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IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 272, 24 February 2006
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
NEWS:
ANGOLA: Safe fun during carnival urged, as Luanda prepares for annual party
AFRICA: Fishing industry - the one that got away in AIDS prevention
CAMEROON: Tuberculosis and AIDS soaring in prisons
TANZANIA: HIV/AIDS counselling centres set up in prisons
SOUTH AFRICA: Govt adopts more focused approach to help orphans
ZIMBABWE: Youth instrumental in future HIV/AIDS decline - UNICEF
EVENTS:
JOB OPPORTUNITIES:
LINKS:
1. AIDS-Care-Watch
ANGOLA: Safe fun during carnival urged, as Luanda prepares for annual party
This weekend, Luanda will explode in a frenzy of gaudy costumes and masks, wild drumming and dancing. On Saturday, as the sun sets over the Angolan capital, tens of thousands of merrymakers will throng the seaside to watch carnival's main event - the parade... these are three days of total partying.
"Carnival is a space of liberation, and also of risk, because there are excesses of alcohol, drugs, sex and sexual violence," said Antonio Coelho, president of ANASO, the Angolan network of AIDS service organisations.
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AFRICA: Fishing industry - the one that got away in AIDS prevention
The fishing industry in Africa faces a growing threat of HIV/AIDS, but interventions to address the epidemic are still lagging behind.
Stephen Hall, director of the World Fish Centre, warned this week at a workshop in Zambia on 'HIV/AIDS in the Fishery Sector in Africa' that if the sector was to deliver any economic benefits for African countries, HIV/AIDS had to be addressed.
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CAMEROON: Tuberculosis and AIDS soaring in prisons
Victor N. no longer has the strength to get up from his straw mattress; he is battling tuberculosis, which has struck for a second time in some months. One of his cellmates in Edea prison near Douala is in the same state - too weary even to fight the bedbugs lacing the thin cushion on which he rests.
Twelve people live in the tiny cell which adjoins a row of latrines, their meagre possessions hanging on nails on the grime-blackened wall. No matter that some are sick with a highly contagious disease, the prison is packed and there is not a single spare space to quarantine TB sufferers.
More details
TANZANIA: HIV/AIDS counselling centres set up in prisons
In a move aimed at stepping up the campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS in prisons, the Tanzanian government has started establishing vocational counselling and testing (VCT) centres to provide services to penal institutions.
"We are now intensifying educational programmes through lectures and video [shows] to wardens, prison officers and inmates," Nicas Banzi, Tanzania's principal commissioner of prisons, said on Monday.
More details
SOUTH AFRICA: Govt adopts more focused approach to help orphans
The South African government has begun addressing some of the problems over its delivery of social services, particularly help to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), according to experts.
In the past two years, a strategy to address the shortage of social workers and a change to the law enabling OVC in foster care to access grants has produced results, said Selwyn Jehoma, the acting deputy director-general of social security in the Department of Social Development. "In 2002, we had 150,000 children registered under foster care, now we have 300,000."
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ZIMBABWE: Youth instrumental in future HIV/AIDS decline - UNICEF
Further reductions in Zimbabwe's HIV/AIDS prevalence rate depends largely on the greater involvement of the country's youth in the fight against the pandemic, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Formerly a high prevalence country, Zimbabwe recently became the first Southern African nation to report a significant decline in HIV infection, from 24.6 percent in 2003 to 20.1 percent in 2005.
More details
LINKS:
1. AIDS-Care-Watch
This is a global partnership of over 250 NGO and civil society organisations using avenues such as the multiple blogs hosted on this website to reduce the number of preventable deaths by sharing ideas about and advocating for a comprehensive care package for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Access the site: www.aidscarewatch.org
[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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The material contained on www.PlusNews.org comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.
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