IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 285
Africa
26 May 2006


SPECIAL REPORTS ON UNGASS PROGRESS:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Expecting poor marks for AIDS prevention on the UNGASS
   report card
KENYA: Progress on HIV parent-to-baby transmission, but UNGASS target
   still elusive
UGANDA: UNGASS scorecard: good HIV/AIDS information but too little
   prevention


NEWS

SOUTH AFRICA: 'In the Continuum' gives HIV/AIDS a human face
DJIBOUTI: The weight of silence - overcoming the stigma of HIV/AIDS
KENYA: Treating little people with big problems at Gertrude's
KENYA: Caring for an HIV-positive child - one mother's story
UGANDA: Politicians implicated in Global Fund scam excluded from gov't
UGANDA: Men's union encourages men to be more open about HIV
COTE D'IVOIRE: Civil war all but wiped out healthcare, HIV/AIDS
   facilities in north
NAMIBIA: Vulnerable children receive food and an allowance

EVENTS/RESOURCES

1. 2006 High-Level Meeting on AIDS Uniting the world against AIDS




SPECIAL REPORTS ON UNGASS PROGRESS:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Expecting poor marks for AIDS prevention on the UNGASS 
report card

African countries have failed to meet prevention targets agreed upon in 
2001 at the United Nations General Assembly's Special Session on 
HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), according to a statement issued recently by over 80 
representatives of African civil society.

The statement noted that no African country has met the UNGASS goals of 
reducing HIV prevalence among young people by 25 percent or ensuring 90 
percent access to HIV/AIDS information and education. These failures are 
likely to come under scrutiny as government representatives converge on 
New York at the end of this month to review progress on their 2001 
commitments to combating HIV and AIDS.

Figures in official reports submitted ahead of the meeting indicate that 
in Southern Africa, the region worst hit by the epidemic, condom uptake 
and knowledge about how to prevent transmission are still disturbingly 
low.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5986


KENYA: Progress on HIV parent-to-baby transmission, but UNGASS target 
still elusive

The comprehensive HIV/AIDS care clinic at Kenya's Machakos District 
Hospital buzzes with activity as nurses call out the names of the tens 
of women waiting - proof, according to the hospital's staff, that their 
efforts to reduce the number of children born with the virus are paying 
off.

"As you can see, the clinic is full of people - uptake of VCT [voluntary 
counselling and testing], ARVs [antiretroviral treatment] and PMTCT 
[prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission] are all on the rise," 
said Dr Simon Mueke, the hospital's medical superintendent.

At the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on 
HIV/AIDS five years ago, world leaders committed to ensuring that 80 
percent of pregnant women would have access to HIV prevention services. 
Although Kenya has not met the 2001 target, the government feels they 
have improved access to PMTCT services.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5991


UGANDA: UNGASS scorecard: good HIV/AIDS information but too little 
prevention

Uganda has failed to meet two of the three HIV prevention targets set by 
the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV in 
2001, according to a UN World Health Organization (WHO) official in the 
Ugandan capital, Kampala.

"The only one Uganda is hitting is access to information on ways of 
preventing the transmission of the HIV," said Dr Abdikamal Alisalad, an 
HIV medical officer with WHO. "According to last year's nationwide 
sero-status survey, more than 90 percent of Ugandans could identify one 
or two ways of preventing the sexual transmission of the virus.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6000



NEWS

SOUTH AFRICA: 'In the Continuum' gives HIV/AIDS a human face

A powerful play about the devastating impact of an HIV diagnosis on two 
black women has helped audiences in the United States, Zimbabwe and now 
South Africa give the epidemic a human face.

'In the Continuum' tells the stories of Abigail (Danai Gurira), a 
middle-class Zimbabwean woman who is a wife and mother working as a 
newsreader for Zimbabwe's government-owned television station, and Nia 
(Nikkole Slater), a young amateur poet from the impoverished, 
crime-ridden African American neighbourhood of South Central Los 
Angeles. The two women are worlds apart but become unknowingly linked 
after both test positive for HIV.

They experience a similar cycle of bewildering emotions, from shock and 
disbelief to anger at their male partners for infecting them, followed 
by the fear that their men will blame and reject them.

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

DJIBOUTI: The weight of silence - overcoming the stigma of HIV/AIDS

In the deeply conservative Muslim society of the Red Sea state of 
Djibouti, HIV-positive people wear their status as a cloak of shame.

"Being HIV positive is like having death glued to your skin - it's 
difficult to forget," said Kadidja Mohamed, 28, whose husband divorced 
her when he discovered she was HIV-positive, leaving her and her 
three-year-old child to fend for themselves.

Djibouti has a population of some 700,000 people and a prevalence rate 
of around three percent, but only 480 of the estimated 10,000 people 
living with HIV are accessing life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy, 
according to the government.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5988


KENYA: Treating little people with big problems at Gertrude's

Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital, in the plush Nairobi suburb of 
Muthaiga, is the Kenyan capital's only facility dedicated to paediatrics 
and, until recently, the only one of its kind in East Africa, a region 
with hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive children.

Built in 1947, Gertrude's original structure was a modest cottage, now 
barely visible amid the modern laboratories, examination rooms and 
wards. Today, the Gertrude's Children's Hospital's non-profit trust, 
supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and other 
donors, treats 130 HIV-positive children, aged between two and 14.

