CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: HIV/AIDS centre receives equipment from UNAIDS

The national HIV/AIDS documentation, education and communication centre in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), has received computer and audiovisual equipment worth 21 million francs CFA (US $34,000) from UNAIDS, the centre's director told PlusNews on Wednesday.

"We are now able to put at the population's disposal as much information as possible," Enock Senzongo, said.

The centre will now be linked to the Internet, and in this way benefit researchers, students and anti-HIV/AIDS NGOs. Senzongo said the donation, made on Monday, also consisted of television sets, megaphones and video cameras that would enable the centre to intensify its HIV/AIDS-awareness drive nationwide.

Inaugurated in September 2002, the centre has a seminar/conference room and a 10,000-book-capacity library. "UNAIDS has given us some books, and the UN Population Fund has ordered 9,000 more books, which we expect next month,"

Senzongo said UNAIDS had earlier also donated $309,000 towards the rehabilitation of the centre, which was now complete.

Institut Pasteur and CAR's National Committee Against AIDS (Comite National de Lutte contre le Sida) reported in December 2002 that the country's HIV prevalence was 14.8 percent, making CAR the most HIV affected nation in the subregion and the 10th in the world.

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