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IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 265, 6 January 2006
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
NEWS:
SOUTH AFRICA: Global Fund withdraws support for loveLife
SIERRA LEONE: First post-war countrywide survey shows 1.5 percent HIV prevalence
MOZAMBIQUE: Steady progress as ARV rollout gathers momentum
SWAZILAND: "Sewage sociology" finds condom use rising
SENEGAL: Bringing condoms out of the closet
CONFERENCES:
JOBS:
SOUTH AFRICA: Global Fund withdraws support for loveLife
The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has pulled the plug on financing loveLife, a controversial South African youth-targeted HIV/AIDS campaign.
In a statement the Global Fund board said it had found that loveLife "was deemed to not have sufficiently addressed weaknesses in its implementation".
Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden said it had become difficult to measure how the prevention campaign was contributing to the reduction of HIV/AIDS among young people.
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SIERRA LEONE: First post-war countrywide survey shows 1.5 percent HIV prevalence
The first countrywide HIV/AIDS survey carried out in Sierra Leone since the end of its 11-year war shows a relatively low prevalence rate of 1.5 percent, according to the head of the National AIDS Secretariat, Brima Kargbo.
Prevalence in Sierra Leone previously had been estimated at 0.9 percent on the basis of a 2002 survey touching on only a part of the country of five million people. Activists had reckoned prevalence to be as high as five per cent in the capital, Freetown.
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MOZAMBIQUE: Steady progress as ARV rollout gathers momentum
When Maria (last name withheld), 35 years old and HIV-positive, reflects on the past year she gives an answer that a growing number of Mozambicans living with HIV/AIDS would probably echo.
"The year 2005 has been good for my health. It has got so much better because this year I started taking ARVs (antiretroviral drugs)," she told PlusNews.
Maria is one of the 17,000 people now accessing ARVs of a national target to treat 20,000 people by the end of 2005.
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SWAZILAND: "Sewage sociology" finds condom use rising
Without a definitive survey it's hard to know the extent of condom use by Swazis, but one group claims to have proof that it's on the rise: the workers at Swaziland's newest sewage treatment plant.
"Condom use has gone up 50 percent this past year," boldly asserts Marvin Simelane, a worker at the new Ngwane Park sewage pumping facility outside the country's most populous urban centre, Manzini.
"We are finding more condoms in the filters that separate solids from liquid waste," said Simelane. "Because of their size, the condoms pass through the first set of large filters and are trapped in the second set of filters, so they are easily identifiable. I guess it's good because it shows people are using condoms."
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SENEGAL: Bringing condoms out of the closet
Adriana Bertini is a woman with a mission. She intends to turn condoms, which she considers the best form of protection against AIDS, into an everyday object that both men and women use as naturally as a piece of clothing.
At the hands of this Brazilian artist, thousands of condoms come together to form a sumptuous evening gown, an elegant trouser suit, a flamboyant sheath dress - whose name was never more appropriate - or even a wild samba outfit. It's a feast of sartorial delights with only one common ingredient: latex.
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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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