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It’s World AIDS Day 2016!

Today the UN reports on the progress we’re making towards zero AIDS-related deaths worldwide. This year they say:

“The world has committed to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. We are seeing that countries are getting on the Fast-Track—more than 18 million people are on life-saving HIV treatment and country after country is on track to virtually eliminate HIV transmission from mother to child. We are winning against the AIDS epidemic, but we are not seeing progress everywhere…”

Skip to the end to read the rest of the statement.

Students chasing zero

Our brilliant Student Ambassadors have been working hard to raise awareness among the student generation of why HIV is still a relevant topic and what they can do to help see AIDS defeated for good. Throughout HIV Testing Week and today on World AIDS Day, they’ve been putting a special emphasis on raising funds, running awareness events, encouraging people to get HIV tests and giving out free condoms.

We have Student Ambassadors in Cardiff, Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Loughborough, Manchester and Southampton, working together with other global health student societies. At Cardiff Uni, our Ambassador Chuma linked up with Unicef and other charities to put on an incredible fundraising evening, ‘Fight AIDS With Friends’, with live music, dance and comedy creating a great atmosphere in the Students’ Union.

Meg, our Ambassador at Birmingham Uni, wrote a blog piece to explain why she does what she does.

“Why HIV, and why me? Its relevance for me doesn’t lie in a personal tie to the illness – rather a desire to see inequality in birth overcome, and one way of achieving this is to see a generation born HIV-free. Not just free of illness but free to grow up healthier, and with a greater chance of reaching their full potential.”

Read the rest of Meg’s thoughts here >>

Chase zero with us!

Every year is crucial now as we chase the goal of the end of AIDS by 2030. It’s vital we keep up the momentum. Will you get involved in 2017? Join the chase and help make history!

• Buy a life-saving Christmas gift >>
• Help a child be born HIV-free: twin or sponsor a pregnancy >>
• Fundraise to train more Mother Buddies >>
• Become a 1000 days sponsor >>
• Volunteer with us >>
• Become a Pregnancy Twinning Champion >> (email rachel@pregnancytwinning.org)

Global progress update from UNAIDS

Today, we commemorate World AIDS Day—we stand in solidarity with the 78 million people who have become infected with HIV and remember the 35 million who have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the first cases of HIV were reported.

The world has committed to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. We are seeing that countries are getting on the Fast-Track—more than 18 million people are on life-saving HIV treatment and country after country is on track to virtually eliminate HIV transmission from mother to child.

We are winning against the AIDS epidemic, but we are not seeing progress everywhere. The number of new HIV infections is not declining among adults, with young women particularly at risk of becoming infected with HIV.

We know that for girls in sub-Saharan Africa, the transition to adulthood is a particularly dangerous time. Young women are facing a triple threat: a high risk of HIV infection, low rates of HIV testing and poor adherence to HIV treatment.

Coinfections of people living with HIV, such as tuberculosis (TB), cervical cancer and hepatitis C, are at risk of putting the 2020 target of fewer than 500 000 AIDS-related deaths out of reach. TB caused about a third of AIDS-related deaths in 2015, while women living with HIV are at four to five times greater risk of developing cervical cancer. Taking AIDS out of isolation remains an imperative if the world is to reach the 2020 target.

With access to treatment, people living with HIV are living longer. Investing in treatment is paying off, but people older than 50 who are living with HIV, including people who are on treatment, are at increased risk of developing age-associated noncommunicable diseases, affecting HIV disease progression.

AIDS is not over, but it can be if we tailor the response to individual needs at particular times in life. Whatever our individual situation may be, we all need access to the tools to protect us from HIV and to access antiretroviral medicines should we need them. A life-cycle approach to HIV that finds solutions for everyone at every stage of life can address the complexities of HIV. Risks and challenges change as people go through life, highlighting the need to adapt HIV prevention and treatment strategies from birth to old age.

The success we have achieved so far gives us hope for the future, but as we look ahead we must remember not to be complacent. We cannot stop now. This is the time to move forward together to ensure that all children start their lives free from HIV, that young people and adults grow up and stay free from HIV and that treatment becomes more accessible so that everyone stays AIDS-free.

– Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

About an hour off-road from the city of Mzuzu in Northern Malawi lies Kamwe, one of the communities that our Pregnancy Twinning programme works in. Pregnancy risks are six times higher for women in this region who are living with HIV, so we work to bring maternal health care to them, making sure they stay healthy and give birth to HIV-free children. We had been jolting down a dirt track for half an hour on the way to Kamwe when we overtook a cart pulled by two oxen and driven by a boy of about twelve.

“That’s how they get to the hospital, y’know…” our colleague Joshua remarked.

He went on to explain how difficult and expensive transport is – you could easily live 15km from the nearest clinic and public transport doesn’t stretch this far off-road. Hospital birth rates are much lower for rural mums than urban mums because of the difficulty of this journey. So the villagers have started to find their own solutions; now whenever a woman goes into labour, there will be a way to get into town provided by the community… and one of those ways is the trusty ox-cart.

Looking back I saw the cart, now in the distance but still moving at 2mph. I imagined it also towing a mum in labour – how she’d be concentrating on her breathing and counting the seconds between contractions while travelling in the world’s slowest ambulance. I thought, surely this is the most bizarre labour transport story I’ll hear today. But no…

The Chief’s scooter

Hours later I was sat on a bench across from the 72 year-old Chief of the district. He was seated in a rusted hospital chair – its back legs wedged into the ground, with front wheels lifted into the air. He solemnly told us stories about expectant mums delivering on the roadside on their way to the hospital or in their own one-room homes alone at night time; how many of the expectant mums were already sick from living with HIV and were sometimes too weak to pull through from a difficult childbirth. He told us of the many maternal deaths he knew of in his district, and of the one he had witnessed.

Lastly, he told us that over recent years, all this has changed. In Kamwe, maternal deaths have now completely stopped happening.

He attributed this change to three things: the presence and help of our Mother Buddies, the village women completely adhering to their advice on HIV treatment and antenatal care, and lastly to his very own 1970s Yamaha scooter…

The village’s efforts to provide transport in emergencies even extended to the Chief, who proudly showed us his blue scooter parked in the shade of a nearby tree. This humble 50cc engine had been to the rescue of many a pregnant woman.

“The first time it was 2am,” he told us. “One of my farmers had run to my house calling out that his wife, Bertha, was in labour. I rode to their house and she climbed onto the back of the bike. Waters broken and contractions getting close, we drove to the clinic in the pitch black.”

They arrived at the nearest clinic 25 minutes later. Having been chauffeured by the Chief on a scooter older than she was, Bertha was handed over the the midwife who safely delivered her firstborn baby, a boy.

The gift of a lift

Not all of our supported communities have these arrangements to provide for their mums-to-be, and nationwide the leading cause of maternal deaths rurally are delays caused by transport difficulties – delays accessing antenatal care and delays getting to the clinic in labour. It’s astounding that something so easy to fix causes so many tragedies.

This Christmas, we want to tackle this issue for mums across Malawi by covering cost of a transport service in other communities so that all of the expectant mums we support can make the journey to life after birth. 

Want to help? For £12, you can buy somebody an alternative Christmas gift this year – a lift to the hospital for a woman like Bertha! 

Find out more and give the gift of a lift here >>

An interesting story in the news recently revealed the world’s tallest and shortest nations.

A study has tracked growth trends in 187 countries since 1914. Good news for the UK – we’ve got four inches taller on average since 1914, with the average man at 5’10’ and the average woman at 5’5’!

But the study found that not everybody around the world has been growing. It showed that in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, people have actually got shorter since the 1970s. Uganda and Sierra Leone – two countries we work in – are two of the nations to have lost a few centimetres.

Why do these whimsical-sounding stats matter?

Well, average height tells us a lot about what’s going on nutritionally. The study’s authors say that these increases and decreases in height are largely driven by the standard of healthcare, sanitation and nutrition available in that country. “Also important is the mother’s health and nutrition during pregnancy,” they say.

Since May this year, Pregnancy Twinning has been piloting our Mother Buddies programme in Sierra Leone. Not only is it the world’s most dangerous place to give birth, but the area we’re working in also suffers from a real nutrition problem.

1,000 days of growth

It’s so important that pregnant women get adequate nutrition during pregnancy, and that babies and toddlers get a good, balanced diet at the start of their lives. Studies have found that children who get the right nutrition in their first 1,000 days are ten times more likely to overcome life-threatening childhood diseases, complete nearly five more grades in school, go on to earn 21% more in wages as adults and are more likely to have healthier families of their own.

