Former Norwegian Health Minister To Chair GAVI Alliance Board

The GAVI Alliance Board announced on Tuesday that it “has elected former Norwegian Health Minister and current MP Dagfinn Hoybraten as its new chairman, succeeding Mary Robinson,” PANA/Afrique en ligne reports (11/30). Hoybraten “has been a member of the GAVI Board since 2006,” according to a GAVI Alliance press release, and he assumes the board chairmanship as GAVI “is about to commence a new five-year strategy focused on introducing life-saving vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhoea, the two biggest killers of children under five, as well as new vaccines against cervical cancer and meningococcal A, among others” (11/30).

Jakarta Post Examines Challenges Faced By Women Living With HIV/AIDS In Indonesia

“Women are not only more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection, they also face greater risks of violence and discrimination when they become infected by the deadly virus,” the Jakarta Post reports in an article that examines the challenges HIV-positive women living in Indonesia face. According to the article, “[t]he percentage of women living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia has been rising steadily,” jumping from 2.5 percent of HIV/AIDS cases in 1989 to 25.5 percent in 2009 (Asrianti, 11/30).

Estimates On AIDS-Related Deaths In China Climbed By 20,000 In One Year, Chinese State Media Reports

The total number of AIDS-related deaths reported in China since the first cases of the disease were documented in the 1980s now stands at 68,315 – a jump of “nearly 20,000 since an official estimate [was made] last year, state media said Monday,” Agence France-Presse reports. “The number of reported HIV/AIDS sufferers stood at 370,393, the brief report[ed] by China Central Television said, compared with a ministry figure last year of 319,877,” according to the news service. The government “did not give a reason for the sharp rise in death and infection figures, but [it] has been making efforts to improve reporting of cases,” AFP writes (11/29). Also Monday, China’s cabinet pledged “to step up screening for HIV/AIDS,” as well as prevention and treatment programs, Xinhua reports (11/29).

Media Coverage Of HIV/AIDS In Developed Countries Continues To Dip, Researchers Say

Media coverage of HIV/AIDS “has fallen by more than 70 percent in developed countries over the last 20 years,” according to a group of international researchers, ANI/Sify News reports (11/30). “There is a visible downward trend of coverage on HIV/AIDS, which peaked at the end of 1991, after which coverage then dropped … from the late 1990’s onwards – roughly one third of the levels of coverage observed in the early 1990s,” the authors report in a discussion paper (.pdf) (2010). The shift in media coverage “has been largely identified in newspapers based in the developed world,” ANI/Sify News writes. “Attention levels in areas that are hit hardest by the AIDS pandemic … have remained at a high level or even increased throughout the last 20 years” (11/30).