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IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 217, 21 January 2005


	Tuesday 22 February 2005

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IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 217, 21 January 2005

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

NEWS:

MOZAMBIQUE: Starting to save HIV-positive children
SENEGAL: Gay community plays it quietly in face of social taboos
AFRICA: Glaring lack of child ARVs and slow rollout
SWAZILAND: Increasing focus on paediatric care
GUINEA-BISSAU: First ARVs arrive, but no-one trained to prescribe them
MALAWI: Boost for HIV/AIDS treatment programmes
SOUTH AFRICA: Closing the treatment gap
SIERRA LEONE: 300 people to receive free antiretroviral drugs
COTE D IVOIRE: Condom Cafe at front-line of awareness campaign
BOTSWANA: Countering stigma isn't easy
UGANDA: Public transport to be used to combat HIV/AIDS
KENYA: Fight against HIV/AIDS bearing fruit, but challenges remain

CONFERENCES/ EVENTS/ RESEARCH/ RESOURCES:

JOB OPPORTUNITIES:

MOZAMBIQUE: Starting to save HIV-positive children

Albertina, a 34-year-old mother of three children, has just learnt she is HIV positive. She appears to take it calmly and manages to remain focused on her youngest son, Pedro, who is waiting to see the doctor at the Paediatric Day Hospital in Maputo, the Mozambican capital.

Pedro is fortunate to be one of just 500 children who are on the government's free treatment programme – an estimated 69,025 children below the age of 14 need ARVs to help prolong their lives, according to Dr Paula Vaz, who works at the hospital.

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SENEGAL: Gay community plays it quietly in face of social taboos

The meeting-place was at a noisy down-market street café where the waiter as well the clients were gay, but where everyone was staunchly pretending not to be. Senegal's homosexual men are peeping out from behind the mask, but social and religious taboos run strong.

"We are always pretending," said one of a couple of the leaders of the country's underground movement who had agreed to come out of the woodwork to talk to PlusNews on condition of anonymity. "Sometimes we feel sick of the lies."

Hit by a spate of deaths and disease in the community five years ago, a group of gays got together "to find out whether it was HIV/AIDS and what to do about it," said 27-year-old Mamadou (not his real name). "There were no free tests available, people wondered if it was malaria."

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AFRICA: Glaring lack of child ARVs and slow rollout

Children have been left out of national programmes to provide anti-AIDS drugs, the UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, said on Tuesday.

Although about 2.2 million children were HIV positive - at least two-thirds of them in Africa - paediatric antiretroviral (ARV) formulations were still not widely available and ARV rollouts were being assembled as if children did not exist, Lewis said during a press conference.

"In the instance of antiretroviral therapy, the scenario for children is, quite simply, doomsday," he warned.

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SWAZILAND: Increasing focus on paediatric care

A joint effort by local health authorities, aid agencies and a major pharmaceutical company is expected to improve paediatric care in Swaziland.

With four out of 10 pregnant women testing positive for HIV, adequate healthcare for children has become a priority as the government grapples with climbing infection rates.

The high cost of drugs and lack of trained medical staff were seen as the main reasons for the ongoing neglect of child health in this tiny landlocked country of just over a million people: Swaziland has just four paediatricians.

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GUINEA-BISSAU: First ARVs arrive, but no-one trained to prescribe them

A first consignment of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for people living with AIDS has arrived from Brazil for distribution free of charge to people living with AIDS in Guinea-Bissau. However, local doctors and nurses have not yet received training in how to use the drugs and will be reliant on medical manuals to learn how to prescribe them.

The first consignment of 170 kg of ARVs, provided by Brazil under an agreement to help control AIDS in Guinea-Bissau, was delivered by Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim during a brief visit to the capital, Bissau, on Saturday.

Guinea-Bissau's health minister, Odete Semedo, said distribution would begin immediately, and the drugs would be offered free of charge. She declined to say how many people would benefit from ARV treatment, but estimated there were nearly 43,000 HIV-positive people in this small West African country of 1.3 million inhabitants.

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MALAWI: Boost for HIV/AIDS treatment programmes

HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes in Malawi have been boosted by a new US $14 million grant from the Global Fund.

The National AIDS Commission (NAC) said the money is to be used to purchase and distribute antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. "UNICEF [the United Nations Children's Fund] is currently the procurement agent for the Ministry of Health for health products under the Global Fund," the NAC confirmed.

