Ashoka, the non-profit organization that promotes social entrepreneurship around the globe, is currently running a grant program providing $5,000 awards and additional benefits to individuals or organizations with good ideas for "how to improve health for all". The web site offers full program details, and also posts proposals (in full text) that have been submitted to date. All proposals are due May 24th.

PEPFAR Watch, a web resource supported by the Center for Health and Gender Equity and Health GAP, provides a comprehensive list of documents and analyses concerning PEPFAR and major PEPFAR issues, such as the Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) and sex worker policies and restrictions.

The International AIDS Economics Network has issued a call for papers in anticipation of its Toronto meetings this August. Selected researchers from around the world will receive support for travel, lodging, expenses, and entry to the main conference.

UNAIDS this week released its Epidemic Update 2005. As in the past, the document is professionally presented, meticulously dispassionate, and very nearly devoid of good news. Another five million people have contracted the virus worldwide. Three million more have died. Forty million people carry the virus worldwide. Twenty five million people have died since 1981. Some countries show modest signs of progress, while many others show worrisome decline. Many countries appear on the brink of pronounced epidemics. The disease shows few signs of slowing its devastation.

If there is good news to be distilled from the document, it is that there is ample evidence on the right set of policies required to combat AIDS. Unfortunately there remain many obstacles to these policies. It is hard to conclude anything from this Update other than we're still losing the battle against AIDS.

The Kaiser Family Foundation will be screening on November 16th in Washington, DC the new documentary "Ending AIDS: The Search for a Vaccine". Other screenings are offered around the US and other countries, leading to the wide television broadcast of the documentary on World AIDS Day December 1.

The documentary is an excellent synopsis of the breakthroughs and challenges of combatting AIDS, but concludes that we are still years away from a vaccine -- although important and promising work is clearly underway.

The new McKinsey Quarterly (free registration required) includes two good overview articles of interest to AIDS professionals. The first, "Vaccines Where They Are Needed", provides a nice review of the challenges of vaccines for development. The second, "Battling AIDS in India", discusses the challenge of gaining the attention and commitment of the Indian private sector in the fight against AIDS.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has issued a new review of global financing for HIV/AIDS. The report, "Financing the Response to HIV/AIDS in Low and Middle Income Countries", provides current data and graphs describing the financial commitments of G7 countries. The report, along with an associated chartpack, was presented at a Kaiser-sponsored event "The Long-term Financing Implications of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic" July 21st (webcast available).

The President's Emergency Response to AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) recently released its first Annual Report to Congress. The 123 page document (available in PDF | 2.6 meg) is the most detailed public view yet of the accomplishments and ambitions of the world's largest AIDS program.

The report is laden with statistics demonstrating accomplishments in care, prevention, training, and other services. It also does a reasonable job outlining program priorities and directions. The report doesn't, however, provide a usable compilation of the most important question: where is the money going? (Appendix II lists six uses of funding with no breakout detail.) There is also limited mention of grant recipients and contractors who do much of the PEPFAR program implementation.

The Annual Report is a welcome step forward for PEPFAR communications. Overall, however, PEPFAR still has a long ways to go in its stated goal of communications "transparency". Two years out there is still no reasonable program web site. Only one site worldwide links to the Annual Report (USAID). A Google search on "PEPFAR" brings up discussion of PEPFAR in AIDS Matters as the fourth entry (in contrast, a Google search on "Global Fund" doesn't return AIDS Matters in the top 200 results). PEPFAR certainly has a lot of information to share with the global AIDS policy community. The Annual Report is a good start.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has launched a new information resource addressing AIDS, TB and Malaria. GlobalHealthReporting.org aggregates Kaiser newsfeeds, research, interviews and other resources into a web site targeting "journalists and others". It provides a particularly good array of background materials for the three diseases, a hallmark of Kaiser publications.

The White House Council of Economic Advisors last week published the 2005 Economic Report of the President, a 300 page tome discussing the principal economic challenges facing the US. Chapter 7 (of eight chapters) is dedicated exclusively to global HIV / AIDS. It provides a concise portrait of the global epidemic, its economic consequences, and strategies towards prevention and care. While it breaks little new ground, the Report does emphasize new market approaches to encouraging vaccine development, an idea that is receiving increased attention.

Kudos to the British charity Avert for providing excellent information resouces on global HIV/AIDS. While the web site covers many topics that are well-discussed elsewhere online, it also includes informative sections on US Government programs that are not well-presented on other sites. The PEPFAR page is more detailed than anything provided by PEPFAR itself; it even includes reference to the SCMS program (remember that -- the world's largest AIDS program nobody has ever heard of?). The PEPFAR page also includes an excellent bibliography at the end.

If one searches on "SCMS" on the USAID web site, there are zero citations. Thanks to Avert for helping fill the gaps.

We've commented previously on the paucity of blogs focusing on global AIDS. (On Technorati, "global aids" returns 379 citations; "paris hilton" returns 41,839.)

Nonetheless, here are some additional resources worth tracking:

HIV/AIDS News and Opinion (commentary on global aids)
Politics and Policy of HIV/AIDS (legal and policy issues)
HIV Information for Myanmar (a rare "in country" blog)

PLoS Medicine, an online, peer-reviewed medical journal, has quickly become one of the web's more important information resources for global AIDS researchers. Launched only a year ago, PLoS medicine has the dual advantages of credibility (via peer review) and speed (via online publishing). Coverage of global AIDS topics is quite good, including excellent recent articles on integrating prevention and treatment and on the Global HIV/AIDS Vaccine Enterprise. One function which is available on PLoS Medicine, but not yet widely used, is the "reader response" form to articles. As the site moves from being strictly a publisher to becoming a gathering place, its influence will only increase.

The UN yesterday launched "Investing in Development", an impressive update on the global fight against poverty. The document tells a number of familiar tales: many indicators are improving globally; Africa is being left behind; and there are ample opportunities for progress in the next decade. With respect to AIDS, the report covers mostly old ground of the importance of 3x5, prevention programs, and scaling issues, without placing undue emphasis on the role of AIDS in global poverty. The document balances detail with clarity, provides many excellent tables, and is likely to be regarded as one of the most important blueprints for combating poverty in recent times.

While much of the world is literate, a great percentage remains "picturate" -- that is, relying on images and oral tradition to get information. AIDS education programs, particularly in developing countries, need to focus intelligently on teaching through graphics and photos. A new article in PLoS Medicine entitled "Picturing AIDS: Using Images to Raise Community Awareness" describes experience in Botswana in using pictures to teach about AIDS, and how programs once considered disrespectful are now viewed as fundamental to training about the epidemic.