This week tens of thousands of HIV/AIDS stakeholders will descend on Washington, D.C. for the bi-annual International AIDS Conference (IAC). Scientists, activists, policy makers, people living with HIV/AIDS, NGOs, other stakeholders from around the globe, and (of course!) FACE AIDS will participate in a week-long conference to discuss advances in the fight against HIV and look forward to the beginning of the end of AIDS. As the weeks begins, we’d like to look at two critical moments that made this moment possible.

1. Lifting of the travel ban. Although the United States is far and away the largest contributor to the global fight against HIV, hosting the conference on our shores was not always assured; in fact the IAC has not been held in America in over 20 years. A federal ban on travel visas for people living with HIV/AIDS precluded the United States from candidacy as a host country. In 2009, President Obama lifted the travel ban, recognizing that it provided no legitimate public health benefits. Now that people living with HIV/AIDS could enter into the United States, the IAC elected to return to the US to showcase significant advances in the fight against HIV.
2. Treatment as Prevention. Last year a research team led out of UNC Chapel Hill published results of a study called HPTN 052. This study definitively showed that the immediate treatment of an HIV infected member of a serodiscordant couple (i.e  one person has HIV, the other does not) reduces the rate of transmission in heterosexual couples by 96%. HPTN 052 means that when we treat infected individuals, we prevent others from getting infected. Essentially, treatment is a form of prevention. It alters the way we talk about the virus and how we can stop it. Indeed, this groundbreaking research led Secretary of States Hillary Clinton to declare last November that creating “an AIDS-free generation” was a “policy priority of the United States government”.

These exciting developments have brought part of the FACE AIDS staff to DC this week. Lauren Piper, our Education and Advocacy Intern, and I will be blogging about our experiences attending the RESULTS International Conference, a concurrent conference that teaches how to effectively advocate for those living with HIV/AIDS around the world. Margo Watson, our Executive Director, is actively engaging hordes of young people, luminaries, and movers & shakers at the IAC. Together we working to engage our peers and colleagues so that together we can create an AIDS-free generation.

Austin Carroll Keeley

Recruitment and Partnerships Director

FACE AIDS’ Summer Bulletin just went out: http://p0.vresp.com/A4aXDM. Check it out for a save the date, 2010-11 achievements, summer happenings, intros to our new staff, and alumni spotlights!

We wanted to share with you a very special thank you note recently sent by our Rwanda team to the Ride Against AIDS team in the U.S.

….

Claire, Shane, Sanford, Zane, Jason, Michael and Kirsten,

Congratulations on completing the Ride Against AIDS! On behalf of the Rwanda team, I wanted to reach out and let you know how much we appreciate your commitment and determination to invest yourselves body and soul to this cause. Mihigo, Theo, Bosco and I can get so caught up in our work here in Kirehe, and it’s always comforting to get reminders from the other side of the ocean that we have a family of supporters who back FACE AIDS and PIH’s work in Rwanda. It’s inspiring enough to watch a fundraising total roll in, but it was such a great moment for us when we sat down together to look at the map of your journey and read your blog posts. Our youth chapters were amazed when we told them about what a group of young Americans had done to support FACE AIDS, and it’s given them renewed energy and determination to continue their chapters’ activities in communities across Eastern Rwanda.

Please know that though we’ve never met, your accomplishment has made ripples over to this little corner of the world. So thank you, thank you, a million times over. Thank you for reminding us that our work is founded on solidarity, and for reminding the communities we work with that they truly are supported by FACE AIDS‘ activities in the US.

Some Kinyarwanda translation for you:
‘Murakoze cyane’ means ‘thanks very much’

With love from Rwanda,

Cher-Wen (FACE AIDS Rwanda Program Director)

Last December, I was so lucky to go on the first FACE AIDS Student Leadership Trip to Rwanda with eight incredible Chapter Members and National Directors. We spent ten days traveling around Rwanda, talking to people impacted by the FACE AIDS programs, touring the Partners In Health hospitals and seeing the absolute beauty that Rwanda has to offer.

