adding that it will require “commitment” and “investments.” He continues, “We must enhance what works and eliminate what does not, overcome legal and political barriers, and remove the stigma associated with HIV.” Fauci concludes, “The global community has a historic opportunity based on solid scientific evidence to end the AIDS pandemic, opening the door to an AIDS-free generation” (7/26).