Rachel's Viewfinder

My art is my life. It’s often said that art is about art for art’s sake. Yet I create with a medium that has a message. As a believer, the message is the same: “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” My art exists to put flesh to “the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Everything is about relating the message, “the Kingdom of Heaven is near,” through art, life, practice and expression. I desire to engage other Christian artists in living out the Great Commission through the arts. Join me in this declaration of the Father's love!

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In honor of #worldAIDSday and #endofAIDS

doctorswithoutborders:

In 2000, MSF teams in Thailand first provided triple antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to people living with HIV/AIDS. A year later, teams in six other countries followed suit. At the time, a consensus held that treating patients with HIV was too expensive—ARV treatment cost around $10,000 per patient per year—too complicated, too time-consuming.

MSF doctors could not countenance simply offering palliative care and watching patients die, however. They resolved to find a way to provide people living with HIV/AIDS access to the same lifesaving medicines available in wealthier countries. Concurrently, MSF and its Access to Essential Medicines Campaign teamed with AIDS activists to advocate for price reductions in HIV/AIDS medications and against trade barriers threatening production of affordable generics.

The impact has been dramatic. By 2010, MSF was treating 160,000 people with HIV/AIDS in 20 countries—at a cost of around $200 per year per patient—and the international community was backing HIV/AIDS treatment programs once thought untenable. By the end of 2010, 6 million people in developing countries were on antiretroviral treatment, the bulk of it funded by the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS, and Malaria and the US government’s President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Some 10 million more people still urgently need treatment, but last year, amid the global financial downturn, numerous governments reneged on funding promises to the Global Fund and PEPFAR flat-lined. European trade barriers threatened production of generics in India, the source of 90 percent of the HIV/AIDS medicines used in MSF programs and 80 percent of all ARVs purchased for developing countries.

The progress of the past decade must be protected. “The World Health Organization now recommends early treatment with newer and more robust drugs,” says Sharonann Lynch, the HIV/AIDS policy advisor at MSF’s Access Campaign. “Treatment can both save lives and dramatically reduce the risk of transmission of HIV. MSF is providing this treatment
even in places where doctors are few and far between, using trained nurses and peer counselors. A successful model exists, and the science is on our side—now the international community needs to step up to the plate.”

Photo: © Susan Sandars/MSF