The Griot's Corner Cafe

At this place, I shall come face to face with my fears, demons, spirits, netherworld, nadir, and triumph's zenith! Supposing you wanted to read about the woman who gave birth to river Nile, or the fact that the Greeks borrowed fables and story-telling from their interactions with Africa or the fact that Africa has so much she can contribute to the world all and is draped in diversity! Come, let me take you to that journey please! What? You don't talk to strangers? Well, well.....

Monday, 23 December 2013

PEPFAR

U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

“The United States of America will remain the global leader in the fight against HIV and

AIDS. We will stand with you every step of this journey until...we achieve, at long last, what

was once hard to imagine -- and that’s an AIDS-free generation.

President Barack Obama, December 2, 2013

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) represents America’s commitment to

saving lives and the shared responsibility of all global partners toward achieving an AIDS-Free Generation.

■

As of September 30, 2013, PEPFAR is supporting

life-saving antiretroviral

treatment for

6.7 million men, women, and children worldwide.

This far exceeds

President Obama’s 2011 World AIDS Day goal of 6 million people on treatment -- a

four-fold increase

(from 1.7 million in 2008) since the start of this Administration.

■

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, PEPFAR supported

HIV testing and counseling for more

than 12.8 million pregnant women

. For 780,000 of these women who tested positive

for HIV, PEPFAR provided antiretroviral medications to prevent mother-to-child

transmission (PMTCT) of the virus. Due to PEPFAR support,

95 percent of these

babies were born HIV-free

(including 240,000 that would otherwise have been infected).

 Over

the

past

two

years,

over 1.5 million HIV-positive pregnant

women received these interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission

and improve maternal health, meeting the President’s 2011 World AIDS Day goal.

■

As of September 30, 2013, PEPFAR will have supported

more than 4.2 million voluntary

medical male circumcision (VMMC) procedures

in east and southern Africa; by the end of

2013, PEPFAR will have reached the President’s 2011 World AIDS Day VMMC goal of

4.7 million

■

PEPFAR supported

17 million people with care and support

, including

more than 5 million orphans and vulnerable children

, in FY 2013.

■

PEPFAR supported

HIV testing and counseling for more than 57.7 million

people

in FY 2013, providing a critical entry point to prevention, treatment, and care.

■

The

U.S.

the

first

and

largest

donor

the

Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and

Malaria.

result

the

significant

investment

the

U.S.

the

Global

Fund,

the

estimated

9.7

million

individuals in low- and middle-income countries who currently receive treatment,

nearly

9.1 million

receive support

through PEPFAR bilateral programs, the Global Fund, or both.

www.PEPFAR.gov

Shared Responsibility-Strengthening Results

For An AIDS-Free Generation

2013 PEPFAR Results

Making prevention and treatment possible

U.S. Agency for International Development

HIV and AIDS

World AIDS Day 2013: Gift's Last 10 Years

Since the launch of USAID's HIV and AIDS program in 1986, the Agency has been on the forefront of the global AIDS crisis.
Today, with more than 34 million people living with HIV worldwide, USAID is a key partner in the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest and most diverse HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment initiative in the world.
As a result of PEPFAR, USAID and other implementing partners have:

Provided lifesaving AIDS treatment to more than 5.1 million people and HIV counseling and testing to more than 46.5 million people.
Supported more than 11 million pregnant women with HIV testing and counseling and provided prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services to more than 750,000 HIV-positive women. As a result approximately 230,000 infants were born free of HIV.
Reached nearly 15 million people with care and support, including more than 4.5 million orphans and vulnerable children.
Supported approximately 2 million male circumcision procedures worldwide cumulatively.

Our Work [PDF, 183KB]: Learn more about our efforts in the fight against HIV and AIDS and chart the course of USAID's work in our interactive timeline.
It Takes A Village. Empowering Communities to Fight HIV: Read about USAID's long history in working with communities in combating HIV and AIDS.
Reflections and Impressions from AIDS 2012: Read our insights from last year's conference in D.C.

Related Sectors of Work

Global Health

Last updated: December 02, 2013

Treatment to those who need it most

U.S. Agency for International Development

Antiretroviral Therapy

Researcher showing young boy HIV treatment drugs

EGPAF/James Pursey

DELIVERING LIFESAVING HIV TREATMENT TO THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST

At a Glance

HIV continues to be one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world. At the end of 2011, 34 million people were living with HIV, with approximately 69 percent of them living in sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, an estimated 2.5 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2011. Without treatment, HIV infection progresses to AIDS in approximately 8 years; once diagnosed with AIDS, median life expectancy is under 2 years.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) stops the replication of the HIV virus inside a person infected with HIV, affording the body’s immune system time to recover and rebuild itself. While not curative, these medicines are dramatically powerful, with studies suggesting that HIV-positive patients in resource- limited settings can achieve near-normal life expectancies when taking ART. In addition, by lowering the amount of HIV virus in the body, antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) help reduce the chance that an HIV-positive individual transmits the infection to an HIV-negative partner.

