IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 310
Africa
17 November 2006


NEWS:

SOUTH AFRICA: Govt AIDS programme on course but people still dying
AFRICA: ARVs still scarce years after WTO declaration
ZIMBABWE: Global Fund woes more than meet the eye
ZIMBABWE: Five-year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: A country on the brink of an abyss
TANZANIA: Muslim clerics begin meeting on gender violence, HIV/AIDS
DRC: Ex-combatants confront the reality of HIV
BURUNDI: Food cuts for HIV-positive people worry NGOs
UGANDA: Interview with Maj Felix Kulayigye, defence force spokesman
MALAWI: AIDS treatment fails to reach remote lakeshore community
PAKISTAN: Lonely truck drivers face HIV/AIDS threat


RESOURCES

1. UNESCO Guidelines on Language and Content in HIV- and AIDS-Related Materials

CONFERENCES

1. HIV/AIDS and its Impact on Business in Africa - 22 to 25 January 2007

VACANCIES

1. Medical Coordinator - Zimbabwe, Harare



NEWS

SOUTH AFRICA: Govt AIDS programme on course but people still dying

South Africa's Ministry of Health has confirmed that close to 6,000
HIV-positive people had died while receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs since
the government rollout began in 2004.

Health department spokesman Sibani Mngadi said the deaths were a concern, but
constituted just below 3 percent of the number of HIV-positive people accessing
treatment at government ARV sites during the same period.

"The number of people being treated with antiretroviral therapy through our
[government's] 'Comprehensive Plan on HIV and AIDS' has increased [by] 60,000
in the past year to 235,378 by the end of September 2006," he told
IRIN/PlusNews.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6549


AFRICA: ARVs still scarce years after WTO declaration

Most HIV-positive people in Africa still lack access to antiretroviral (ARV)
medication half a decade after a historic declaration that allowed poor nations
to copy expensive branded drugs.

Five years ago, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) met in Doha, capital of
Qatar, and unanimously agreed to ensure that Intellectual Property Rights
(IPRs), or copyright, would no longer prevent developing countries from
providing anti-AIDS medication in their health systems.

Although the decision allowed poorer countries greater flexibility in being
able to tackle pandemics such as HIV/AIDS with first-line drug regimens,
according to international medical relief group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF),
second-line medications were still patented and much too costly.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6553


ZIMBABWE: Global Fund woes more than meets the eye

Zimbabwe's request for US$33 million from the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS,
Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria has been rejected on technical grounds, with the
country advised to resubmit its proposals next year.

The government and its Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM), made up of several
nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), applied in July for round six funding to
expand its anti-AIDS projects over two years, but reportedly failed to meet the
standards of the Fund's Technical Review Panel (TRP).

Although the sixth round rejection was viewed by local NGOs as a setback, of
even greater concern was that Zimbabwe could also lose $105 million from round
five due to a yawning gap between the official exchange rate and the parallel
market value.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=6544


ZIMBABWE: Five-year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched

Zimbabwe's government is launching a five-year plan to combat HIV/AIDS in the
agricultural sector after realising the impact of the pandemic on farming.

The initiative, 'Zimbabwe Agricultural Sector Strategy on HIV and AIDS ' -
coordinated by the agriculture ministry, with support by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) -
is seeking to mobilise financial and human resources to halt the spread of the
disease on farms, reduce stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS, fight
gender inequality and domestic violence, and facilitate treatment for infected
people.

The agriculture ministry, which concedes that it has lacked a clear policy on
HIV/AIDS, intends to establish an agricultural management information system to
monitor various issues related to health and service delivery, and accurately
assess the cost of HIV/AIDS to farming communities and the extent to which
farmworkers and agricultural-sector employees are vulnerable to the disease.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6554


CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: A country on the brink of an abyss

More than one-tenth of adults in the volatile Central African Republic (CAR)
are living with HIV/AIDS, but foreign assistance has been hard to come by,
leaving the country struggling to mount an effective response to the pandemic.

The HIV prevalence figures do not accurately reflect the disparities between
the rural and urban areas. In the north, along the border with Sudan and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a region in a constant state of
instability, infection rates are up to three times the national average.

Prevalence among young women aged 15-24 is five times that of men of the same
age, and the number of orphans continues to grow. In 2005, 140,000 children had
lost one or both parents due to AIDS, according to UNAIDS.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=6543


TANZANIA: Muslim clerics begin meeting on gender violence, HIV/AIDS

Muslim clerics from 25 African countries have begun a five-day population and
development meeting in Tanzania's semiautonomous island of Zanzibar, focusing
on issues such as HIV/AIDS and gender violence from an Islamic point of view.

The participants, from member countries of the Network of African Islamic
Faith-based Organisations, are also focusing on social and development
problems.

The network's deputy secretary, Issa Ziddy, from Zanzibar, told a news
conference on Tuesday in Stone Town, capital of Zanzibar, that the network had
been launched in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2005 during a meeting of Islamic
organisations from several African countries.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6545


DRC: Ex-combatants confront the reality of HIV

Craning their necks through the window of a medical centre in the eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a dozen ex-combatants from the recent civil
war watch images of sexually transmitted infections flashing on a television
screen.

