CAMEROON: HIV-positive inmates get German assistance

Germany's Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ), this week launched the first ever anti-AIDS programme for inmates at Cameroon's New Bell prison in the port city of Douala.

The aim of the yearlong project is to raise awareness of HIV prevention, which prison officials claim is on the rise at the facility.

Research shows that of the 1,400 New Bell inmates tested last year, 134 were HIV-positive: 120 men and 14 women.

The prison's medical chief, Dr Amougou Germaine, however, downplayed reports that recorded HIV cases were linked to the high rate of same sex activities among inmates.

"It is very difficult to prove, because when these inmates came to prison, they had not been tested for HIV," he told the Cameroon Tribune.

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