Lion's Club Partnership Samaritan Ministry has entered into a partnership with our local Lions Club, Knox County Lions Charities, to offer vision services to the HIV/AIDS community. Vision services have, in the past, have been a part of a group of services offered through Ryan White programs, but this is no longer the case in Tennessee.
As funding has continued to be "flat", and with a rise in costs in all areas, priorities have been made as to how Ryan White funds can be used. Currently, Ryan White funding (funding used for CARE) is available for medical services (hospital, doctor, insurance assistance) and dental. Vision services are no longer a part of this program.
With our current arrangement with Lions Charities, we are able to provide eye exams and glasses for the HIV/AIDS community in the grater Knoxville area. This requires a referral from a Case Manager or Medical Care Manager. Funds are limited.
US Conference on AIDS In September, Samaritan Ministry will be exhibiting and presenting at the US Conference on AIDS in Miami. Our Roundtable Presentation is titled, "Creative Partnerships – Forming Collaborative Partnerships for Care and Prevention", and will be a joint presentation by Wayne Smith, Director of Samaritan Ministry, and Ronnie Adams, HIV Outreach Specialist at Metro Baptist Church in Manhatten, New York City.
BROADWAY CARES GRANT AWARD Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has awarded Samaritan Ministry with a "renewal" grant of $5,000.00 to help with our client assistance programs. We have received BC/EFA funding for several years.
AWARD WINNING Samaritan Ministry has been awarded the Family Life Education Award by Planned Parenthood of Middle and Esat Tennessee. This award recognizes our educational accomplishments in schools and churches and, in particular, the accomplishments for our volunteer teachers, LuAnne Prevost and Lisa Qualman. This honor comes with a $500 cash award to support our educational programming. We share this honor with the educational division of Nashville CARES and the University School Nashville.
AIRPLANE SMART Often as I travel I take with me articles I have found that deserve study, but that I have not taken the time to read. ALWAYS when I travel I take my latest copy of Positively Aware, the Journal of the Test Positive Aware Network out of Chicago.
Sometimes I find articles in my mailbox at church from my pastor with a "Wayne" sticky note attached, signaling that he has found something worth my study.
This summer I have traveled by air to the HIV Prevention Leadership Summit in Detroit and I found time to become "airplane smart" as I traveled.
I've learned:
1) The CDC is currently updating its estimate of the number of new HIV cases each year (incidence). For years, the CDC has held this number at 40,000, but now is looking at a figure closer to 60,000 (a 35%-50% increase over previous estimates). CDC has taken the 40,000 figure off its website. (CHAMP Mobilization Project, HSS Watch, May 2008)
2) Related to this development is the idea that, if the incidence is going up then prevention efforts are not working. We need to be careful here. For example, we know that prevention efforts do work, but that prevention funding has not gone up. We also know that comprehensive prevention efforts work best and that prevention efforts that restrict honest discussion about sexuality (and condoms) fall short. We also believe that the abstinence message is a very important part of a comprehensive message. The conclusion here is that a strong, sustained and coordinated national strategy is important.
3) Prevention funding makes up only 3% of the total domestic HIV/AIDS budget! (CHAMP)
4) Effective HIV drugs, called Anti Retroviral Therapy, have most certainly extended the lives of people living with HIV. The number of people living with HIV over 50 has increased 77% from 2001-2005 representing a quarter of all cases in the U.S. (TPAN - June 2008). Many long-term patients, while doing well controlling HIV (with ARV therapy) are having long-term heart, kidney, and bone toxicities linked to these life saving drugs. This presents a new challenge for patients and their doctors.
Reauthorizing PEPFAR (August 2008) “Defeating HIV/AIDS once and for all will require an unprecedented investment over generations. But it is an investment that yields the best possible return: saved lives.”
-President George W. Bush, July 30, 2008
On July 30, 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law H.R. 5501, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008. This legislation responds to the President’s call last year to expand the U.S. Government commitment to this successful program for five additional years, from 2009 through 2013.
In 2003, President Bush launched the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to combat global HIV/AIDS – the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in history. This legislation will increase the U.S. financial commitment to the fight against global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, authorizing up to $48 billion to combat the three diseases, including:
$39 billion for:
PEPFAR bilateral HIV/AIDS programs
U.S. contributions to the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
$5 billion to:
The President’s Malaria Initiative to fight malaria through bilateral programs around the world
$4 billion for:
Bilateral programs to fight tuberculosis, which is the leading killer of Africans living with HIV
When the President launched PEPFAR in 2003, approximately 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were receiving antiretroviral treatment. Today, PEPFAR supports lifesaving treatment for over 1.7 million people worldwide, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
PEPFAR has also supported care for more than 6.6 million people, including 2.7 million orphans and vulnerable children. To date, PEPFAR has allowed nearly 200,000 children to be born HIV free. These statistics are promising, yet there is no way to quantify PEPFAR’s greatest achievement – the spread of hope.
GIRL SCOUTS say "fight aids" Recently we came upon a great document by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, entitled, "Tell 10 Girls 10 Facts About HIV/AIDS". This comes off their website and you should see it. Go to wagggsworld.org and do a search on "HIV/AIDS". This is some great material of which to be very proud. You go, girls!
NEW HIV ESTIMATES from the CDC New technology and methodology developed by CDC show that the incidence of HIV in the United States is higher than was previously known. However, the incidence has been stable at that higher level for most of this decade. HIV incidence is the number of new HIV infections occurring during a certain time period, in this case, the year 2006.
These findings, published in a special HIV/AIDS issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that was released August 3, 2008, show that in 2006, an estimated 56,300 new HIV infections occurred – a number that is substantially higher than the previous estimate of 40,000 annual new infections. It should be noted that the new incidence estimate does not represent an actual increase in the numbers of HIV infections. Rather, a separate CDC historical trend analysis published as part of this study suggests that the annual number of new infections was never as low as 40,000 and that it has been roughly stable since the late 1990s (with estimates ranging between 55,000 and 58,500 during the three most recent time periods analyzed). See the complete article at the CDC website @ www.cdc.gov/hiv.
