HIV / AIDS

The Challenge                                                       

In the more than three decades since HIV/AIDS was first discovered, the disease has taken the lives of 34 million people around the world. In 2014 alone, AIDS killed 1.2 million people, 790,000 of whom were living in sub-Saharan Africa. Though life-saving antiretroviral treatment is available, millions of people still cannot access it: just over 40% of people who are HIV-positive are currently on treatment.

Because people in their most productive years (15-49 years old) are most commonly infected with HIV/AIDS, the disease threatens broader development progress in many low-income countries, including in those in sub-Saharan Africa hit heavily by the disease. In 2014, UNAIDS reported that 13.3 million children around the world were orphans due to HIV/AIDS. Within countries, HIV is increasingly concentrated among vulnerable populations, including men who have sex with men, female sex workers, injection drug users and adolescent girls – and in many countries, political dynamics and legislation have made it increasingly difficult to reach them.

In 2005, world leaders at the G8 summit in Gleneagles and at the UN World Summit in New York pledged to reach universal access to prevention, care and treatment by 2010. This target was missed, and although leaders recommitted to the fight against AIDS in 2011 by agreeing to work toward achieving universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2015, these goals are still far from being achieved.

The Opportunity

We are at a critical moment in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The world has made incredible progress in its efforts to understand, prevent and treat this disease, and progress has been particularly rapid during the last ten years. Since 2000, new HIV infections have fallen by 35%, with infections among children dropping by 58%; AIDS-related deaths have also decreased by 42% since their peak in 2004. In 2013, for the first time ever, the number of people newly added to AIDS treatment was greater than the number of people newly infected with HIV. Yet, in 2014, new infections (2 million) barely surpassed the number of people newly added individuals to treatment (1.9 million).

As we continue to improve access to treatment (with 15 million people on treatment in 2015, up from just under 700,000 in 2000), we must speed up our prevention efforts, using existing and new tools more effectively. It is now possible to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother-to-child in 95% or more of cases. New research has also provided ground-breaking data on two fronts: the impact of treatment as prevention and the role of male circumcision in prevention strategies. Clinical trials have shown that treatment acts as prevention, reducing the likelihood of an HIV-positive individual on treatment passing HIV on to others by up to 96%. Voluntary medical male circumcision, another powerful tool, was shown to reduce the likelihood of HIV infection in men by up to 60%.

Resources for HIV/AIDS continue to expand, albeit less rapidly than they did in the early 2000s. Global funding for HIV/AIDS reached a historic high in 2014, with $20.2 billion spent, up from $19.1 billion in 2013. Still, this spending fell $2-4 billion short of the $22–24 billion that UNAIDS estimates is needed annually to control the pandemic. Of the $20.2 billion spent, $8.6 billion, or less than half of all global spending, came from international assistance; low and middle income countries’ own budgets accounted for 57% of spending.

These resources, channelled through governments and programs such as The Global Fund and PEPFAR, have helped save millions of lives and bend the curve of the pandemic. Since 2002, Global Fund grants have supported 8.1 million people on treatment and provided 423 million HIV counselling and testing sessions. As of December 2013, PEPFAR had provided treatment support for 7.7 million people, including direct support for 4.5 million people and indirect, but essential, technical support for another 3.2 million. It also reached more than 56.7 million people with HIV testing and counselling in FY2014.

The world must accelerate its progress – including among the most marginalized and difficult-to-reach populations. We must finish the job of virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission, continue scaling up treatment, and deploy smarter preventions strategies. To be effective, these goals cannot be achieved in isolation from one another, or be the sole responsibility of a small number of donor countries. Only when donors, African governments, international organisations and the private sector work together will the path towards the end of AIDS become a reality.

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Infectious Diseases

The Challenge                                  

HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria are preventable and treatable diseases that disproportionately affect the world’s poor. Sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest hit region, accounting for 90% of malaria deaths, more than 70% of all people living with HIV and 28%of all TB cases.

