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IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 251, 16 September 2005
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
NEWS:
ETHIOPIA: UNICEF receives Sweden's donation for AIDS orphans
SOMALIA: HIV/AIDS commission launched in Somaliland
SOUTH AFRICA: Capacity shortfalls undermine rollout
SOUTH AFRICA: Live theatre shows both positive and negative side of HIV/AIDS
SOUTH AFRICA: Rural health facilities struggle to provide healthcare
SOUTH AFRICA: New effort to ease community's HIV/AIDS woes
UGANDA: Inquiry starts into mismanagement of AIDS fund
ZAMBIA: Community benefits from free ARVs
CONFERENCES/ EVENTS/ RESEARCH/ RESOURCES:
JOB OPPORTUNITIES:
ETHIOPIA: UNICEF receives Sweden's donation for AIDS orphans
Sweden has donated nearly US $5 million to the UN children's agency (UNICEF) to strengthen the organisation's capacity to deal with the growing number of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia.
UNICEF and its partners in the Orphans and Vulnerable Children National Task Force had asked for $11 million to implement the first phase of Ethiopia's National Plan of Action for children who have been affected by HIV/AIDS. The programme will address the needs of 56,000 orphans initially, the agency said in a statement issued on Friday.
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SOMALIA: HIV/AIDS commission launched in Somaliland
Authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, in northwestern Somalia, launched a national HIV/AIDS commission on Thursday to plan and coordinate multisectoral efforts to curb the spread of the disease in the region.
The commission would also design strategies for providing affordable and effective drugs to those infected with HIV.
"It's real that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is in the country and already contributing to increased mortality, morbidity, fear, family disintegration, orphans, stigma and discrimination in our society," Somaliland's President Dahir Riyale Kahin said during the launch of the commission in Hargeysa, the capital.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Capacity shortfalls undermine rollout
Scaling up the national HIV/AIDS treatment programme will cost the South African government US $1 billion in 2009 compared to the US $52 million currently being spent, according to a new report.
The annual health review, compiled by Health Systems Trust (HST), a research organisation, warned that considerable financial resources would be required to meet the national HIV/AIDS treatment plan's targets in the next few years.
A significant amount of money has been allocated to the country's HIV/AIDS programme but there is insufficient capacity to treat everyone in need: according to HST researchers, an additional 3,200 doctors, 2,400 nurses, 765 social workers and 765 dieticians would be required to distribute and monitor the life-prolonging treatment.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Live theatre shows both positive and negative side of HIV/AIDS
The Gay And Lesbian Archives (GALA), a South African NGO, is using live theatre to illustrate the difficulty of moving back into society after being diagnosed with HIV.
In 'Coming Out Again', seven young homosexual men and women recount their experiences and ask questions as they prepare for a fun night out.
Director Gerard Bester told PlusNews that the play, which will run from 16 to 17 September to coincide with Johannesburg's Gay Pride Parade, was critical to raising AIDS awareness among the country's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) communities.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Rural health facilities struggle to provide healthcare
Pregnant HIV-positive women in South Africa can now get nevirapine, an anti-AIDS drug that helps prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies, at every hospital and almost all health centres and clinics.
A single dose of nevirapine is administered to the mother during birth, and a single dose is given to the newborn infant.
But a visit to the maternity ward at Hlabisa Hospital in northern KwaZulu-Natal province illustrates the challenges that the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme still faces, particularly in rural areas.
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SOUTH AFRICA: New effort to ease community's HIV/AIDS woes
A community grappling with HIV/AIDS on the outskirts of South Africa's east-coast city of Durban might soon find relief in an unlikely place.
Religious and community leaders are converting 'The Blue Roofs', previously a nightclub, into an HIV voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) centre for residents in the predominantly mixed-race township of Wentworth.
Father Cierigh Samaai of Saint Gabriel's, a local Anglican Church, said funding from the international NGO, Keep A Child Alive, would enable the new centre to conduct testing and refer HIV-positive people to various government anti-AIDS drug rollout sites.
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UGANDA: Inquiry starts into mismanagement of AIDS funds
A six-man commission has opened its inquiry into allegations of mismanagement of Uganda's anti-AIDS programme and will hold public hearings, officials said on Tuesday.
The head of the probe, High Court Judge James Ogoola, said the public hearings would unveil information behind the controversy that precipitated the suspension of a US $200 million aid package to Uganda by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Geneva-based NGO suspended part of its assistance to Uganda in August after an audit revealed mismanagement of the funds. It restricted the programme to providing only life-saving measures - including the provision of drugs and condoms - until an inquiry is complete.
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ZAMBIA: Community benefits from free ARVs
The sleepy railway town of Kapiri Mposhi, north of Zambian capital, Lusaka, comes alive every Thursday evening when the Tanzania-Zambia Railways Authority (TAZARA) passenger train pulls in to disgorge its weekly load of business travellers, tourists and drifters from Dar-es-Salaam, capital of Tanzania.
Kapiri Mposhi lies in the transport corridor that links Zambia to the port of Dar-es-Salaam in the northeast, the Democratic Republic of Congo to the northwest and Zimbabwe to the south.
A treatment programme run by Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the Zambian government kicked off in July 2004, when the Kawama clinic became one of the first health facilities to begin distributing antiretroviral (ARV) medication free of charge. Kapiri Mposhi is one of the worst-affected areas in the country.
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[ENDS]
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| Links |
· AIDS Media Center
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· The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria
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· International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS
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· AEGIS
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· International HIV/AIDS Alliance
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PlusNews does not take responsibility for info in links supplied.
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