Another must see talk from the TED conference. The message to take home is that no simplification can be made neither is it valuable to try to make one.
“We hope that when we act on global problems in the future, we will not only have the heart, we will not only have the money, but we will also use the brain”
Hans Rosling
Professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute

The interactive animation in this video is accessible on the Gapminder website.

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33 million people are infected with HIV worldwide. But what does that tell us? The world is big. 67% of those infected lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Still, Africa is a very large continent. 35% of all those infected live in southern Africa and within South Africa, the KwaZulu Natal province has the highest prevalence of HIV infection; 39% of women who attend an antenatal clinic are HIV positive.
Knowing the HIV epidemic is fundamental when setting up interventions and my opening statement clearly shows that generalisation are not very useful or …

Despite an increase in intergenerational sex amongst female teenagers, despite an increase in the number of multiple partners amongst men age 15-24, despite a decrease in HIV prevention knowledge, the third South African National HIV survey conducted in 2008 showed a promising decline in the number of HIV infections amongst the 15-24 years old.
“HIV prevalence among adults aged 15-49 has declined between 2002 and 2008 in the Western Cape, Gauteng, Northern Cape and the Free State, with the largest decline of 7.9 percentage points in the Western Cape.”
This may well …

Why HIV “prevention does not work” has been the subject of recurrent discussions during the past weeks. It all started with a thought-provoking article published online by Frontiers in LA, “a one-stop source of content for Southern California’s LGBT community” (welcome to the Ghetto) by Michael Liberatore who wrote that “if pharmaceutical companies were supplying the cash to develop [HIV/AIDS] treatments, couldn’t they just as easily stall the development of newer, less profit-friendly treatments to assure that their bank accounts continue to swell?”
The article is worth reading and raises some …

We live in a sad world where stigma and discrimination follow people even in death.
Yesterday the BBC reported that the body of a senegalese man had been dug up twice from his grave because he was believed to be homosexual. As in many other African countries, homosexuality is outlawed in Senegal. In Uganda “the offence” carries a life sentence on conviction, and according to the government, international NGO (including UNICEF and Amnesty International) are accused of promoting it. In Burundi, the government recently adopted a law criminalising homosexual conduct. in …