Today's Stories: Victory for Uribe re-election bid 6 dead, 8 trapped in Argentie coal mine fire AIDS Treatment: Striving for Universal Access in the Americas

Colombian President Uribe says he needs a second term to complete his programm.

The bill was approved by 92 to six, in the fourth of eight votes in the House of Representatives.

The bill would amend the constitution to allow President Uribe to stand for a second consecutive four-year term.

Polls suggest the move is supported by most Colombians but it is opposed by some lawmakers, who say it would encourage corruption.

They taped their mouths shut to protest Thursday's vote.

The victory "reflects the majority of Congress, and the majority of public opinion," said interior and justice minister Sabas Pretelt de la Vega, according to Efe news agency.

Protests

The bill - which was approved by the Senate on 14 May - has now been approved by the lower House of Representatives.

It faces another round of four votes when Congress reconvenes on 20 July after recess.

Its passage through the lower house was interrupted on Thursday when about 60 lawmakers stormed out of the chamber, only to return with their mouths taped shut.

They were complaining about a decision not to broadcast the vote on television or allow further debate on the bill.

"We have taped our mouths shut to symbolise that we don't feel the rules of the debate over this bill have been clean and clear," said a spokesman for the bill's opponents, Joaquin Jose Vives.

Mr Uribe's perceived hardline stance against left-wing rebel groups and right-wing paramilitary groups is popular among Colombians weary of the country's four-decade civil war, says BBC regional analyst Robert Plummer.

Polls suggest some 80% of Colombians support changing the constitution to allow him to stand for a second four-year term.

But our correspondent adds that concerns over the bill reflect the traditional reluctance of Latin American societies to give too much power to individual leaders, given the continent's historical experience of dictatorships.
 

6 dead, 8 trapped in Argentie coal mine fire
Search crews scoured a fire-ravaged Patagonian coal mine Wednesday while reports indicated they had found two more victims of an accident that already had claimed four lives.

With the toll rising to six dead, authorities told the local news agency Diarios y Noticias that hopes were dwindling that eight other miners still missing could have survived the blaze two days earlier.

The mining accident that began with a fire deep in the tunnels late Monday at the remote mine in southern Argentina prompted search teams to rush night scopes and other high-tech equipment to the scene.

The Diarios y Noticias dispatch said searchers advanced several kilometers (miles) underground before they spotted two more victims on Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities said the search group was advancing to the underground chamber where the fire began in the vast coal deposits of Rio Turbio, a mining complex 3,100 kilometers (1,920 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires.

Rescue workers said they hoped the remaining miners had managed to reach several ventilated areas deep in the mine where officials believe the miners may have tried to seek refuge.

President Nestor Kirchner, a three-term governor of remote Santa Cruz province where the Rio Turbio mine is located, traveled Wednesday to the state-run mine.

He had personally monitored rescue reports since Monday's accident.

His public works chief, Julio de Vido, was already at the scene and pledged an exhaustive investigation once the rescue and recovery operations are completed.

While de Vido acknowledged that local reports had cast suspicion on a faulty mechanical belt, he cautioned that it was too early to venture any finding.

An army helicopter clattered above the mine on an overcast, frigid day as army troops helped transport rescue brigades on all-terrain vehicles to the different mine entrances and set up communications equipment for searchers.

"We have provided night vision equipment and the rescue crews are using those now," said army Col. Federico Anschutz, speaking with the Telefe television network.

He also said army experts had set up a better communications network after radios malfunctioned underground.

Authorities said they found a total of four bodies late Tuesday not far inside the entry to the vast underground mine complex.

Still holding out hope, worried family and friends maintained a vigil nearby.

At least two air force planes equipped with emergency medical equipment were ordered on standby by military authorities. Two regional hospitals also were put on alert.
 