The human impact of these diseases is undeniable, but their socioeconomic impact is also severe. HIV and TB often affect people in their most productive years. Businesses are losing their workers, governments are losing their civil servants and families are losing not only their loved ones but also their breadwinners.

The world has battled malaria and TB for centuries, but the immense human toll of AIDS in the late 1990s injected a new urgency into global prevention and treatment efforts. Though the resources to fight these diseases have increased exponentially throughout most of the 2000s, funding remains insufficient for global disease control. Infectious diseases are particularly challenging, because even once progress has been made against them, they can rebound quickly if global efforts to fight them stagnate or stop.

Weak health systems further complicate the fight against these diseases, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The shortage of health workers, for example, is a major hurdle in expanding treatment and prevention efforts. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 24% of the global burden of disease, but only 3% of the world’s health workforce. Health workers at all levels of delivery, as well as the systems, supplies, and facilities that support them, must be strengthened to tackle infectious diseases and to ensure better basic health care and outcomes overall.

The Opportunity

New momentum in the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria has helped millions of people get access to prevention and treatment services. Antiretroviral medication for people living with HIV/AIDS now generally costs less than $200 per patient per year, down from nearly $10,000 only ten years ago. The four tools for malaria elimination (insecticide-treated bed nets, anti-malarial treatment, indoor residual spraying and preventative treatment for pregnant women) are also extremely affordable. For example, bed nets cost $10 to buy and distribute, while treatment costs $2 or less per dose. TB infection can be prevented and treated as well. In many countries where TB is endemic, $5-50 will buy a full six-month course of treatment to cure TB.

The increase in global resources to fight these three diseases has led to real results. Global malaria deaths have declined by 60% in last 15 years, saving 6.2 million lives (95% which are children).  In 2014, 13 countries reported no cases of the disease and six countries reported fewer than 10 cases. Life-saving antiretroviral treatment has meant that an AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death sentence for millions of people. In 2015, 15 million people around the world were receiving antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS, up from just under 700,000 in 2000. 10.7 million of them lived in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, global deaths due to AIDS have dropped consistently in that time, down from 2.4 million in 2004 to 1.2 million in 2014.  Thanks to effective diagnosis and treatment of TB, the MDG target to halt and reverse TB incidence has also been achieved on a worldwide basis (in each of the six WHO regions and in 16 of the 22 high-burden countries that collectively account for 80% of TB cases), and  43 million lives have been saved since 2000.

In order to make faster progress on eventually ending these infectious disease pandemics – while also preparing for new and emerging threats, such as Ebola – we need a continued scale-up of resources from both donors and from high-burden countries’ own domestic funding. We also need a smarter deployment of treatment and prevention strategies, and concerted efforts to strengthen the health systems around these programs.

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Why Girls?

The benefits of providing African girls with an education are clear. Educated girls help break the cycle of poverty. Girls who go to school are more likely to enter the work force, earn higher incomes, delay marriage, plan their families, and seek an education for their own children.

When girls in developing African nations receive an education and earn income, they put 90 percent of their earnings into their families, compared only to 40 percent for men. When a girl in the developing world goes to school for seven or more years, she marries four years later than she otherwise would and has two or more fewer children. The children she does have are more likely to be healthy and survive past the age of five.

 

Unique Foundation is committed to improving quality education in the Gambia for girls. We provide immediate, concrete, educational support and know what it takes to help girls go to school and stay in school.

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HOW DOES SPONSORSHIP WORK?

Education brings the opportunity to make a difference - Unique Foundation

WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER sponsoring A CHILD THROUGH UNIQUE FOUNDATION?

• When you sponsor a child with Unique Foundation, you will be able to receive weekly updates about your child or children. In this we provide you with recent activities done by your child (videos and photos) and this will always keep a smile on your face.
• Every sponsor is allowed to have Skype (video chat) with his/her sponsored child and this gives you a right to ask your child personal questions and have him/her close to you.
• When you sponsor a child with UF, you are allowed to send packages via our address and they will be received and opened by your sponsored child.
• You sponsor a child to see that children rights are well protected, thus children can have a better life.
• When you become UF child sponsor, you provide a parent's love towards poor child/children. 

