TAGline November 2024
This year’s edition of TAGline takes stock of the state of the HIV, TB, and HCV pandemics worldwide, and advances bold visions for what a future without them must look like.
Policy Approaches to Seemingly Intractable Challenges: Global and Domestic Activism in a Time of Divided Government
By Lizzy Lovinger and Mark Harrington This November’s U.S. election provides an opportunity for activists to pause and assess our approach to policy. We face some unprecedented roadblocks on our path to end HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and tuberculosis…
A New Pandemic Agreement Cannot Succeed If It Ignores Human Rights
By Mike Frick and Gisa Dang Background Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, governments embarked on a journey to create a Pandemic Agreement, negotiated among member states of the World Health Organization (WHO), that would establish binding rules on how…
Accessible DAAs Shouldn’t Be DOA: Delivering on the Promise of Negotiated Price Reductions for HCV Treatment
By Joelle Dountio Ofimboudem The hepatitis C Virus (HCV) remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases, despite the existence of an effective eight- to-twelve week cure. Still, of the 50 million people estimated to be living with HCV worldwide, 36…
Breaking Barriers: Ensuring Access to Disability-Inclusive TB and HIV Services
By Wilson Kutamba and Richard Musisi With an estimated TB incidence of 200 cases per 100,000, Uganda is one of the 30 countries with the highest burden of TB/HIV globally. For the estimated 86,000 people living here who fell ill…
From Property to Power: Confronting the Historic Roots of Black Women’s Health Disparities
By De'Ashia Lee Among women aged 24–35, Black women were the only U.S. demographic for which HIV disease was a leading cause of death in 2021. 1 This alarming health disparity is the end result of a culture of oppression and…
Beyond Intellectual Property: Why Is Generic Treatment for HCV Still So Hard to Get
By Joelle Dountio Ofimboudem and Sara Helena Gaspar Background Intellectual property is a major barrier to access to medicines worldwide because it creates corporate monopolies that restrict supply, keep prices high, and prevent people from accessing innovative health products. However,…
Misinformation and Vaccine Preparedness: The Case for Digital Advocacy
By Erin McConnell A special thanks to Abraham Johnson, for contributing to an earlier draft of this piece Hesitancy around immunization has such deep historical roots that it predates the first vaccine. Before the term “anti-vaccine” was coined in the…
How Rising Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment Harms Public Health
By Kendall Martinez-Wright, Elizabeth Lovinger, and De’Ashia Lee Many people recognize advances the LGBTQ+ community has made in the United States and other countries, including the freedom to marry their partners, sexual orientation and gender identity protections, and the fact…