For some time now, the food security movement has been stating that improving the agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers improves nutritional status. Last week’s G-8 Foreign Ministers Meeting Chair’s statement (here) reinforces this idea:
Yesterday in anticipation of World AIDS Day on December 1, UNAIDS released a dramatic update of the numbers they provide every year: the estimated number of people who are HIV infected in each country and in the world at large. As the Washington Post announced this morning, the surprise this time is that the numbers went down from last year, not up.
When health and development experts study the causes of poor health in poor countries, weak health systems are often the scapegoat. With so many fingers pointed at the many inefficient, corrupt, and poorly-resourced systems, you would think that coherent, large-scale efforts would seek to address this constraint on better health. This has not been true -- until now.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) covered the increasing - and disturbing - phenomenon of South African AIDS patients who deliberately discontinue their free antiretroviral treatment in order to qualify for government-funded disability payments, which typically depend on a dangerously low CD4 count.