THE USAID RESPONSE: ROBUST ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE HEALTH, REDUCE TRANSMISSION AND BUILD STRONGER HEALTH SYSTEMS

In spite of the severity of the challenges posed by the epidemic, access to antiretroviral therapy globally has increased substantially since 2003 to over 8 million people, with over 5 million people supported directly by U.S. Government assistance under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The number of AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa declined by nearly one-third between 2005 and 2011. The U.S. Government is the world’s largest donor to HIV and AIDS programs worldwide, having provided over $36 billion through PEPFAR through FY 2012, with much of that support managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). As PEPFAR’s largest implementing agency, USAID supports comprehensive ART programs to improve access to quality HIV care and treatment services – including antiretroviral medicines – for individuals living with HIV.
USAID-supported ART programs focus on three key priorities:

Photo of a woman in a wheel chair with a young boy

USAID/Senegal

Improving Access to ART for individuals living with HIV
Improving the Quality of ART services
Fostering Sustainability of lifelong HIV treatment services

To accomplish these priorities, USAID and its implementing partners have utilized a variety of innovative programmatic approaches. They include:

Pooling procurement and utilizing generic antiretroviral medicines to lower the price of HIV medicines in resource-limited settings 10-fold.
Using new technologies such as mobile phones to help support patient adherence to medication and engagement with health services.
Making care more accessible through mobile outreach and patient support.
Task sharing among groups of health care workers to ensure patients can receive the services they need.
Developing robust information systems for clinical settings and for the management of commodities; using these systems to improve the quality of care provided to patients.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

In order to meet the substantial need for ART, USAID is actively working on projects to increase the efficiency of treatment programs while simultaneously improving program quality.

Essential HIV and AIDS medicines and supplies flow through this SCMS warehouse.

PHD

The USAID Supply Chain Management Systems (SCMS) project is harnessing the power of pooled forecasting and procurement beyond ARVs to include critical diagnostic laboratory supplies. In addition, the project continues to work closely with host country logistics systems to improve their capacity to forecast, procure, store and distribute key commodities. In close collaboration with other U.S. Government partners, the SCMS project operates an Emergency Commodities Fund to mitigate potential stock-outs of ARVs and rapid HIV test kits.
USAID is supporting implementation science and operations research through studies looking at linking patients to care and treatment, retention and integration of ART services.
Through mechanisms like the Health Finance and Governance Project, USAID is providing support for cost-modeling to help inform governments, country teams and implementing partners in planning for future commitments and maximizing the impact of available resources. This includes planning for changes in national guidelines in 2013 and in the adoption and spread of new technologies for improving care, such as HIV viral load testing.

For more information on HIV treatment programs, please see the Treatment Issue Brief [PDF, 197KB].

Last updated: October 17, 2013

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Maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health

Ending preventable child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhoea by 2025

The integrated Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD)

Authors:
WHO/UNICEF

Publication details

Number of pages: 64 (16)
Publication date: 2013
Languages: English, French
ISBN: 978 92 4 150523 9

Downloads

Overview

Stopping the loss of millions of young lives from pneumonia and diarrhoea is a goal within our grasp. The integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) proposes a cohesive approach to ending preventable pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths. It brings together critical services and interventions to create healthy environments, promotes practices known to protect children from disease and ensures that every child has access to proven and appropriate preventive and treatment measures.
The goal is ambitious but achievable: to end preventable childhood deaths due to pneumonia and diarrhoea by 2025.

Related publications

Friday, 20 December 2013

Africa Martyrs as devotional magnets for Africa diaspora communities

African-led Animated Mass in America

Click thumbnail to view full-size

Source: African Community-led Mass in California

Pan de Vida

Pan de vida cuerpo del Senor (Cup of blessing, Blood of Christ Lord)

Poder es servir (at this table)

Porque Dios es amor (the last shall be the first).

Martyrs of Africa

Africa as a continent features in Biblical and Koranic stories. The religions that share the Patriarchs (Abraham and Isaac) have had Africa as the center stage on a long reel of conversation and dialogue. From 5000 BCE to present day, Africa has been crucial in the organization, pilgrimage and experiences of inspired holiness. Cities cited in Holy Books such as Ophir and Faiyum are in Africa. Whole chapters in the Holy Books are dedicated to scenes depicting experiences of relations between humans and the Divine. But these stories have tended to depict events that are distant. Africa seemed to have played its roles in the far past periods. But, that is not the case. The 1800s saw a frenzied hunger for a Divine being. Converts were eager to die confessing the Word.

