CONGO: US supports HIV/AIDS education in military

NAIROBI, 3 April 2002 (PlusNews) - The US government has lent its support to an initiative to educate the Congolese military on preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

US ambassador to the Republic of Congo (ROC), David Kaeuper, made a contribution of US $65,000 to the Forces Armees Congolaises (FAC) health services director on 28 March. The Congolese government announced the donation in the capital, Brazzaville, on Monday.

The initiative is being implemented by a local NGO called PRESIEC (Projet pour la prevention du SIDA dans les ecoles du Congo), which has developed similar behavioural-change programmes for schools in cooperation with the Congolese government's national programme to combat AIDS (Programme national de lutte contre le SIDA).

The Congolese military had been selected for support because it had been "particularly hard-hit as both a victim of, and vector for, the spread of the disease", Ruth Parent, first secretary of the US embassy in neighbouring Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told IRIN on Wednesday.

More than 20 percent of hospital beds in the ROC were occupied by military AIDS patients, indicating a very worrying level of HIV prevalence among members of the FAC, Parent said.

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[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]