Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 3/9/2005

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[These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENT:

1 - BOTSWANA: US $ 35 million boost for anti-AIDS efforts

2 - LIBERIA: With peace in place, the battle against HIV/AIDS gains

momentum

3 - SENEGAL: Female AIDS campaigner wants to spread her wings but husband

in the way

1 - BOTSWANA: US $ 35 million boost for anti-AIDS efforts

GABORONE, 9 March (PLUSNEWS) - Botswana's anti-AIDS efforts are to receive

an injection of US $35 million from the US President's Emergency Plan for

AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The funds, to be channelled through the Botswana and USA partnership

(BOTUSA), will be used to provide critical technical and financial support

for HIV testing, prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission,

antiretroviral treatment, palliative care and support for people living

with HIV/AIDS, said Kelebonye, BOTUSA's communication officer.

The PEPFAR programme was initiated by US President W. Bush in 2003,

when he pledged $15 billion for tackling HIV/AIDS around the world.

" Botswana is one of the 15 countries that are getting funds under the US

President Emergency Plan, and we are closely working with the US embassy

in the country to plan, implement and coordinate the initiative, " said

Kelebonye.

As part of the project, BOTUSA is currently working with a local

scientific reference group to prepare for the clinical trials of

microcides that women can apply before having sexual intercourse to

prevent transmission of HIV and other sexual infections.

" We are also in the process of initiating a controlled clinical trial to

determine whether taking Tenofovir, an antiretroviral drug, could prevent

HIV infection in healthy, HIV negative, sexually active young people, "

Kelebonye said.

The drug is said to stop HIV infected cells from replicating. Kelebonye

said Tenofovir would be tested on 1,200 volunteers aged between 18 and 21

years over a period of three years.

The BOTUSA programme was initiated in 1995 as a partnership between the

Botswana National TB Programme and the Centres for Disease Control, run by

the US department of health and human services. It conducts public health

research and programmes combating tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

Clincial trials of Tenofovir were scrapped in Cambodia and Cameroon

following ethical concerns over how the trials were being conducted. AIDS

activists in Cameroon and France alleged that the female volunteers taking

part had not been sufficiently informed of the risks involved, and would

not receive any healthcare if they become infected with HIV during the

course of the trial.

[ENDS]

2 - LIBERIA: With peace in place, the battle against HIV/AIDS gains

momentum

MONROVIA, 9 March (PLUSNEWS) - Now that peace has returned to Liberia,

people living with HIV/AIDS are setting their sights on a new fight - the

battle to contain the pandemic.

Campaigners say the first priority is to break down the barriers of

discrimination, still strong in a country struggling to shake off 14 years

of civil war, a time when little could be done on the AIDS information and

prevention front.

" ly speaking, discrimination and stigma against we, the HIV/AIDS

victims in Liberian society, is high, " said Saa , who heads an

umbrella group of more than 100 people living with AIDS called the Light

Association.

" Most people, including our relatives and friends, are finding it

difficult to accept us within their midst, " told PlusNews. " The

Liberian people must accept us as they accept others with different

illnesses. "

In this country busy healing the wounds of war and restoring battered

health facilities, officials fear a spread in the pandemic as almost a

million people displaced by war start to return to their homes.

The 350,000 Liberians who sought refuge in other nations in the region

" are coming back from host countries with a prevalence of between 3 and 5

percent, with the exception of Cote d'Ivoire, where the rate is almost 10

percent, " said the UN refugee agency UNHCR on its website.

Mass population movements could increase the risk of spreading the HI

virus in a country struggling to rehabilitate basic health care services,

the agency added.

According to the head of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP),

Duworko, a survey conducted in 2002 concluded that 8.2 percent of the

country's more than three million people were infected. Revised data from

UNAIDS put the rate at the end of 2003 at 5.9 percent, estimating that

around 220,000 Liberians are living with the disease.

Spreading AIDS awareness

Since 2002, when Kpannah Jallah became the first Liberian to publicly

reveal she was infected, no one else has come out in public. Instead

people living with AIDS rally around the Light Association set up by

Jallah to advocate on their behalf.

One woman member, who asked to remain anonymous, said a friend whose

infection became public was thrown out of her house in the Nimba County

town of Ganta, a key trading centre that lies 247 km north of the capital

Monrovia near the Guinean border.

" Her family cast her out, because we made known her status. I for one

tried my best to convince her family to accept her, but my pleas fell on

deaf ears, " she said.

" It is very hard for us, especially us women, to come out and tell people

that we have the virus ... because most Liberians are ignorant about the

disease. This signals to our minds that more awareness need to be done on

AIDS, " she said.

To this effect, the Light Association, despite the fear of stigma,

launched a nationwide campaign in January against the spread of the virus.

It describes the campaigning as " messages from the horse's mouth " .

" Accept AIDS victims as you accept people with malaria, " says one slogan.

" AIDS is a reality, we are living with it, " says another.

said the organisation was taking the slogans " to our people in rura

l Liberia to convince them about the existence of the disease, because

most of them are still ignorant about the disease and the mode of

transmissions. "

The campaign so far has targeted Nimba County, the county in the north of

Liberia that borders Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire, where most of the Liberian

refugees sought shelter. Bong County in central Liberia and the coastal

county of Grand Bassa are also being visited.

" Some people in those counties really appreciated our messages and we have

been receiving numerous calls to return on a similar campaign, "

said. " Most of them said they had not seen victims of the virus before and

had been in a state of total disbelief. "

Training and care

With a GDP of US $135 per person, Liberia is one of the poorest countries

in the world, according to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and

Malaria.