CATEGORIES OF CHILDREN WHO NEEDS A SPONSOR:

• Children who loss parents at early age
• Children from unemployed families and whose parents cannot provide support for
• Children of children`s of early pregnancies which leads them to abandon their child/children.
•   Children from drunken fathers as a result put children at risk danger and abused by relatives
• Neglected and abounded children from HIV/AIDS parents etc.

New UIS figures show that 1 in 11 children is out of school, totaling 59 million children in 2013, an increase of 2.4 million since 2010. Of these, 30 million live in sub-Saharan Africa and 10 million are in South and West Asia. - unesco

Every Child should have access to quality education.

$420 per year (one annual contribution, or a recurring contribution of $35 per month.) 

WHAT BENEFITS DO CHILDREN AND YOUTH RECEIVE THROUGH THE UF CHILD SPONSOR’S PROGRAMS?

Depending on the program the student is enrolled in, benefits include tuition and school fees, school uniforms and supplies, nutrition and medical care.

WHY DOES UNIQUE FOUNDATION HAVE A CHILD SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM?

According to development economists, child sponsorship positively impacts the lives of children in several important ways. 

Sponsorship results in better educational outcomes for children.  Sponsored children are far more likely to complete secondary school and go on to post-secondary education.  There is even a spillover effect on the unsponsored younger siblings of sponsored children. Sponsorship tells a child in poverty “Your life matters and that there is a wonderful plan for your life.”

In sub-Saharan Africa, youth literacy rates (ages 15-24) have increased over the past 20 years, which suggests that adult literacy rates will increase as they grow up. However, youth literacy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa (70% in 2011) are the lowest of any region

CAN I CHOOSE THE CHILD I WANT TO SPONSOR?

You may be able to choose a child that you would like to sponsor, by letting us know the age and gender you would like to sponsor and we will choose a deserving child for you.

WHAT IF I AM UNABLE TO CONTINUE SPONSORING?

We understand that sometimes circumstances arise that make it impossible to continue sponsorship. If you find that you are unable to continue your sponsorship commitment, please let us know so that we can find another sponsor for your child.  Because we will never want to drop students from the program when they lose their sponsor, but we want to make sure every child has a sponsor.

HOW CAN I SEND A LETTER TO MY SPONSORED CHILD?

More people could be lifted out of poverty just by acquiring basic reading skills - Unique Foundation

You can mail your letter to our office, addressed to: Unique Foundation (The Gambia), Tipper-garage, Serrekunda. PMB: P.M.B. 297 Serrekunda, The Gambia. =or= email your letter to infoufgambia@gmail.com 

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oufgambia@gmail.com

LASSA FEVER - Things you need to know

What is Lassa fever?              

Lassa fever is an acute viral illness that occurs in West Africa. The illness was discovered in 1969 when two missionary nurses died in Nigeria, West Africa. The cause of the illness was found to be Lassa virus, named after the town in Nigeria where the first cases originated. The virus, a member of the virus family Arenaviridae, is a single-stranded RNA virus and is zoonotic, or animal-borne.

In areas of Africa where the disease is endemic (that is, constantly present), Lassa fever is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. While Lassa fever is mild or has no observable symptoms in about 80% of people infected with the virus, the remaining 20% have a severe multisystem disease. Lassa fever is also associated with occasional epidemics, during which the case-fatality rate can reach 50%.

Where is Lassa fever found?

Lassa fever is an endemic disease in portions of West Africa. It is recognized in

Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, as well as Nigeria. However, because the rodent species which carry the virus are found throughout West Africa, the actual geographic range of the disease may extend to other countries in the region.

How many people become infected?

The number of Lassa virus infections per year in West Africa is estimated at 100,000 to 300,000, with approximately 5,000 deaths. Unfortunately, such estimates are crude, because surveillance for cases of the disease is not uniformly performed. In some areas of Sierra Leone and Liberia, it is known that 10%-16% of people admitted to hospitals have Lassa fever, which indicates the serious impact of the disease on the population of this region.

