IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 232
Africa
6 May 2005


NEWS:

AFRICA: Low marks on report card for global HIV/AIDS commitments
KENYA: Govt promises expansion of free ARVs
UGANDA: Adult HIV infections rise to seven percent
MOZAMBIQUE: Workers in the forefront of fight against HIV/AIDS
SOUTH AFRICA: Clinic tackles urgent need for AIDS/TB treatment
SOUTH AFRICA: Project empowers rural communities to shape own HIV/AIDS
   programmes
SWAZILAND: Drought, hunger and AIDS, but still coping

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AFRICA: Low marks on report card for global HIV/AIDS commitments

Four years after world leaders at the UN General Assembly Special 
Session (UNGASS) on AIDS pledged to scale up their fight against the 
disease, many countries are falling short of their targets, a new report 
has found.

Under the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS of July 2001, UN member 
governments set time-bound goals for reversing the spread of the 
pandemic by scaling up treatment, prevention and care in their 
countries.

Much still has to be done before the people directly affected realise 
the benefits of these commitments, noted the UN Secretary General's 
progress report on implementation of the targets, released earlier this 
week.


KENYA: Govt promises expansion of free ARVs

Kenya's government has promised to make antiretroviral (ARV) drugs 
freely available to its HIV-positive citizens, many of whom cannot 
afford the current subsidised medication.

Of the 200,000 people in need of treatment in the country, only 35,000 
are receiving the life-prolonging drugs. With more than 60 percent of 
the population living on a dollar a day, HIV-positive Kenyans can expect 
to pay about KShs500 (US $6.5) per month for ARVs.

According to health minister Charity Ngilu, the government hopes to put 
95,000 people on free treatment by end of this year, and increase the 
number to 140,000 by 2006.


UGANDA: Adult HIV infections rise to seven percent

An estimated seven percent of Uganda's adult population is living with 
HIV/AIDS, up from previous estimates of 6.2 percent, the ministry of 
health said on Tuesday.

In a report on the preliminary findings of a national survey, the 
ministry indicated that approximately 800,000 people in the East African 
country were HIV-positive.

Ministry of health officials attributed the difference between the two 
HIV prevalence figures to the methods used to collect data. While this 
latest survey is based on a nationwide sample of people who voluntarily 
gave their blood to be tested for the virus, previous HIV/AIDS data was 
based on records from major hospitals and antenatal clinics.



MOZAMBIQUE: Workers in the forefront of fight against HIV/AIDS

The role workers can play in the fight against HIV/AIDS came into sharp 
focus during May Day celebrations in Mozambique.

The Organisation of Mozambican Workers (OTM), the country's main trade 
union, used the traditional Workers' Day march on 1 May as a platform to 
raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

OTM secretary-general Joaquim Fanheiro told PlusNews that Mozambique's 
workforce had been hard hit by HIV/AIDS. Productive people were critical 
to the country's development, but were being decimated by the disease. 
About 1.5 million Mozambicans were HIV positive and an estimated 14.9 
percent of Mozambicans in the productive age group of 15 to 49 were 
living with virus.



SOUTH AFRICA: Clinic tackles urgent need for AIDS/TB treatment

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most frequent opportunistic infection, and the 
leading cause of death among HIV-positive people. The scale of the 
problem is staggering, with some 12 million people co-infected with HIV 
and TB, two-thirds of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.

A recently opened HIV/AIDS and TB research clinic in Durban, South 
Africa, is one of the few clinics in KwaZulu-Natal province providing 
combined TB and antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to TB patients 
co-infected with the virus.

KwaZulu-Natal has the highest number of tuberculosis cases in the 
country, and has been hard-hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.



SOUTH AFRICA: Project empowers rural communities to shape own HIV/AIDS 
programmes

A new project by South African NGO, the Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking 
(HIVAN), will enable rural communities across the country to develop 
their own programmes to deal with the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Since July 2003, the HIVAN team has been investigating how people in 
rural areas respond to HIV/AIDS despite inadequate resources, including 
a lack of basic infrastructure and access to health facilities, while 
suffering from high rates of unemployment and illiteracy.

These obstacles have prevented many rural communities from mounting an 
effective response to the pandemic, but the survey found that the 
involvement of local stakeholders was crucial in implementing prevention 
campaigns.



SWAZILAND: Drought, hunger and AIDS, but still coping

Naomi Gule blames AIDS for the 45 parentless children she looks after at 
the neighbourhood care centre, an hour's drive south of the Swazi 
capital, but she blames the weather for frustrating her efforts to feed 
her charges.

"All summer, it has been too little rain or too much rain, or a spell of 
good growth at the school garden - all destroyed in just some minutes by 
a hailstorm," she said.

She picks through the remnants of stunted cabbage that sprout from the 
hard stony soil of the Neighbourhood Care Point's tiny wire-enclosed 
garden. Nearby, a small boy struggles to sprinkle the few surviving 
cabbages with a disproportionately large watering can.


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