That’s why we really want to follow the children born through Pregnancy Twinning in Sierra Leone and Malawi to make sure their parents are confident in making good nutritional choices in the vital first 1,000 days and beyond. We’re planning to put in place longer-term follow-up visits by Mother Buddies to monitor each family’s nutrition and keep giving advice for two years.

We’d love the next generation in Sierra Leone to grow up healthy, HIV-free, and perhaps a little taller… Watch this space for news about how you can help.

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Find out more about Pregnancy Twinning here.

Chuma Gondwe is a Student Ambassador for Chasing Zero at Cardiff Uni. He shares his thoughts on his generation’s stake in the fight against AIDS.

Where we are born should not affect the chances and opportunities that we have, but sadly we live in a world where the location of your birth decides whether your mother survives childbirth, whether you make it through infancy and whether you live past 35.

I believe that everyone, everywhere is born with so much potential and they should get a fair chance to fulfill it. However, it seems that HIV doesn’t agree with this view: in the UK, only a few babies are born with HIV each year, but in sub-Saharan Africa, 520 babies per day are born HIV positive. Statistics have the ability to dehumanise but if we look again, that means 520 people per day are instantly disadvantaged at birth, with their chances of exploiting their potential hindered just by being born in a different place.

I believe that everyone, everywhere is born with so much potential and they should get a fair chance to fulfill it

I came across Chasing Zero a couple of years ago at a summer event and I really connected with the vision they had – a vision of a generation with the potential to flourish HIV-free; a vision of hope that believes every individual living with AIDS should have the possibility to experience life in the fullest sense. I was instantly sold and wanted to do as much as I could do to help, so I became a Student Ambassador.

Being a Student Ambassador has been a pleasure! It can be challenging at times but just knowing that you’ve helped make a difference makes it incredibly worthwhile. I’ve had the chance to run fundraiser events like pub quizzes and raise HIV awareness at my university. So many people have supported the cause and we’ve managed to become a society at Cardiff University which is pretty exciting! The partnership with MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation has been great, as we got to visit MTV London and had the opportunity to learn more about HIV/AIDS from leading experts in the field.

As an Ambassador, I went to an event that was part of the STOP AIDS Missing Meds Campaign, focused on the lack of research into ARV drugs. During this event some people living with HIV shared their stories; I’d never realised that ARVs alone are not the sole solution – for some people, ARVs can have side effects and lead to depression. This can be averted by using an alternative ARV treatment, but that option isn’t always available in places like rural Malawi – yet.

My generation needs to take on the challenge

My generation really needs to be engaged with the fight against HIV/AIDS – it matters so much. Our culture is very much built on ‘trend’ and this is always changing, so even when it comes to injustices there always seems to be a trendy one to fight. We base a lot of our thinking on what we hear through the media, so we get the attitude that “if we haven’t heard about x in a while then x doesn’t really matter or exist any more.” I’m a lover of social justice and I don’t want to deny the importance of other causes… but the common perceptions that “fighting AIDS was only a trend in the 90s” and that “HIV/AIDS isn’t a problem any more” are completely wrong. AIDS is still the leading cause of death among young women worldwide, and an estimated 36 million people are living with HIV today.

The common perceptions that “fighting AIDS was only a trend in the 90s” and that “HIV/AIDS isn’t a problem any more” are completely wrong

My generation in the UK has so much talent, is educated and we’ve had a fair chance to exploit our potential – it’s time we used our position to help others experience life in the fullest sense. There’s research to be done into HIV treatment, especially for children. There’s policies that need to be changed in order to increase drug production and distribute them fairly. It’s amazing to see all the progress that has been made internationally – the number of children being born with HIV has decreased by 58% worldwide since 2000 – but we need an extra push right now to meet that goal of ending AIDS by 2030, and it’s my generation that needs to take on the challenge over the next 15 years.

There’s lots to be done, but AIDS can be defeated in our lifetime – my generation needs to be aware of that and become fully engaged in the fight.

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Blog by Chuma Gondwe (19) , Chasing Zero Student Ambassador at Cardiff University, studying Human Geography

We’re looking for a few more Student Ambassadors for next term, starting in September 2016. Interested in inspiring your generation? Apply here.

We talk about the power of mums a lot at Chasing Zero, but what about the dads?