In what animal host is Lassa virus maintained?

The reservoir, or host, of Lassa virus is a rodent known as the "multimammate rat" of the genus Mastomys. It is not certain which species of Mastomys are associated with Lassa; however, at least two species carry the virus in Sierra Leone. Mastomys rodents breed very frequently, produce large numbers of offspring, and are numerous in the savannas and forests of West, Central, and East Africa. In addition, Mastomys generally readily colonize human homes. All these factors together contribute to the relatively efficient spread of Lassa virus from infected rodents to humans.

How do humans get Lassa fever?

There are a number of ways in which the virus may be transmitted, or spread, to humans. The Mastomys rodents shed the virus in urine and droppings. Therefore, the virus can be transmitted through direct contact with these materials, through touching objects or eating food contaminated with these materials, or through cuts or sores. Because Mastomys rodents often live in and around homes and scavenge on human food remains or poorly stored food, transmission of this sort is common. Contact with the virus also may occur when a person inhales tiny particles in the air contaminated with rodent excretions. This is called aerosol or airborne transmission. Finally, because Mastomys rodents are sometimes consumed as a food source, infection may occur via direct contact when they are caught and prepared for food.

Lassa fever may also spread through person-to-person contact. This type of transmission occurs when a person comes into contact with virus in the blood, tissue, secretions, or excretions of an individual infected with the Lassa virus. The virus cannot be spread through casual contact (including skin-to-skin contact without exchange of body fluids). Person-to-person transmission is common in both village and health care settings, where, along with the above-mentioned modes of transmission, the virus also may be spread in contaminated medical equipment, such as reused needles (this is called nosocomial transmission).

What are the symptoms of Lassa fever?

Signs and symptoms of Lassa fever typically occur 1-3 weeks after the patient comes into contact with the virus. These include fever, retrosternal pain (pain behind the chest wall), sore throat, back pain, cough, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, conjunctivitis, facial swelling, proteinuria (protein in the urine), and mucosal bleeding. Neurological problems have also been described, including hearing loss, tremors, and encephalitis. Because the symptoms of Lassa fever are so varied and nonspecific, clinical diagnosis is often difficult.

How is the disease diagnosed in the laboratory?

Lassa fever is most often diagnosed by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent serologic assays (ELISA), which detect IgM and IgG antibodies as well as Lassa antigen. The virus itself may be cultured in 7 to 10 days. Immunohistochemistry performed on tissue specimens can be used to make a post-mortem diagnosis. The virus can also be detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR); however, this method is primarily a research tool.

Are there complications after recovery?

The most common complication of Lassa fever is deafness. Various degrees of deafness occur in approximately one-third of cases, and in many cases hearing loss is permanent. As far as is known, severity of the disease does not affect this complication: deafness may develop in mild as well as in severe cases. Spontaneous abortion is another serious complication.

What proportion of people die from the illness?

Approximately 15%-20% of patients hospitalized for Lassa fever die from the illness. However, overall only about 1% of infections with Lassa virus result in death. The death rates are particularly high for women in the third trimester of pregnancy, and for fetuses, about 95% of which die in the uterus of infected pregnant mothers.

How is Lassa fever treated?

Ribavirin, an antiviral drug, has been used with success in Lassa fever patients. It has been shown to be most effective when given early in the course of the illness. Patients should also receive supportive care consisting of maintenance of appropriate fluid and electrolyte balance, oxygenation and blood pressure, as well as treatment of any other complicating infections.

What groups are at risk for getting the illness?

Individuals at risk are those who live or visit areas with a high population of Mastomys rodents infected with Lassa virus or are exposed to infected humans. Hospital staff are not at great risk for infection as long as protective measures are taken.

How is Lassa fever prevented?

Primary transmission of the Lassa virus from its host to humans can be prevented by avoiding contact with Mastomys rodents, especially in the geographic regions where outbreaks occur. Putting food away in rodent-proof containers and keeping the home clean help to discourage rodents from entering homes. Using these rodents as a food source is not recommended. Trapping in and around homes can help reduce rodent populations. However, the wide distribution of Mastomys in Africa makes complete control of this rodent reservoir impractical.