Many converts were existing in all of Africa, Uganda Martyrs 9also known as Africa Martyrs) are some of those converts. Where are the Uganda Martyrs found?

There along the River Nile in a land with many beautiful lakes was a great kingdom. The king in this kingdom was an accomplished leader whose kingdom had experienced a long period of tranquility. The kingdom was organized along social, cultural, economical, traditional and leadership structures. The king and subjects had roles to play to ensure this kingdom was stable and the pride of Africa. Little wonder that all who visited gave this kingdom the name "Pearl Of Africa."

The subjects were driven and served their king whole-heartedly. So, when the king ordered the converts to go against the dictates of Christianity they did not obey him. A repeat of what transpired in the times of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel ( see Daniel 1 & 2) happened in Uganda too. But, in Uganda's case the Christian converts were not spared. They were killed for disobeying a very powerful king. Their punishment was death by burning.

By 1960s witnesses had come forward claiming miracles after praying to the burnt converts in Uganda. Witnesses were from Africa and other parts of the world. Vatican officials went through all the necessary requisites of beatification and canonization. Thus, the Uganda Martyrs and therefore the 1st African Martyrs were presented to the entire world.

Africa Martyrs are modern day saints

The Africa Martyrs are saints in the same league as all the other saints in the world. They have interceded on behalf of many who have seek succor. Like all other saints they did something great in their life that was Godly. They devoted their lives to God and were recognized for that..

Praying to Saints

It is a Christian practice to ask our departed brothers and sisters in Christ—the saints—for their intercession. The practice dates to the earliest days of Christianity and is shared by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, the other Eastern Christians, and even some Anglicans. It is shared by more than three quarters of the Christians on earth.

June 3rd

June 3rd is the day of Africa Martyrs. Uganda has the main Shrine with one of the oldest Basilicas in Africa. The pilgrimage is made to a venue called Namugongo (proper spelling is Namuggongo). The Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Church share this same site. People travel from the USA, South America, Australia, Japan, China, Canada, Europe and from within Africa.

Diaspora Devotions to Africa Martyrs

USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, Philippines, Caribbean and South America has seen a rise in popularity of Africa Martyrs. The Africa diaspora community has increased the devotions and taken more leading roles in making the liturgical accompaniments and experience that increasingly adds to the American Christian ethos.

California is a state known to lead in many things. The Ecumenical, cultural diversity and coming together of many people to observe the day of the Africa Martyrs has made an indelible mark in contemporary American lifestyles.

America and Africa meet in Spiritual Traditions

America and Africa redefine each other. There is a long tradition in which America has drawn Africa to it. But, when it came to modern day Christian liturgy, Africa is contributing to the new and diversified message. It is helping to make the fire of longing for a Divine, burn brighter. It is no longer like the fire that burnt the martyrs for their belief. It is a different fire. It is a fire that does not scorch the skin nor cause bodily disfigurement. It is a fire that cleans, brings laughter, promotes cohesion, empowers many diverse cultures to come together, contributes to the strands that make America a very diverse and allows peaceful co-existence. It is a fire that allows for freedom of worship. This is seen nowhere better than in the diverse Californian valleys, gorges, high hills, plains and mountains. This Divine fire that burnt in Africa is now burning in America.

Martyr Saints

Has Africa influenced Christianity and Islam?

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Note

1. African led liturgies in USA are an opportunity to contribute to outcomes of the dreams and aspirations of the Declaration of Independence.

2. African led liturgies in USA and other parts of Americas and Canada are an opportunity to bring together different people in observing a day or time of devotion.

3. African led liturgies in USA and other parts of Americas and Canada are a contribution to the cornucopia of activities and cultures in the world.

4. African led liturgies in USA and other parts of Americas and Canada are a show case for music, dance, drama and dressing for GOD.

5. African led liturgies in USA and other parts of Americas and Canada is an opportunity to bring what is good, beneficial, enduring and durable from Africa.

Sunday, 15 December 2013

Thanks!

I came around the time the skies let go of their tear drops,
Why they cry I do not know,
It is about laughter, or mischief,
may be it is a trend.

November in New England is a time of many things;
the trees just give us a farewell display of beauty;
the golden sun's rays streak through tree lines;
the moon beam settles serenely on tree tops.

Then the people are forever being...people;
some share, others are selfish, others just do not know;
so is humanity,
Who am I to judge,I mind my business first.

The Griot's Corner Cafe

Monday, 23 December 2013

PEPFAR

Making prevention and treatment possible

U.S. Agency for International Development

HIV and AIDS

Treatment to those who need it most

U.S. Agency for International Development

Antiretroviral Therapy

DELIVERING LIFESAVING HIV TREATMENT TO THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST

At a Glance