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IRIN PlusNews Weekly Issue 231, 29 April 2005NEWS: AFRICA: UN urges fewer words and more results on HIV/AIDS UNAIDS has called for more action and less rhetoric from both government and civil society organisations if Africa is to succeed in its battle against the pandemic. The agency's monitoring and evaluation advisor for Eastern and Southern Africa, Emmanuel Baingana Kasheeka, told delegates at an international HIV/AIDS convention underway in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that the results of mitigating the disease fell far short of the resources being poured into existing intervention strategies. "In the last 20 years we focused too much on planning, and very little on actions to transform the plans into tangible results matching the magnitude of the epidemic," said Kasheeka. More details KENYA: HIV/AIDS treatment centre inaugurated Kenya's health ministry and the medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), on Thursday inaugurated a new facility designed to provide comprehensive healthcare to people living with HIV/AIDS in the capital, Nairobi. The Comprehensive Care Centre (CCC), jointly run by the Ministry of Health and MSF-Belgium, will provide counselling, testing and treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to those living with HIV. Some 1,850 patients have already been receiving regular treatment at the centre, Moses Massaquioi, MSF's medical coordinator in Kenya, told PlusNews. The health centre has been set up inside the Mbagathi District Hospital in Nairobi, and will also train the hospital's staff in the diagnosis and care of HIV/AIDS patients. More details SWAZILAND: Business coalition launches HIV/AIDS mitigation plan Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have the potential to lift living standards and build a new generation of entrepreneurs, but in Swaziland that strategy is being challenged by AIDS. "I am HIV negative, but my past two work supervisors left because of illness. They grew so thin that you knew the cause," said Charles Mtetfwa, a contractor in the central commercial town of Manzini. "It wasn't in my heart to retrench them. I believe it was right to follow my heart, but my bottom line is hit when so many workers get sick," he acknowledged. More details ZAMBIA: Govt not doing enough for OVC, says official report An official report has found that the Zambian government was not "giving sufficient priority" to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and has called for universal access to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The study by the Ministry of Sport, Youth and Child Development (MSYCD) reviewed the state of OVC in Zambia over the past five years and found that assistance to the children was being hampered by inadequate funding and a lack of coordination among policies. "To change this, government at the highest levels needs to accept that the OVC problem is perhaps the greatest challenge to future development in Zambia. The risks presented by a generation growing up without adequate physical and emotional care, or access to good education, are grave," the authors noted. More details SOUTHERN AFRICA: New solutions needed to lessen HIV/AIDS impact on farming Two years after Southern Africa's humanitarian crisis exposed the destructive relationship between hunger and HIV/AIDS, still not enough is known about the actual impact of the epidemic on rural households. Now, new research from the recent international conference on 'HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security', held earlier this month in Durban, South Africa, has provided greater insight into how farming communities have been affected. The three-day conference, organised by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), brought together policymakers, donors and researchers to develop strategies for improving and expanding the response to HIV/AIDS and food security. More details LINKS: 1. ProNut-HIV is a global discussion group supporting healthcare providers, community health workers, policy-makers and programme managers with current, relevant practical knowledge relating to nutrition and HIV/AIDS, as well as tools for decision-making. Topics include: antiretroviral therapy and weight gain; food sources of multivitamins; community gardens and farming/agricultural practices. 2. ProCAARE - This site focuses on the continuum of biomedical and care issues, covering topics such as prevention, access to drugs, home and institutional care, education and epidemiology. Subscribers can join over 2,000 health professionals from around the world in an ongoing discussion on the fight against HIV/AIDS. [ENDS] |
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