I was truly inspired by so many of the things we saw and people we met. We marched hand in hand with Rwandan FACE AIDS Chapter Members, learning about their lives and chapters and promoting condom use to people in the district of Kayonza. We saw a Partners In Health hospital being built in Burera for only $3 million that will provide high quality medical care to people who had essentially no access before its existence. We spent ten days with other members of the FACE AIDS movement from around the US, sharing stories about successful events and meeting ideas from our home communities. All of these were meaningful experiences, but for me there was one night that had a particularly strong impact.

We spent the day with members of Rwandarera, one of our first pin-making associations in Rwanda, walking through the three cassava fields that they bought with the savings from making FACE AIDS pins. That evening, we gathered in one of the member’s homes for dinner. Marie cooked us a delicious meal of meat, rice and sauce made from Rwandarera’s cassava plants. We all sat together-American FACE AIDS Chapter Members, Rwandan FACE AIDS staff and graduates of the Partners In Health School Fees Program, and Pinmakers from Rwandarera. In that moment, looking around the room, I could literally see the solidarity that we talk about building every day. It reminded me about why I came to FACE AIDS and what the movement really means to me. We are truly building a global movement of youth dedicated to global health and social justice.

My memories from that trip last December have stayed with me, and I am thrilled that FACE AIDS is offering the opportunity again this December. If you want to join us in this amazing experience this year, go to the website and fill out an application. If you have any questions about the application or the trip itself, please don’t hesitate to contact me at romy@faceaids.org. I hope that we will get to share this outstanding experience together in December!

Rajesh Gupta, MD, MS, MPH is currently a researcher at Stanford Medical School and has worked with Google.org, the World Health Organization and the Division of Social Medicine at Harvard.

Tell us about yourself. What do you do at Stanford, and what is your experience in the field of advocating for access to essential medicines, and HIV medications in particular?

At Stanford, I finished my MD and will finish my MS this quarter. Currently, I am also the Medical Director at a San Francisco-area therapeutics company. I was fortunate enough to have designed (with Jim Kim, PIH founder and, now, Dean of Dartmouth University) the Green Light Committee for drug resistant tuberculosis. We brought down the cost of second-line drugs needed to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis by about 95% of their original price. The strategies we designed were used to help increase access to antiretrovirals as well.

Where does the international community stand in providing comprehensive access to antiretroviral therapy for those who need it?

Thankfully, the international community is now in a mode of recognizing the importance of treatment and providing treatment for all who need it. It may seem slightly obvious but that was not the case a few years ago. For a long time people were debating whether or not treatment was possible. Then they debated which was the better value, treatment with antiretroviral therapy or prevention using the ABC’s (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms).

What are some of the challenges that you see in reaching this goal? In your opinion, what do you think needs to happen in order to ensure that those who need ARV treatment get the medications they need?

The challenges are quite difficult but can be overcome. This includes getting proper financing to purchase and deliver the drugs to patients, designing large scale patient-centered treatment programs and designing appropriate treatment protocols. Much work has been done so far. Often, the hardest part is not reaching the first 50% of people but getting to the remaining 50%. We are certainly much better off now than 10 or even 5 years ago.

What is your opinion on recent initiatives by pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Merck who have pledged increased donations? Do you think this is a sustainable solution?

There has and always will be a role for big research-based pharmaceutical companies and for donations. I will always support donation programs, but only as part of a more comprehensive solution. This comprehensive solution includes the involvement of generic-based pharmaceutical companies to ensure that prices remain low and supplies remain continuous in the long-term.

What do you view as the role of young people in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic?

Social awareness is something young people are really great at. Facebook and Twitter are amazing because of what young people are doing with it. Think about the power youth could have in using social media networking to advance the rights of individuals with HIV/AIDS.