In much of rural sub-Saharan Africa, pregnancy, birth and childcare are seen as very much the woman’s domain. It would be thought odd in many communities for a husband to go to an antenatal check-up or discuss maternal health. But one study has shown that a father’s involvement in those things reduces the risk of his baby dying or contracting HIV by a huge 40%! That’s why our Mother Buddies talk to both parents, and why we also encourage men to become Father Buddies to the dads in their communities, urging them to step up their involvement as a way of protecting their families. Just recently, we trained three new Father Buddies in Sierra Leone.

While we were doing training across Africa this spring, we met a couple of inspiring fathers that we’d like you to meet…

David, DR Congo

We met David wearing an IMPACT Mother Buddies T-shirt outside the clinic’s maternity room. He had just rushed his pregnant wife to the clinic.

“I was in the field farming when I was called with the news that my wife was not feeling well,” he explained. He was keen to tell us more about why he was there. “A Mother Buddy has been visiting our home teaching us the importance of male involvement during pregnancy; I am proud that I am actively involved in my wife’s pregnancy and I have also started teaching other men to come with their wives for antenatal visits,” he said. We were impressed, and couldn’t help but smile when he added, “My love for my wife increased when we did the medical tests together.”

We left David waiting patiently outside the labour ward to find out how his wife was doing.

Lumbe, Nigeria

Lumbe lives with his wife Judith in a remote, traditional village. Mother and Father Buddies offered pregnancy support to both women and their husbands there – but most men stayed away, believing pregnancy and childbirth to be the woman’s responsibility. Lumbe was an exception in that community. He took on board the message being shared: that the pregnancy belongs to both of them and that the father needs to be fully involved, starting with antenatal care. Lumbe was ready and willing to support his wife in every way possible and saw this as part of being a good husband. They came for antenatal testing together, and that’s when they discovered that they were both HIV positive.

Thanks to Lumbe daring to be counter-cultural and going with his wife for tests, we could help both him and Judith to access the ARV medication and advice they needed to protect their own health and help their baby be born free from HIV.

Counter-cultural care

We’re wishing a happy Father’s Day to these excellent dads and the many others like them who are bravely challenging the status quo to keep their families safe.

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Pregnancy Twinning is for dads too! Support another family through pregnancy, birth and beyond by twinning a pregnancy today!

The success of the IMPACT Mother Buddies programme in Malawi and Nigeria has made other countries in the region keen to get on board.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Chasing Zero’s Executive Director David Deakin went to DR Congo a few weeks ago to see how they were getting on with a small pilot programme of a dozen Mother Buddies. After one year, the results have been encouraging and rural communities are keen to continue. Thanks to a new partner organisation on the ground in DR Congo, David was able to spend some time training local trainers who will teach 30 more keen women to be Mother Buddies.

Much of DR Congo is very unstable due to ongoing civil war and unrest. This has all sorts of effects on families living in rural communities, including a stubbornly high maternal death rate. The Mother Buddies there will offer additional help with nutrition and other issues that affect the health of pregnant women and their families.

Sierra Leone

Over on the west coast, the IMPACT Mother Buddies programme is starting up in Sierra Leone this month. David and local partners have been training the first group of Mother Buddies and Co-ordinators who will start working across a few rural villages.

Sierra Leone is currently the most dangerous place in the world to give birth, with the highest rate of women losing their lives through pregnancy or childbirth complications. To give you an idea, per 100,000 births, 1,360 women lost their lives in 2015, compared to 9 women in the UK. The area that these Mother Buddies will be working in also suffers from a bad nutrition problem, so they’ll help to meet these needs alongside their pregnancy support role.

We’re aiming to set up Pregnancy Twinning to support the programme in Sierra Leone, so you’ll be able to twin a pregnancy with a mum there soon!

Uganda

Last but not least, the IMPACT Mother Buddies programme should be launching in rural Uganda in July. We’ll keep you informed. Uganda is one of the top ten countries in the world with the highest HIV prevalence, along with Malawi.

Mum power!

The programme’s success in Malawi and Nigeria has shown that mum-to-mum peer support really works. For women living in rural communities, having somebody ‘like them’ who has been through the same experience and understands all the challenges they face, who comes alongside to share their advice is really effective. We’re excited to see mums and babies kept safe and well, and more children born free from HIV in these new countries over the next year. Watch this space.