These men and women have just laid down their weapons in one of Africa's
nastiest wars and are now coming to terms with the unseen danger of HIV. It is
widely assumed that more than a decade of fighting between foreign-backed
rebels, Congolese militia and the national army has spread the virus in eastern
DRC, while crippling health services.

"I behaved badly. We took women, we raped because we had weapons; we were the
'maitre de terrain' [masters of the land], we made the laws. I slept with so
many women I couldn't count how many," said Bahati, 26, who had just reported
to the Kabare reorientation centre in South Kivu Province, run by the National
Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Re-insertion, known as CONADER.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6546


BURUNDI: Food cuts for HIV-positive people worry NGOs

AIDS advocacy groups in Burundi are worried that a decision by the United
Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to cut special feeding programmes next year
for HIV-positive people will harm their long-term health.

Drought, crop disease, endemic poverty and more than a decade of instability
mean Burundi suffers from serious food insecurity. WFP is expected to feed an
estimated 874,000 Burundians by the end of 2006, including particularly
vulnerable groups, such as internally displaced persons, school children and
HIV-positive people.

However, the agency's new policy means that feeding programmes for people
infected and affected by HIV/AIDS will come to an end in December 2006 and will
not be renewed.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6547


UGANDA: Interview with Maj Felix Kulayigye, defence force spokesman

For the past two decades the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) has been at
war with rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army in the north of the country. As
the conflict has dragged on, the region's HIV infection rate has risen from
almost nil to nine percent, one-and-a-half times the national average. However,
The new peace process offers hope for both an end to the fighting and a more
effective response to the pandemic. IRIN/PlusNews spoke to UPDF spokesman Maj
Felix Kulayigye.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6551


MALAWI: AIDS treatment fails to reach remote lakeshore community

The challenges of achieving the Malawian government's goal of universal access
to anti-AIDS treatment are nowhere more apparent than in Usisya, an isolated
community on the northern shores of Lake Malawi, where treatment is not yet
available.

Usisya, with approximately 17,000 residents, lies between the mountains and the
lake; electricity, telecommunications and regular public transport are all
lacking, and one dirt road connects the area with Mzuzu, the nearest town. No
one owns a car, let alone a four-wheel drive vehicle for driving on the rough
mountain road, but a ferry goes north to Nkhata Bay on a Monday and returns on
a Sunday.

Charles, 38, and Alice, 30, (not their real names) a brother and sister, share
two misfortunes - their HIV positive status and the remote location of their
home.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6552


PAKISTAN: Lonely truck-drivers face HIV/AIDS threat

Leaning against his brightly painted truck, Muhammad Rafiq, 30, looks furtively
at the two condoms he holds in his hand. "I plan to use these soon, but I hope
I can remember to do so when the time comes," he says, a little shyly.

Rafiq, from the town of Kohat in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province
(NWFP), is an exception. A long-distance truck-driver who regularly transports
goods from the southern port city of Karachi to Lahore and up to Peshawar along
thousands of kilometres of highway, says he "quite often" uses a condom, and
generally only has sex with women.

There are thousands of truck drivers like him, many of them young men from
northern parts of the country. Displaced from their homes, families and social
environments, they are one of the groups most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, mainly
because of the dangerous behaviour they engage in, including multiple sex
partners and drug use.

More details: http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=6550



RESOURCES

1. UNESCO Guidelines on Language and Content in HIV-and AIDS-Related Materials

This 61-page document by the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO) argues for a harmonised use of language and content that
reflects an approach to the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is comprehensive and
inclusive, sensitive to the needs and issues of the whole population, but with
attention focused especially on key populations vulnerable to HIV.

The objective is to deal with the stigma attached to AIDS, "which is the real
impediment to prevention".

Access the document:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001447/144725e.pdf



CONFERENCES

1. HIV/AIDS and its Impact on Business in Africa - 22 to 25 January 2007

One of the major challenges facing the continent is to gather resources and
translate knowledge and experience into treatment and prevention programmes.

This conference at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg, South
Africa, seeks to address the consequences if business continues to ignore
current warnings and statistics.

Register at http://www.aidsafricaconference.com

Nominate a company you feel deserves an award for their course of action.



VACANCIES

1. International humanitarian organisation Medecins du Monde seeks a suitably
trained individual to support the agency's ongoing efforts to support
HIV-positive people, and decrease the vulnerability of children and youth
affected by the pandemic, with interventions that include voluntary counselling
and testing, the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and
increased access to antiretroviral treatment.

The successful applicant is expected to be a medical doctor with a
post-graduate qualification in Public Health, and qualifications in tropical or
anti-AIDS medicine.

To apply for this position, please contact:
secretariat.rhmissions@medecinsdumonde.net

Reference Code: RW_6VKJWL-64

CLOSING DATE: 4 December 2006


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


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