AIDS Treatment: Striving for Universal Access in the Americas
Today Latin America and the Caribbean lead the developing world in providing HIV/AIDS treatment, accounting for more than half of all people on antiretrovirals in developing countries, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

These life-saving drugs have changed the face of AIDS, and the region is striving to provide universal access to them, according to "Casting the AIDS Lifeline," an article in the latest issue of PAHO's magazine, Perspectives in Health.

Additional Information:
Perspectives in Health Magazine
Volume 9, Number 1, 2004.

Click here to read the magazine
In Latin America and the Caribbean there are an estimated 210,000 HIV/AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral treatment, 55 percent of the total number of people believed to be in need of treatment in the region. In Africa, by comparison, only 100,000 or 2 percent of some 4.4 million people who need them are receiving these drugs.

Public health advocates acknowledge that there remain frustrating delays in getting treatment to those who need it, but they say the achievements so far reflect a growing commitment to providing universal access to antiretroviral therapy.

"Today every country in our region has HIV/AIDS patients on antiretroviral treatment," says Carol Vlassoff, head of the HIV/AIDS program at the Pan American Health Organization. "There's a new consensus that everyone in our region who needs AIDS therapy should have access."

To support this process, PAHO is spearheading a regional initiative over the next year and a half to increase the number of people receiving AIDS therapy in Latin America and the Caribbean by 174,000—the number currently believed to need treatment but who still lack access. The effort falls within the framework of the "3 by 5" initiative, launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in late 2003 with the goal of providing antiretroviral treatment to 3 million people in the developing world by the end of 2005. It also supports the Millennium Development Goals and answers the call by heads of state at the recent Summit of the Americas to treat 600,000 HIV/AIDS patients throughout the Americas by 2005.

Since combination antiretroviral therapy became available in the mid-1990s, death rates from AIDS have declined 90 percent in the United States and Europe. Middle income countries including Argentina, the Bahamas, and Brazil have seen as much as a 50 percent drop in death rates from AIDS after only a few years of treatment. But in the world's poorest countries, especially in Africa, AIDS deaths have continued to climb along with new infections.

Most Latin American and Caribbean countries focused their early anti-AIDS efforts on prevention, viewing antiretrovirals as largely out of reach.

A notable exception to this rule was Brazil, which responded to its spreading AIDS epidemic with a comprehensive strategy that incorporated both prevention and treatment, including universal access to free antiretroviral treatment.

To lower drug costs, Brazil began producing generic versions of antiretrovirals in 1993 and has also negotiated lower prices with brand-name manufacturers. While Brazil is one of the few countries in the region with the technical and manufacturing base necessary to produce its own drugs, other countries have followed its lead in negotiating with drug makers to lower antiretroviral prices with support from PAHO/WHO and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Still the estimated cost per year of treating HIV/AIDS patients can be staggering. A number of countries have been absorbing these costs through their national health budgets and World Bank loans, but smaller and lower-income countries have had to seek other external sources of funding.

One of the most important of these is the $4.7 billion Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched in 2002 to channel public and private donations to combat these diseases. The United States'$15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has also financed AIDS treatment in Haiti and Guyana and pledged $1 billion in general funds to the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Despite these positive developments, activists complain that the process of expanding treatment has moved too slowly. Carol Vlassoff, head of PAHO's AIDS program, observes that, following the success of drug price negotiations, technical, bureaucratic and medical hurdles still need to be overcome and are top priorities for PAHO.

Vlassoff and others involved in the "3 by 5" initiative acknowledge that universal access to antiretrovirals is an ambitious goal. "But this is a goal we have to strive for," says Vlassoff. "Of all the developing regions, the Americas have real potential to achieve universal access. It is a challenge, but it needs to be done."

Other articles in this issue of Perspectives in Health include: "Latino Health in the USA," "Aging in the Americas," and "A Question of Human Rights," on rights violations of the mentally ill in the Americas.

The Pan American Health Organization, founded in 1902, works with all the countries of the Americas to improve the health and quality of life of their peoples. It also serves as the regional office of the World Health Organization.