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SOUTH AFRICA: Closing the treatment gap

It's been over a year since the South African government launched its much-anticipated HIV/AIDS treatment programme, but there is growing frustration over the pace of implementation.

In November 2003 the government committed itself to providing free antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to 53,000 patients by March 2004; by the end of 2004 the health department estimated the number of patients receiving the drugs at 19,500, and the target date was moved forward a year, to March 2005.

The Uthukela district, along the key transport corridor between Johannesburg and the port city of Durban, is one of the worst affected regions in KwaZulu-Natal province.

Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are not available in Ladysmith or any of the smaller towns in the district, and HIV-positive people have to travel over 150 km for treatment.

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SIERRA LEONE: 300 people to receive free antiretroviral drugs

The government of Sierra Leone has launched a programme to provide free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to 300 people living with AIDS, Professor Sidi Alghali, director of the National AIDS Secretariat (NAS) said.

Alghali said the government had provided US $180,000 to fund the initial one-year programme, which was being run by the Sierra Leone Treatment Action Group (SILTAG), a local non-governmental organisation.

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COTE D IVOIRE: Condom Cafe at front-line of awareness campaign

At the Condom Cafe in Abidjan, customers don't get after-dinner mints with their bill. Instead they leave with an AIDS goodie bag, complete with red ribbon, a leaflet about the disease and a free condom.

The cafe, known by the locals as Kpote Kiosque, has been serving up snacks and safe sex for the last three years in Adjame, a run-down suburb of Cote d'Ivoire's main city, Abidjan.

From the outside it looks like any of the open-air 'maquis' restaurants found on many a street corner in the city. The only hint of anything out of the ordinary is a faded red ribbon painted on the roof.

Kpote Kiosque is not just about free condoms: it aims to raise the public's awareness about HIV/AIDS via its trained team of young waiters and waitresses, some of whom are HIV-positive themselves.

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BOTSWANA: Countering stigma isn't easy

When Tebogo Masilo obtained a bursary to study archaeology in the United States he was overjoyed, but it didn't last long. As part of its regulations, the government demands an HIV test.

"The results confirmed that I was positive and I did not get the scholarship," Masilo, 24, recalled. "They could not make an investment in me."

Despite the existence of anti-discriminatory laws, the Botswana government introduced mandatory testing for overseas bursary holders about two years ago, but students wishing to attend the University of Botswana and other local higher education institutions are not tested.

The move has been criticised by activists, who say it entrenches stigma and is all the more disappointing from a government that has been so proactive in the fight against AIDS.

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UGANDA: Public transport to be used to combat HIV/AIDS

Uganda's public transport system is set to become the latest vehicle for promoting behaviour change in the country's continued fight against HIV/AIDS, according to the ministry of health.

"We have developed a strategy, and we think we can work with the public transport system to raise awareness because thousands of people use these means [of transport] every day," Julius Byenkya, of the Uganda AIDS Control Programme told PlusNews.

The project will make use of the entire range of public transportation in the country, which is made up of large long distance buses, 15-seater mini-buses, cabs, motor cycles - known locally as "boda-bodas" - and water transport, such as canoes and ferries.

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KENYA: Fight against HIV/AIDS bearing fruit, but challenges remain

Kenya's campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS is bearing fruit, but more needs to be done to help those vulnerable to infection and those affected by the disease, a top UN official said.

"Kenya has made good progress in the fight against AIDS - infection rates are falling," Peter Piot, the executive director of UNAIDS, said during a joint news conference in Nairobi.

Kenya's success, he added, was partly due to "strong leadership within the government". Calling for better coordination of efforts by the government, donors and the civil society, he noted that that 1.2 million Kenyans were living with the virus.

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[ENDS]

Recent AFRICA Reports

HIV/AIDS "indirectly" responsible for increased mortality - report, 21/Feb/05

IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 221, 18 February 2005, 18/Feb/05

AIDS activists demand expansion of national treatment, 16/Feb/05

World Bank and business groups launch guidelines, 11/Feb/05

IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 220, 11 February 2005, 11/Feb/05

Links

Le portail d'informations générales de la Côte d’Ivoire

Sida Info Services

Le Fonds mondial de lutte contre le SIDA, la tuberculose et le paludisme

Le Réseau Afrique 2000

PlusNews does not take responsibility for info in links supplied.

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