IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 308
Africa
3 November 2006


NEWS and FEATURES:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Red Cross launches biggest ever AIDS appeal
ZAMBIA: Getting street kids to stay on the straight and narrow
NAMIBIA: Reaching targets despite great obstacles
ETHIOPIA: Eritrean refugees desperate for HIV services
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: HIV positive mothers reject formula feeding
SENEGAL: Sexually active street children increasingly vulnerable to HIV
SOUTH AFRICA: Govt/NGO meeting spurs hope for more effective AIDS
   action
SOUTH AFRICA: Slow anti-AIDS care being felt in KwaZulu-Natal
MALAWI: Show us the money, says UN AIDS envoy
KENYA: HIV exacerbates malnutrition among infants in drought-prone
   Turkana

RESOURCE:

1. TB drug report: Analysis of the current drug pipeline

VACANCIES:

1. Open Society Institute - Public Health Programme - Law And Health
Initiative




NEWS and FEATURES:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Red Cross launches biggest ever AIDS appeal

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
launched an appeal on Wednesday to massively expand its anti-AIDS
programme in Southern Africa over the next five years.

Speaking in Johannesburg, the Federation's new Special Representative
for HIV and AIDS, Dr. Mukesh Kapila, urged international donor
communities to move beyond rhetoric in meeting the needs of affected
populations. The Federation is appealing for US$300 million to implement
the expansion of its AIDS programme in the region.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6511


ZAMBIA: Getting street kids to stay on the straight and narrow

Dressed in baggy trousers, caps and colourful T-shirts, the toughened
teens of the "Back to School Project" were scared.

The boys, all between the ages of 14 and 18, live on the streets of
Zambia's capital, Lusaka, where they play, fight, gamble and do what
they can to earn a little money for food and drink, sometimes raking in
enough to help support their families. Each of the boys was to be tested
for HIV that day.

"I am not going!" yelled one of the younger boys. "I am going to hide
and then I won't have to go", he said, pouting and folding his arms over
his thin chest. But with a little cajoling and backslapping from some of
the braver boys, they all eventually piled into a sweltering van for a
20-minute, cross-town ride to the clinic.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6512


NAMIBIA: Reaching targets despite great obstacles

Tucked away in the maze of corridors of Katutura Hospital, in a
historically black township of Namibia's capital, Windhoek, is the
recently renovated modern Communicable Disease Clinic.

This HIV/AIDS facility treats 8,500 adults and 660 children, and is
viewed as the country's "centre of excellence", according to the
hospital's head of internal medicine, Dr Ishmael Katjitae, who also sits
on the country's ARV rollout technical advisory committee. However, the
ARV clinic is not an accurate reflection of what was happening in the
rest of the country. Most of Namibia's health facilities serve rural
areas and are not as well staffed and equipped, said Dr Angelo Madjarov,
who had been working in Oshakati, in the north of the country.

Patients attending the clinic don't consider themselves any better off.
A few kilometres away, in another part of Katutura, a support group run
by AIDS Care Trust, a local nongovernmental organisation (NGO), is
holding its Wednesday meeting. Most of the members access treatment at
the hospital.

Inevitably, with 64 percent of people accessing ARVs nationally being
women, the group is largely made up of unemployed women and many have
brought their children. Martha Aluene, 34, who has appointed herself the
group's spokeswoman, says week in and week out the dominant themes of
their discussions are transport and food. "The hospital is too far, and
what can we do but walk - we don't have money for [public] transport and
we don't have income to buy food.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6504


ETHIOPIA: Eritrean refugees desperate for HIV services

Every evening as the sun sets over the hills of northern Ethiopia, young
couples can be seen strolling past the coffee shops and pool halls of
Shimelba refugee camp.

An estimated 10,000 refugees live in Shimelba. The camp resembles a
mini-Asmara - a slice of life from Eritrea's capital city, recreated in
rural Ethiopia by Eritreans fleeing an authoritarian government and
lengthy military service.

The refugees are predominantly young and urban; many are former soldiers
and all are living together in an atmosphere of stifling boredom -
perfect conditions for the spread of HIV. Yet no one knows how
widespread the virus has become as no testing is available in the camp.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6516


SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE: HIV positive mothers reject formula feeding

Poverty and a cultural preference for breastfeeding are driving the
spread of HIV from mothers to their babies in Sao Tome and Principe.

The HIV rate among pregnant women on the tiny West African islands
tripled from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent between 2001 and 2005.

"The number of cases is growing every year," said Luis Bonfim, the UN
children's fund health project officer. "We were hoping that with
increased support, the rate would either stagnate or reduce. So it's
clear that something isn't working."

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6509


SENEGAL: Sexually active street children increasingly vulnerable to HIV

Many of the thousands of children that wander the busy streets of Dakar,
the capital of Senegal, are sexually active but few have any knowledge
about the risks of HIV.

"One sees eight-year-old children who already have several male and
female partners who are older than they are," said Adjiratou Sow Diallo
Diouf, author of a 2005 study on the impact of HIV/AIDS on Dakar's
estimated 6,000 street children.

The 30 children, aged between 8 and 17, Diouf questioned for the study
revealed sexual relations that were both homosexual and heterosexual and
rarely protected, leaving them highly vulnerable to sexually transmitted
diseases including HIV.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6510


SOUTH AFRICA: Govt/NGO meeting spurs hope for more effective AIDS action

A spirit of greater openness and unity between government and civil
society has emerged from a two-day AIDS congress, signalling a possible
end to damaging divisions in South Africa's HIV/AIDS response.

