IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 237
Africa
10 June 2005


NEWS:

SOUTH AFRICA: HIV-positive men come to terms with their status
SOUTH AFRICA: PlusNews coverage of the 2nd AIDS Conference
SOUTH AFRICA: HIV-positive children reach out to their peers in a new
   book
MALAWI: Drought, HIV/AIDS weak economy undermine food security
AFRICA: First ladies to work together against HIV/AIDS


CONFERENCES/ EVENTS/ RESEARCH/ RESOURCES

1. Important conference deadlines
2. Gender and HIV/AIDS Library

VACANCIES

1. Unit Head HIV/AIDS Communication and Knowledge Management - SAfAIDS

NEWS

SOUTH AFRICA: HIV-positive men come to terms with their status

In the sprawling township of Soweto, adjoining South Africa's economic
hub, Johannesburg, HIV-positive men are being forced to confront male
stereotypes and deal with the way they relate to women.

It's not difficult to discover what women often think about their men
when it comes to HIV/AIDS. Dineo, 30, a Sowetan resident living with
HIV/AIDS, has sabotaged several potential relationships because she
believes no man will want her when he discovers her status.

She echoed the sentiments of many other women when she told PlusNews:
"The men are the ones who spread this thing but they don't want to
accept it; they gave it to us but they don't want to take treatment.
They are scared. We're supposed to talk to our brothers and our men to
get treatment but we, as women, are wasting our time."

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4895


SOUTH AFRICA: PlusNews coverage of the 2nd AIDS Conference

National AIDS conference opens

Delegates attending South Africa's second AIDS conference are expected
to confront the challenges facing the country as it pushes ahead with
its treatment programme.

More than 4,000 AIDS researchers, activists and politicians turned up
for the four-day meeting, which kicked off on Tuesday in the port city
of Durban.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4897


PEPFAR in the spotlight at national AIDS conference

The United States made its presence felt at South Africa's second AIDS
conference on Tuesday, when a delegation led by US Ambassador to South
Africa Jendayi Frazer presented an overview of the local US response to
the pandemic.

South Africa is one of the beneficiaries of the US President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) - a US $15 billion programme launched by
President George W. Bush in 2003 to tackle HIV/AIDS in 12 African
countries and the Caribbean region over five years.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4896


AIDS conference warned to scale up efforts

South Africa's response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic still leaves much to be
desired, delegates heard on Wednesday at the 2nd South African AIDS
Conference in Durban.

Speaking during a plenary session, chairman of the Anglo American
Chairman's Fund, Clem Sunter, cautioned that the country faced a
"national wipe-out" if it did not scale up its fight against HIV/AIDS.

He criticised the lack of cooperation, saying HIV/AIDS efforts generally
took place in isolation.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4905


Impact of HIV/AIDS on women raised at national conference

South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week urged
the public to focus on diseases other than HIV/AIDS, and reiterated her
view that antiretroviral drugs were not the only answer to tackling the
AIDS pandemic.

However, on Thursday, Prudence Mabela - the first black woman to
publicly reveal her HIV status - explained to delegates at the AIDS
conference in the east-coast city of Durban why the disease should
continue receiving global attention.

"Many obstacles are still presented to people trying to access the
government's free antiretroviral treatment programme; the lag in
treatment targets has also forced those in need of immediate medication
to seek alternative means of care, or die trying," Mabela pointed out.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4907


SOUTH AFRICA: Business response to HIV/AIDS draws mixed reaction

Delegates at the South African AIDS conference in the port city of
Durban heard mixed views from experts on Wednesday as to where business
was heading in terms of addressing HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

During the Africa Economic Summit in Cape Town last week, the World
Economic Forum (WEF) said local companies were leading the continent in
their AIDS response, with up to 91 percent having policies in place.

However, a study conducted in Wynberg, Johannesburg, by the US-based
Centre for International Health and Development (CIHD), which examined
the constraints and opportunities in providing AIDS prevention and
treatment services to employees at small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), suggested otherwise.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4906


SOUTH AFRICA: Children lack access to HIV testing and treatment

Just five percent of South Africa's HIV-positive children - around 3,000
of the 60,000 in need of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs - are currently
receiving them; the rest are still waiting to access the free treatment.

Moreover, in the past few years, only about half of all HIV-exposed
infants have been tested, according to Professor Gayle Sherman of the
Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology at the University of
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4909


SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS conference fails to live up to its theme of 'Unity
and Accountability'

South Africa's second national AIDS conference ended with a televised
speech by former South African president Nelson Mandela, in which he
reminded delegates of the great strides the country has made since the
last national AIDS conference two years ago.

The government has begun providing free antiretrovirals (ARVs) at public
health facilities since the first AIDS conference in Durban in 2003, but
the long-running debate over antiretroviral drugs continued during the
conference this week, pitting AIDS activists against the government once
more.

Any hopes of an AIDS gathering free of controversy were dashed when
health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told delegates on Tuesday to
focus on the impact of other diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, and
restated her view that people living with HIV/AIDS should choose between
nutrition and ARVs.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4911


SOUTH AFRICA: HIV-positive children reach out to their peers in a new
book

South African children will soon be able to learn about HIV/AIDS from a
book written by their HIV-positive peers.