The other area is innovation. Honestly, some of the best solutions in HIV/AIDS are going to come from young people who simply challenge traditional obstacles. The world of HIV/AIDS needs fresh people with a new lens on life who approach problems with the determination that a solution exists.

What would you say to FACE AIDS’ chapter members who are interested in this field?

Here are three concrete things you can do.

1) I would encourage everyone to get some concrete experience in the large world of health, whether in the US or abroad. This can range from technology development to volunteering at a local public health clinic to serving food at a soup kitchen. Everything we do in our daily lives can impact the health of others in a positive way. Health is a marker of many social problems. The closer you can connect yourself to understanding the underlying problems, the better understanding you can get of health. This is a good foundation to build upon your interest.

2) I would also say that whatever you do, do it well. At most FACE AIDS chapters, this translates to “study hard.” The world is full of people who want to do good for the world but think good intentions are all that is necessary. The poor and sick deserve much better than that. They deserve people at the top of their game helping them.

3) Diversify your experience. Some of the people who have the most innovative solutions in global health have a good understanding of multiple disciplines.

From Stanford Magazine May / June 2010

Riding for Rwanda

DROPPING OAR: Crew members Evans, Silver, Hegde, Shahriyer Pruisken, ’13, Roberts and Keeley.

STANFORD HELPED PROVE another axiom of life last summer, and the individual who gets the credit more than went the extra mile. One moment, Austin Keeley was bicycling smoothly out of the Colorado Rockies. The next, he was out of control, hurtling over the road’s guardrail. As he flew, a spike-like piece of metal—a mile marker, Keeley thinks— snagged his jersey and carved a bloody line across his chest.

Keeley and bike partner Dave Evans, both ’11, flagged down a car for the 30-minute trip to a hospital in Cañon City, Colo. An inquisitive physician wanted to know quite a bit about who they were, so Keeley explained that they were members of the Stanford rowing team on a cross-country fund-raising ride for the FACE AIDS organization. Obviously intrigued, the doctor picked up a large syringe of pain medication, looked for the right spot to plunge it into Keeley’s chest and then announced he was a former Cal athlete. Theorem proved: Ouch, it really is a small world.

A year later, Keeley’s tumble is a jokingly ghoulish source of entertainment for the three freshman teammates who will take over the Ride Against AIDS this summer. Already inspired by the physical challenge—almost 4,500 miles in 67 days—they banter about the marketing potential they see in Keeley’s scar, thanks to its resemblance to the Nike Swoosh. Underneath those laughs, however, is a much deeper connection. They all share an intense “rowing brothers” camaraderie that defines them as athletes and is driving their effort for FACE AIDS.

Headquartered at Stanford, the organization was started in 2005 by three students—Katie Bollbach, Jonny Dorsey and Lauren Young, all ’07—out of concern for shunned and orphaned HIV/AIDS victims in Africa. FACE AIDS mobilizes students across the United States to take part in fund-raising campaigns, with the proceeds going toward healthcare in Rwanda. Executive director Julie Veroff, ’07, says $125 pays a year’s antiretroviral treatment for one patient.

The crew team’s involvement began in 2007, when a former rower, Jeremy Barton, ’06, initiated the ride with friend Robby Sumpf, ’06. They pioneered a trip that includes scheduled meetings with interested groups but also seizes on happenstance encounters that generate publicity and contributions. That ride raised almost $8,000 for FACE AIDS and resulted in an ongoing partnership with the rowers.

Evans and Keeley raised more than $19,000. Improving on that is up to the cyclists who start pedaling June 14: Shane Hegde, Sanford Roberts and Zane Silver, all ’13, women’s crew member Claire Fisher, ’13, and four students from other universitites. They’re hoping alums around the country will help bring attention to their trek.

The Cardinal riders are conspicuously aware of their good fortune at being Stanford students and say they want to do something substantial to help people in distress. They especially want to do it together. “I expect,” says Silver, “to end up being in contact with these guys for the rest of my life.”