Reinforcing a number of moves by the South African government in recent
months aimed at improving its strained relationship with AIDS activists,
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka urged delegates to partner with
government in the fight against AIDS.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6506


SOUTH AFRICA: Slow anti-AIDS care being felt in KwaZulu-Natal

For many HIV-positive people in South Africa's Embo area, southwest of
the port city of Durban, accessing treatment at public health facilities
is as difficult as navigating the steep and muddy paths between their
homes.

Pausing briefly to catch his breath up the hill to a patient's house,
Leonard Gcabashe, a local pastor and community caregiver, recalled the
many times he had tumbled down the paths while carrying people who were
too sick to walk.

"My van only goes as far as the paved roads will allow, and then I go
the rest of the way by foot, sometimes for distances of 1.5km. It
doesn't seem like much, but when you carry a grown man or woman on your
back, it can be very tricky," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6507


MALAWI: Show us the money, says UN AIDS envoy

A visiting UN envoy has accused the world's wealthiest countries of
failing Malawi, which is struggling to care for more than two million
orphans and vulnerable children.

"Where is the money? At the G8 summit in Gleneagles in July 2005, rich
nations promised to double financial aid to Africa, an extra US$25
billion by 2010. The Malawi government is struggling to support its
people because there is no money," complained Stephen Lewis, the UN
secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6508


KENYA: HIV exacerbates malnutrition among infants in drought-prone
Turkana

A high incidence of HIV has worsened the condition of hungry children in
drought-prone Turkana region, in northern Kenya.

Over the past month, seven of the 10 children admitted to a nutritional
rehabilitation centre at the hospital in Lodwar, Turkana's largest town,
were found to be HIV positive. Turkana has a high HIV prevalence rate of
11.4 percent, almost double the national rate of 6.7 percent estimated
by UNAIDS.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6514


RESOURCE:

1. Relying on the standard World Health Organisation (WHO) TB strategies
in the face of extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) was
dangerous, the international medical humanitarian organisation Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned this week.  According to MSF, to respond to
the XDR-TB outbreak, WHO will need to get newer drugs to patients as
soon as possible by ensuring accelerated development of new drugs
already in clinical trials.

Existing TB drugs and diagnostics are not adequate to combat the
disease, and a new analysis released by MSF at the 37th Union World
Conference on Lung Health held this week in Paris, shows that none of
the TB drugs currently in development, however promising, will be able
to drastically improve TB treatment in the near future.

To access the report:
http://www.accessmed-msf.org/documents/TBPipeline.pdf


VACANCIES:

1. Open Society Institute - Public Health Programme - Law And Health
Initiative

POSITION AVAILABLE: Programme Officer, East Africa (Nairobi-Based)

DEADLINE: 10 November 2006

START DATE: January 2007 or sooner

RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Programme Officer, East Africa will work with the Law and Health
Initiative (LAHI) of the Open Society Institute Public Health Programme
(PHP) and the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) in Nairobi
to advance law- and human rights-based responses to HIV and AIDS and
public health in the region. Responsibilities will be both grant-related
and operational, and will include:

- Strategy Development: Identify opportunities for LAHI to expand its
work on HIV-related legal services throughout East Africa. This may
include exploratory missions in the region, attending conferences and
donor meetings, strategy development, evaluation of existing projects,
and leveraging funding from additional sources.

- Policy Analysis: Author reports and advocacy documents on issues of
human rights, livelihoods, and HIV in the region.

- Advocacy: Conduct advocacy on behalf of grantees and sub-grantees with
government and donor agencies.

- Grant management: Help to oversee the work of a portfolio of LAHI
grantees and sub-grantees providing HIV-related legal services in Kenya.


REQUIREMENTS:

- Advanced degree in public health, law or social sciences related to
international development.

- At least five years of experience in advocacy related to HIV and AIDS,
at least three of which in Kenya or other countries in East Africa.

- Demonstrated knowledge of and commitment to human rights approaches to
combating HIV and AIDS.

- Experience working on HIV/AIDS-related programming, grants management,
programme design, monitoring and evaluation with grassroots
organisations in East Africa.

- Excellent oral and written communications skills in English. Kiswahili
strongly desired.

- Demonstrated skills in public speaking, presentations, research,
writing, and editing for publication, as well as communications and
media work.

- Strong organizational and management skills with attention to detail.

- Ability to listen and communicate clearly and effectively with people
from diverse cultures and backgrounds.

- Ability to work effectively both independently without detailed daily
supervision and as a member of a team, on a wide range of tasks.

- Ability to distil programme experience into compelling advocacy
messages for governments and international institutions.

- Willingness to travel both within the East African region and
internationally.

- Knowledge of the following issues highly desired: gender and
development; public health best practice, livelihood programming,
micro-credit, micro-finance and vocational training programmes;
children's rights; PLHA rights, rights of the elderly; and rights of sex
workers.


To apply, please send a resume, cover letter, and salary history to:
lawandhealth@sorosny.org or:

Open Society Institute
ATTN: Sai Jahann
400 West 59th St.
New York, NY
USA 10019
Fax: +1 (646) 557-2550


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


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