High unemployment among people living with HIV/AIDS, coupled with the

social stigma, has prompted the Light Association to provide job training.

The group recently set up an intensive three-month tailoring workshop

geared in particular at women living with AIDS in need of work.

" It is a capacity-building skilled training programme to enable our

members especially the females to do tailoring as a means of earning a

living for themselves, " said.

With the help of the UN Volunteers Programme in Liberia, the association

had acquired sewing machines for the course, he added.

" People may be ashamed to come around to us. But when we can learn a

particular skill and start putting it into practice, then we can begin to

sustain ourselves instead of waiting for handouts, " one female trainee

said.

The transitional government meanwhile is making anti-retroviral (ARV)

drugs available on a free-of-charge basis through the government-run NACP.

Duworko of the NACP said that 369 people were receiving ARVs under the

scheme, which started up in 2001.

" We are thankful to the government for giving us these drugs, "

said. " Right now most members who have reached the stage of taking the

drugs are on treatment and we have not experienced any shortages yet. "

But there was a shortage of drugs for secondary so-called opportunistic

infections linked to the virus, he said.

" Most of the hospitals in Monrovia have ran out of these drugs and it is

worrisome for those of us living with the virus, " he explained.

" There are assurances from the government that they will be made available

but we do not know how soon. "

[ENDS]

3 - SENEGAL: Female AIDS campaigner wants to spread her wings but husband

in the way

DAKAR, 9 March (PLUSNEWS) - She is still hesitant about saying it but

Fatou seems to have made up her mind. She will leave her husband if he

carries on stopping her from speaking openly about being HIV-positive and

helping her sisters.

Fatou is the president of 'United In Hope', Senegal's only association for

women living with AIDS. But she is keen to cast her net wider than the

current 150 members. She wants, as she puts it, " to shout from the

rooftops. "

" I know that I could help lots more people, I could help the whole nation,

all Senegalese women if I was ... more visible ... if I could speak

without covering my face, if I could publicise my association, " said the

31-year-old, who doesn't want to use her real name.

" If my husband doesn't let me do this, then I'll leave him, " Fatou,

dressed in an elegant mauve outfit with pearl-decorated shoes, told

PlusNews. " I'm trying to convince him ... but if I can't then I will leave

him to serve my country and my sisters. "

Although her husband wants to keep Fatou's illness in the family and

doesn't like the public dimension to her fight, he has been very

supportive of her individual battle with the HI virus since she was

diagnosed eight years ago.

" It's thanks to him and my children that I got through this, " Fatou

explains. " Lots of women are at a loss because they have to cope with the

situation alone ... That wasn't the case with me. "

In fact it was not even Fatou that discovered she was HIV positive. While

she was pregnant with the couple's first child she kept falling ill and

the sickness continued after her daughter was born.

The doctors ran tests and before she knew it they were telling her husband

she was HIV positive. Her husband got himself tested and found he too had

the virus.

Blame game

" We argued a lot about who was responsible. We kept putting the blame at

each others door, " Fatou recalled. " And then one day we said 'this has to

stop'... and we never talked about it again. "

For two years, Fatou tried to come to terms with what had happened to her.

Without a proper education or a job, she stayed home.

" One day I told myself that I might as well die if I was going to spend

another minute hidden away in the house, " she said.

Her husband was not too happy.

" He didn't want to hear anything about it. I wasn't to go out and talk to

people about what had happened to us, " Fatou explained.

But at the health centre that she went to regularly, she began chatting to

other HIV-positive women. From there, the idea took shape of forming an

association to allow the women to get together and help each other.

There were six members when United In Hope was launched in June 2001. Then

came funding from Senegal's National AIDS Agency (ANCS), the UN

Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Hope for African Children

(HACI). Now there are 150 members aged between 15 and 60 years old.

Fatou started out as treasurer for the association but became president

last June when the incumbent died.

" The women in our association are nearly all dependent on their husbands

or their families and it's difficult for them to be autonomous, " she told

PlusNews. " The polygamy is awful. They cannot and do not know how to

manage their sex lives and they don't know how to talk about it. "

As a never-ending stream of women put their heads round the door to ask

for help, Fatou describes how many HIV-positive women have to keep on

working while their HIV-positive husbands give up their jobs.

Heavier burden

About half of the association members are taking life-prolonging

antiretroviral drugs and trying to keep the house running and the children

looked after almost single-handedly.

United In Hope helps women set themselves up in work, helping them to

learn computer skills or sell vegetables and fabrics. It also holds

monthly discussion groups to give women a forum to air their problems.

" We try to convince them to confide in their families because it's crucial

that they have someone who understands what they are suffering and who can

help them when they are too weak. But it's a long process, " Fatou said.

She took two years to tell her own parents.

" My mother asked me straight away who was responsible. And I said that I

didn't know to protect my husband. Since then they have been a big

support, they phone me, they give me money. It's very important to me, "

she said.

She is also gradually helping her four children, who range from three to

10 years old, to understand the disease although they do not know their

parents are living with it.

" I speak about AIDS with my oldest daughter. I have to for the family's

sake and for the sake of other children, " Fatou explained.

She talks excitedly about the break-throughs that have happened since she

became an AIDS campaigner.

For example, since the beginning of 2005, the National Council To Fight

AIDS (CNLS) has also agreed to pay the rent for United In Hope and 12

other associations who help people living with the disease.

Buoyed by these successes, Fatou still wants to bring her husband round.

" I have become strong now and I am trying to share that strength with

others, " she said. " My only problem is him. "

[ENDS]

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