IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 151
Africa
17 October 2003


NEWS:

ANGOLA: Making safe sex cool
ETHIOPIA: Circumcision abandoned to prevent HIV infection
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Doctors trained in anti-HIV drug prescription

LINKS

1. EngenderHealth E-News
2. HIV InSite Focus on Care and Treatment
3. Condoms website
4. Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS

CONFERENCES/EVENTS/RESEARCH RESOURCES

1. Metropolitan AIDS conference 2003
2. Education and HIV/AIDS
3. Stop TB Partners' Forum
4. AIDS Organisations WorldWide
5. HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming in Conservation
6. The LANCET Journal Archives

VACANCIES

1. Technical Review Panel experts
2. Deputy Director

NEWS

SWAZILAND: Feature on exposing child abuse

A groundbreaking study by the Ministry of Education on the effect of child
abuse paints a disturbing portrait of the state of the Swazi child today,
suggesting that up to 38 percent of children might be abuse survivors.

"Sexual abuse of students by teachers is a dirty little secret no longer,"
Alicia Tsabedze, a teacher in the central Manzini province, who conducted
interviews for the project, told IRIN.

"The abuse of children is a major challenge for Swaziland's schools and
communities," said Principal Secretary for Education W.M. Msibi,
addressing the social welfare organisations that participated in the
project.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2632

ANGOLA: Making safe sex cool

A trendy new youth centre is aiming to grab the imagination of Angolan
teenagers, and help them steer clear of HIV infection.

Educating the young about the risks of unprotected sex is vital in any
HIV/AIDS prevention programme, but the Jango centre in Viana, 15 km from
the capital, Luanda, goes a step further by providing the children with a
much-needed place to meet friends, let off steam and chill out.

Funded by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), run by a local children's
organisation, Cuidados da Infancia, and supported by the NGO, Population
Services International, Jango hammers home its safe-sex message, but in a
fun way, designed to get teenagers back into a positive cycle of
socialising and learning.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2626

ETHIOPIA: Circumcision abandoned to prevent HIV infection

In an effort to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, some 350 practitioners of
ritual circumcision in Ethiopia's Gonder region have agreed to abandon the
practice, as well as other forms of genital mutilation.

This follows a warning by local health officials that the HIV/AIDS
pandemic was aggravated by such traditional practices, often as a result
of instruments not being sterilised.

The head of one of the region's social services centres, Abebaw Gegit, was
quoted by the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) as saying: "The circumcisers and
those engaged in harmful traditional practices have decided to abandon
them after intensive sensitisation work by health officers."

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2623

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Doctors trained in anti-HIV drug prescription

Local doctors in the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR),
Bangui, have ended a three-day training workshop on the prescription of
antiretrovirals (ARVs), a lecturer at Bangui University's faculty of
medicine told PlusNews on Wednesday.

"This training will allow us to have more personnel to follow and care for
HIV patients," said Dr Valentin Fikouma, a lecturer in infectious
diseases.

He said the 20 physicians attending the workshop had been instructed in
the medical, clinical and biological symptoms of HIV patients, and at what
stage to prescribe the drugs. Fikouma is one of 12 local physicians
authorised by the government to prescribe ARVs. He said he and all the
others, as well as the six health facilities authorised to treat HIV/AIDS,
were in Bangui.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2624


LINKS

1. EngenderHealth E-News includes information on EngenderHealth - an NGO
that works to support and strengthen reproductive health services for
women and men worldwide. Each month subscribers will receive links to
interactive features on the EngenderHealth website, stories and photos
from the field, and news about events.
http://www.engenderhealth.org. To subscribe:
http://members.engenderhealth.org/newsgroup/entryform.asp

2. The HIV InSite Focus on Care and Treatment site contains a collection
of country-specific antiretroviral treatment guidelines, training
materials, and other resources for HIV treatment and care
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr-00-04

3. This website on condoms from the Johns Hopkins Centre for Communication
Programmes is an update and expansion of the Condoms CD-ROM first
published in 1999 by JHU/CCP's POPLINE Digital Services. The website has
ideas on designing condom promotion campaigns and putting together condom
counselling information. You will also find calendars, flipcharts, kits
and manuals, novelties, pamphlets, posters, research abstracts, and
audio-visual materials from around the world.
http://condoms.jhuccp.org/

4. The Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa
(AMICAALL) website was launched to facilitate information dissemination
and the sharing of experiences. The website is available in French and
English. It includes information on AMICAALL strategy, the UN/AMICAALL
Partnership Programme, country activities, Alliance contacts, documents
and publications.
http://www.amicaall.org


CONFERENCES/EVENTS/RESEARCH RESOURCES

1. The Second Metropolitan AIDS conference 2003 will be held in Maputo,
Mozambique from 3 to 5 November 2003. Speakers from South Africa,
Mozambique, Uganda, Angola, Swaziland, Zambia and the United States will
engage delegates on a range of HIV/AIDS issues. These include private
sector responses to the epidemic, empowerment and AIDS, and antiretroviral
therapy in the context of poverty. Interactive breakaway sessions will
deal with mainstreaming AIDS, food security and corporate community AIDS
care programmes.


Financial services company Metropolitan hosted its first conference in
Botswana last year, which was attended by over 120 delegates.