One of the toughest challenges the staff face is telling children they 
are HIV positive. "As they grow older, children get concerned and ask, 
'Why am I taking medication? Why am I not going to school? Why can't I 
play with the other kids, why am I always in hospital?'" said chief 
paediatrician Dr Renson Mukhwana.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=5993


KENYA: Caring for an HIV-positive child - one mother's story

When HIV-positive Brenda* had her first child in 1998, he lived for just 
five months, his immune system overwhelmed by illness.

Abandoned by the baby's father, Brenda wallowed in misery for a while, 
but then met Mark, who supported her through her grief and became her 
partner. He and his infant son, Paul, who were both HIV-positive, became 
Brenda's family.

"When I met Paul he seemed very sick. I had been doing some reading and 
thought he had to be taken to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with 
the virus," she said. "At that point, we thought he was finished ... he 
was so thin ... he never used to eat."

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=5994


UGANDA: Politicians implicated in Global Fund scam excluded from gov't

Uganda's former health minister and his two deputies - all of whom are 
accused of mismanagement of foreign grants to fight HIV/AIDS, 
tuberculosis and malaria - have been left out of President Yoweri 
Museveni's new cabinet.

A list of proposed cabinet members submitted to the Ugandan parliament 
for approval on Tuesday did not include the names of former minister Jim 
Muhwezi, Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha. The president, who won a third 
term of office in a February poll, gave no reason for their exclusion. 
Observers, however, said the move was linked to Uganda's Global Fund 
scandal.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria temporarily 
suspended all grants to Uganda in August 2005, citing "serious 
mismanagement" of funds. It lifted the suspension in November 2005, 
following assurances by the government that it would look into 
management of the money.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5990


UGANDA: Men's union encourages men to be more open about HIV

A pioneering support group in Uganda is urging men living with HIV/AIDS 
to own up to their condition rather than putting themselves and their 
families at risk by staying in denial.

The Positive Men's Union (POMU) promotes the involvement of men living 
with HIV/AIDS in efforts to curb the spread of the pandemic, encouraging 
them to seek treatment and counselling to deal with the psychological 
difficulties of living with the virus.

Richard Serunkuuma, 34, POMU's national coordinator, says men suffer 
inside, unable to admit their status to their families. "AIDS used to be 
like a big sin, and I didn't want to be regarded as a sinner. Not 
knowing who to turn to was the cause of a lot of pain," he recalled.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5982


COTE D IVOIRE: Civil war all but wiped out health care, HIV/AIDS 
facilities in north

Cote d'Ivoire's civil war all but wiped out the health sector in the 
rebel-held north, dramatically reducing the number of available doctors 
and significantly harming HIV/AIDS care and prevention, a new study 
shows.

The departure of health staff and the decline of functioning clinics and 
hospitals in urban rebel-held areas after war broke out in September 
2002 is likely to lead to an increase in HIV infections and sexually 
transmitted diseases (STIs), Swiss and Ivorian researchers warned in a 
report released on Friday.

The study, financed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, compared health 
facilities and human resources in the public and private health sectors 
in March 2004, 19 months after rebels took control of the northern half 
of Cote d'Ivoire, to the pre-war situation.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=5985


NAMIBIA: Vulnerable children receive food and an allowance

Registering and feeding over 100,000 orphans and vulnerable children in 
the rural areas of northern Namibia is underway, bringing much needed 
relief to many of these often-neglected youngsters.

"They [the children] are very excited about the help that is being 
provided and that they will be registered," said Linius Kuume, 
coordinator at a feeding point in the north run by the Catholic AIDS 
Action (CAA), a WFP implementing partner. "Feeding rations consist of 
maizemeal, vegetable oil, CSB [corn-soya blend] and beans," he added.

Namibia has a growing number of orphans and vulnerable children, mainly 
as a result of HIV/AIDS - around 23 percent of people aged 15 to 49 are 
HIV positive. Caprivi is the worst affected region, with an alarming 43 
percent prevalence rate.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5984



EVENTS/RESOURCES

1. 2006 High-level meeting on AIDS, uniting the world against AIDS

The 2006 follow-up meeting on the outcome of the twenty-sixth special 
session: implementation of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS 
will take place from 31 May to 2 June at the United Nations in New York, 
USA.

This year, the Secretary-General presented the report to the General 
Assembly on progress made until the end of 2005, a year when targets in 
the Declaration are due. The main focus of the meeting is to review 
progress achieved in realising the commitments set out in the 
Declaration of Commitment and to review progress in implementing the 
2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, focusing on both constraints 
and opportunities to full implementation.

The meeting will involve all sectors of the international community, 
governments, civil society and the private sector. The opportunities 
provided for civil society organisations to take part in the meeting is 
unprecedented.

For the first time, a person living with HIV will address the General 
Assembly plenary, normally reserved for member states and UN officials. 
There will also be a civil society hearing, which provides civil society 
an opportunity to exchange views with member states.

The meeting will feature a series of panel discussions and roundtables 
covering diverse topics. Building on these discussions, a high-level 
meeting will take place on the third day. This meeting will culminate in 
the adoption of a political declaration aimed at reaffirming and 
expressing recommitment to the full implementation of the Declaration in 
the coming years.

For more information:
www.un.org/ga/aidsmeeting2006/20060403_PGA_Info_note_en.pdf


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