Avert (HIV and AIDS organisation)
AVERT (formerly also known as the AIDS Education and Research Trust) is an international AIDS charity based in Horsham, South East England, United Kingdom.
Early work
AVERT was founded in 1986, by Peter Kanabus and his wife Annabel, daughter of former Sainsbury's chairman Robert Sainsbury.[1] In its first fifteen years the charity focused on producing educational publications and funding HIV-related educational, social and medical research.[2]
A number of AVERT's publications, such as the AIDS: Working With Young People (1993) teaching pack were based on substantial educational research.[3] In addition many thousands of AVERT's booklets were distributed in the UK each year, covering such topics as sex education, sexuality and HIV.[4]
Medical research funded by AVERT included the first ever study of the effect of pregnancy on the progression of HIV disease,[4] and social research included studies of HIV and drug use in UK prisons.[5]
In 2001 the charity decided to cease funding research and producing printed publications, and instead to concentrate on its educational website and work outside the UK in countries with a particularly high or rapidly increasing rate of HIV infection and AIDS.
Avert.org
The charity's educational website avert.org, established in 1995, claims to be the world's most popular AIDS website, receiving a reported two million page views per month.[1] In 2005 the site won the British Medical Association's Patient Information Award for Websites.[6]
Overseas projects
AVERT funds a range of projects in developing countries, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the AIDS epidemic is most severe.[1] Organisations given money include Sangram in southwest India,[7] and Tholulwazi Uzivikele in KwaZulu Natal.[8]
The charity's work made headlines in 2008 when South African doctor Colin Pfaff was suspended from his post for supplying HIV positive, pregnant women with the antiretroviral drug AZT,[9] which had been paid for by AVERT.[10] At the time the South African government had not approved the use of AZT to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, even though it was recommended by the World Health Organisation and was widely used in other developing countries. Rural doctors, scientists, AIDS activists and organisations rallied in support of Pfaff, and the charges were subsequently dropped.[11]
References
- ^ a b c About AVERT
- ^ Berridge, Virginia (1996). AIDS in the UK. Oxford University Press. pp. 179, 181. ISBN 0-19-820472-8.
- ^ "Register of educational research 1992-1995".
- ^ a b AVERT - 24dr.com
- ^ Drug use in prison, BMJ 1994;308:1716 (25 June)
- ^ Patient Information Awards at the BMA Medical Book Competition 2005
- ^ AVERT’s HIV & AIDS Projects in India
- ^ AVERT’s HIV & AIDS Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa
- ^ Clinicians Support South African Doctor in Dispute Over Providing AIDS Therapy for Pregnant Women, Fox News, February 18, 2008
- ^ AVERT Trustees Report and Accounts 2008
- ^ KZN doctor cleared on treatment charge, Mail & Guardian, February 21, 2008