Two NGOs in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province are working on an as yet
untitled publication, in which children explain the progression of the
disease in their own words.

According to project principal Lauren Cobham, the book will give
HIV-positive children a scientifically correct explanation of how the
virus works in the body through text and children's drawings, but could
also be used as an educational tool in schools throughout South Africa.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4895


MALAWI: Drought, HIV/AIDS weak economy undermine food security

The impacts of drought, HIV/AIDS and a weak economy have combined to
undermine already vulnerable households in Malawi's rural areas.

James Morris, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian
Needs in Southern Africa, highlighted this 'triple threat' on a recent
visit to the region that included a stop in Malawi, where he called for
a renewed international response to the crisis.

Chikwawa district, south of Malawi's commercial capital, Blantyre, is
one of the areas affected by the prolonged dry spell that has decimated
the maize crop, a staple food.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4904


AFRICA: First ladies to work together against HIV/AIDS

First ladies from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
(COMESA) met in a roundtable on Friday and agreed to pool their efforts
in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the region.

"[We,] the first ladies of the COMESA region should continue to play a
role in advocating for the mainstreaming of women's economic empowerment
in the fight against HIV/AIDS," they said in a communique issued in the
Rwandan capital, Kigali, at the end of their two-day summit.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=4890



CONFERENCES/ EVENTS/ RESEARCH/ RESOURCES

1. The Living with HIV Partnership will this year be combining the
international conference of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and the
international Home and Community Care Conference (HCC), which will take
place as the LIVING2005 conference in Lima, Peru, from 9 to 13 October
2005.

LIVING2005 is a conference for policy and practice in working with and
caring for HIV-positive people worldwide, led by civil society, and
provides a unique platform for community-level leaders to share and
develop.

The Living with HIV Partnership is a new consortium of organisations
committed to the empowerment of people living with HIV/AIDS and their
communities.

The Partnership consists of the Global Network of People living with
HIV/AIDS (GNP+), the International Community of Women Living with
HIV/AIDS (ICW), the International Council of AIDS Service Organisations
(ICASO), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies (IFRC), UNAIDS, and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Important deadlines:

SCHOLARSHIPS
Scholarships submissions sent by post - 17 June 2005.

Online scholarship submissions - 9 July 2005.

Please check the website www.vivir2005.org for more information on
scholarship eligibility.


ABSTRACTS

The Conference Programme Committee is calling for all those interested
to submit their abstracts by 5 July 2005

The core conference will have three tracks:
1) Access
2) Home and Community Care
3) Stigma, Discrimination and Human Rights

Abstracts can only be submitted online at www.vivir2005.org

REGISTRATION
The deadline for registration by mail is 9 September 2005.
Online registration can be done from now until 26 September 2005 at
www.vivir2005.org

Registration fee: US $300
Onsite registration: US $360


2. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), with support
from UNAIDS, has developed a Gender and HIV/AIDS Electronic Library to
provide up-to-date information on the gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.

The Electronic Library, presented on a CD-ROM, is based on UNIFEM's
Gender and HIV/AIDS Web Portal (http://www.genderandaids.org/) and
contains resources produced by a variety of organisations working on
HIV/AIDS, including cutting-edge research and studies, training
resources and tools, and multimedia advocacy materials. All information
can be easily searched and retrieved using a variety of criteria. The
Library is intended to be a useful resource for academics, policymakers,
practitioners, journalists, students and others interested in the gender
dimensions of the epidemic.

The resources are complemented by the "e-Course Builder", a feature that
allows users to create and edit a tailored electronic course or report
in html format, drawing from the materials on the CD-ROM.

To obtain a copy of the Gender and HIV/AIDS Electronic Library, please
contact UNIFEM by e-mail at unifem@genderandaids.org In the meantime,
regularly updated information and resources can be found at the UNIFEM
Gender and HIV/AIDS Web Portal at http://www.genderandaids.org/


VACANCIES

1. Unit Head HIV/AIDS Communication and Knowledge Management - SAfAIDS

SAfAIDS, a leading regional NGO based in Harare, Zimbabwe, seeks a
highly skilled HIV/AIDS expert with a capacity for insightful analysis
and innovation to head its HIV/AIDS Communication and Knowledge
Management (HACKM) Unit. The successful candidate must have experience
in materials production, knowledge management and ICTs. S/he must be
able to motivate and support a diverse team.


REQUIREMENTS:

- A Master's degree in development, social sciences, public health or
related field

- Minimum 6 years' relevant post-qualification experience, including 3
years at senior management level in the HIV/AIDS sector

- Significant regional programmatic experience in HIV/AIDS and
development, particularly around material development and production

- Experience in HIV/AIDS Knowledge Management

- Ability to design and manage HIV/AIDS ICT programmes

- Experience in regional distribution, resource centres, media and
communication

- Excellent English oral and written communication, including editing
skills, are a must

- Ability to moderate e-fora discussions and manage websites will be a
distinct advantage

- Excellent management, leadership and interpersonal skills

- Knowledge of Portuguese or French is an advantage


Interested applicants should send an application and CV, information on
current salary and benefits and contact details of three referees to The
Executive Director, P O Box A509, Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe, or e-mail
to info@safaids.org.zw by 15 June 2005.


IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 895-1900
Fax: +27 11 784-6759
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2005


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