When caring for patients with Lassa fever, further transmission of the disease through person-to-person contact or nosocomial routes can be avoided by taking preventive precautions against contact with patient secretions (together called VHF isolation precautions or barrier nursing methods). Such precautions include wearing protective clothing, such as masks, gloves, gowns, and goggles; using infection control measures, such as complete equipment sterilization; and isolating infected patients from contact with unprotected persons until the disease has run its course.

What needs to be done to address the threat of Lassa fever?

Further educating people in high-risk areas about ways to decrease rodent populations in their homes will aid in the control and prevention of Lassa fever. Other challenges include developing more rapid diagnostic tests and increasing the availability of the only known drug treatment, ribavirin. Research is presently under way to develop a vaccine for Lassa fever.

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Tuberculosis

The Challenge                           

Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne, bacterial, infectious disease mainly affecting the lungs. Those with the bacteria in their lungs can infect others when they cough, which makes the disease highly contagious. On average, someone is newly infected with TB bacilli (the bacteria that causes tuberculosis) every second.

With more than 95% of TB cases occurring in low- and middle-income countries, those least equipped to fight the disease are the most affected.  Poor health systems hinder efforts to stop the spread of TB and to treat those already infected.  And because HIV/AIDS weakens the immune system, those who are HIV-positive are 26-31 times more likely to develop the disease than someone without HIV. TB is a leading cause of death for AIDS patients, as TB bacteria can take advantage of an individual’s immune system compromised by HIV. Of the 9.6 million individuals newly infected with TB in 2014, 12% were also HIV-positive.

TB causes 1.5 million deaths each year (400,000 of whom who are also HIV-positive) and is a leading cause of death in low- and middle-income countries. The toll comprised 890,000 men, 480,000 women and 140,000 children. Over 95% of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, and it is among the top 5 causes of death for women aged 15 to 44.

Only one preventive vaccine exists, and it is only partially-effective for children. The vaccine, Bacilli Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is used to vaccinate children against childhood tuberculosis meningitis in countries where TB is endemic. The vaccine is less effective for adults, who usually contract pulmonary TB, against which this vaccine has little effect. A successful adult TB vaccine has not yet been developed.

The evolution of the disease, along with misuse of the drugs used to treat it, has led to the development of drug-resistant forms of TB. Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is difficult and expensive to treat, often failing to respond to standard first-line drugs. MDR-TB infected about 480,000 people and killed 190,000 people in 2014.  More recently, an even more deadly strain of the disease has emerged, called Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB), which responds to even fewer available medicines, including the most effective second-line anti-TB drugs.

The Opportunity

TB is treatable and curable. In many endemic countries, $20 will buy a full six-month drug course of TB treatments; when administered properly (including with information, supervision and support to the patient by a health worker or trained volunteer), success rates are high. Between 2000 and 2014, an estimated 43 million lives were saved through TB diagnosis and treatment, with treatment success improving each year.

The global response to TB has made significant inroads against the disease. Since 1990, TB mortality has fallen by 47%, and as of 2015,the MDG target to halt and reverse TB incidence has been achieved on a worldwide basis, in each of the six WHO regions and in 16 of the 22 high-burden countries that collectively account for 80% of TB cases. .

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has supported the detection and treatment of 13.2 million cases of TB, providing 80% or more of the world’s external funding for TB. Despite this progress, much more remains to be done. While funding for TB control has increased, funding for TB in 2014 amounted to only $1.5 billion, a 9% decrease from the previous year.

From 2016, the goal is to end the global TB epidemic by implementing the End TB Strategy. Ratified by the World Health Assembly in May 2014 and (with targets) linked to the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the strategy serves provides a platform and a framework for countries to reduce the number of TB deaths by 90% by 2030 (compared with 2015 levels), cut new cases by 80% and ensure that no family is burdened with catastrophic costs due to TB.

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