For more information: Renee Sabor at Metropolitan. Email:
rsabor@metropolitan.co.za.
Tel: +27 21 940 5275

2.  Education and HIV/AIDS: A Sourcebook of HIV/AIDS Prevention
Programmes, is a World Bank report that aims to support countries' efforts
to strengthen the role of the education sector in the prevention of
HIV/AIDS. The sourcebook, which is meant to fill an important gap in
information on programming in the education sector, provides concise
summaries of programmes selected by national experts. All the programmes
were benchmarked against criteria that the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team
(IATT) for Education considers to be sound programming practice.
http://www.schoolsandhealth.org/Sourcebook/sourcebook-complete.pdf

3. The second Stop TB (tuberculosis) Partners' forum will be held in New
Delhi, India from 4 to 5 December 2003. The theme of the two-day forum is
"Keeping the Pledge". It will focus on partnership progress in
implementing the Global Plan to Stop TB, and highlight the importance of
country progress and private- and civil-sector involvement.

The objectives of the meeting are to:

- Generate interest by global and national media in the forum and the war
on TB
- Utilise the forum to create pressure for strengthened political
commitment and financial support for Stop TB objectives
- Emphasize the need for funding to support all the constituent elements
of the Global Plan, i.e. research and development for new TB drugs,
diagnostics and vaccines, DOTS expansion, TB/HIV, multi-drug resistant
tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and Global Drug Facility (GDF)
- Deepen understanding of the relationship between the Global Plan and the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM)
- Highlight successful national TB programmes as models of progress,
innovative approaches and the benefits of investing in TB control
- Exploit the forum to activate partners and country programmes in
collaborative communications and advocacy activities

For more information:
Stop TB Secretariat Email: stoptb@who.int
http://www.stoptb.org/forum2003/index.html

4. AIDSMAP www.aidsmap.com produce the annual directory of AIDS service
organisations, 'AIDS ORGANISATIONS WORLDWIDE'. This directory is an
essential tool for international networking, referrals, sharing best
practice, and international HIV professionals.

The information listed for each organisation includes full contact
details, email and website addresses, and service descriptions. If you
would like to be included in this directory, submit your details online
at:
http://www.aidsmap.com/update/updatelogin.asp?type=new

To purchase a copy of this directory, listing over 1,000 organisations in
49 countries, follow the link below:
http://www.aidsmap.com/shopcart/asp/product.asp?product=66

5. HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming in Conservation describes the experiences of the
Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM) in addressing the
impacts HIV/AIDS is having on the environment. The paper describes these
impacts, and the process the WESM has been through, to mainstream HIV/AIDS
into its work.
http://www.eldis.org/fulltext/hivandconservation.pdf

6. Researchers and scholars across the globe will now have the ability to
search a historical archive of over 340,000 articles dating from THE
LANCET Journal's inception in 1823. THE LANCET Backfiles are now available
on ScienceDirect as fully searchable PDFs, supported by citations,
abstracts and references.

THE LANCET published some of the first reports on medical research such
as:
- HIV Transmission
- The first caesarian performed under anaesthesia
- The value of penicillin
- Mad Cow Disease

For more information on THE LANCET Backfiles visit:
http://www.info.sciencedirect.com/backfiles/collections/lancet/index.shtml


VACANCIES

1. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is recruiting
experts to serve on the Technical Review Panel (TRP).

The Technical Review Panel (TRP), which has 26 members, plays a crucial
role in reviewing proposals submitted to the Global Fund and ensuring that
those funded are of high quality. The TRP consists of 11 cross-cutters, 7
HIV-AIDS experts, 4 Malaria experts and 4 Tuberculosis experts

Individuals with expert technical knowledge and extensive experience in
one of the following are sought:

- HIV/AIDS
- Tuberculosis
- Malaria
- Cross-cutting issues (such as institutional and governance issues,
macroeconomics in a health sector context)

The current term of appointment is three rounds of proposals; however, the
Board is considering its extension to four rounds. Members will be paid an
honorarium and their expenses. They must be available for the two-week TRP
meetings in Geneva every 8 to 12 months. The next meeting is in early May
2004. Fluency in English is required as this is the working language of
the TRP.

A transparent criteria-based selection process will be followed, which
seeks to achieve a significant proportion of members from each of the
World Health Organisation's (WHO) regions, representation from public and
private sectors and civil society, including a qualified member from the
community of persons living with HIV/AIDS. A balanced gender
representation is sought.

An application form can be downloaded from the website of the Global Fund,
or the Health Systems Resource Centre's website. Completed application
forms in English (no CVs) should be sent to: globalfund.trp@ihsd.org to
arrive no later than 8.00 am UK time on Monday 17 November, 2003.

2. ZVITAMBO [affiliated with McGill and Johns Hopkins Universities]
provides technical support and conducts research in HIV care and
prevention, especially the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of
HIV in 20 rural hospitals in Zimbabwe. The project is recruiting a deputy
director.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Lead and mentor a professional team
- Manage budgets
- Ensure technical soundness
- Facilitate research projects
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Manage transition from intensive support to sustainability.

REQUIREMENTS:
- Leadership and inter-personal skills, patience, flexibility, cultural
sensitivity
- Masters Degree in public health, development, or related field
- Experience managing donor-funded HIV/AIDS or MCH programmes
- Expertise in monitoring and evaluation - operations research experience
preferred
- Excellent [English] writing skills.

Send CV [with references and covering letter] by end of October, to The
Director, ZVITAMBO, No 1 Borrowdale Road, Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe,
Fax +263 4 850734, Email administrator@zvitambo.co.zw


IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 880-4633
Fax: +27 11 447-5472
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


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