Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 3/15/2005

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CONTENT:

1 - AFRICA: Youth meet to discuss ways of fighting HIV/AIDS

2 - COTE D IVOIRE: Doctor concerned by high HIV prevalence rate in forgotten

northeast

3 - SOUTHERN AFRICA: New thinking needed on impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture

1 - AFRICA: Youth meet to discuss ways of fighting HIV/AIDS

KIGALI, 15 March (PLUSNEWS) - An Africa-wide youth organisation is holding a

five-day conference in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, to draw up a plan of action

for the continent's youth to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

" Our mission is to initiate, consolidate and strengthen the capacity and

response of African youth to effectively confront HIV/AIDS, " Karangwa,

executive secretary of the Pan-African Youth Organisation Against HIV/AIDS

(PAYA), said when the conference opened on Monday.

Participants from at least 20 African nations are taking part in the conference,

which hopes to rally support for its programmes from key donors.

PAYA is also due to launch its secretariat, which will be based in Kigali.

" The event is a cornerstone for PAYA, as it will adopt its working strategic

plan, its manual of operations - update its constitution and internal rules and

regulations, " Karangwa said, " as well as streamlining the organisational

framework and its priority areas of interventions. "

He added that PAYA's mandate was to highlight the importance of youth in the

fight against HIV in Africa. This could be done by identifying factors that make

young people more vulnerable to the epidemic, and ensuring that these issues are

integrated into the policies and programmes of nations.

This week's conference will also advocate support from the African Union, the UN

and regional economic bodies, as well as established youth and development

partners.

PAYA was launched in June 2003, to provide a forum for African youths to

exchange experiences and ideas in their struggle against HIV/AIDS.

[ENDS]

2 - COTE D IVOIRE: Doctor concerned by high HIV prevalence rate in forgotten

northeast

BONDOUKOU, 15 March (PLUSNEWS) - Olivier Oura is the only trained doctor

available for Ivorians living with HIV/AIDS around Bondoukou, and he's worried

that poor security and communication in this northeastern corner of Cote

d'Ivoire may have landed it with the country's highest HIV prevalence rate.

" Look. In 2002, Bondoukou region had a prevalence rate of 11 percent. That's the

second highest in the country and substantially higher than the capital Abidjan,

which was 7.4 percent, " Oura told PlusNews, flicking on a computer and pulling

up a screen of data.

He barely finishes his sentence, before the electricity cuts out and the screen

goes blank.

The figures date back to a national sentinel survey from the year war broke out

in Cote d'Ivoire and the country ended up split in two after a failed rebel

attempt to topple President t Gbagbo. The line dividing the government-run

south from the rebel-held north runs straight through the Zanzan region of which

Bondoukou is the capital.

" I think that today the figure could actually be much higher when you take into

account the effects of the war particularly in the rebel controlled area, the

fact that we have very open borders with Ghana and Burkina Faso and the

persistence of traditions such as polygamy, " Oura sighed.

Bondoukou town remains under government control but the region's second-biggest

town Bouna, 150 km to the north, is run by the rebels and as such is cut off

from all state administration and health services.

Up in the rebel-held town, there are no sensitisation campaigns to warn people

of the dangers of HIV and AIDS.

" This is a major problem in an area that has two open frontiers with Burkina

Faso and Ghana, " Oura said.

Even simple preventative measures like condoms are hard to come by, let alone

more expensive treatment.

" People have no access to treatment in Bouna. They can't even buy condoms. I am

the only doctor responsible for HIV and AIDS and to see me they have to pass

through all the road blocks along the way which adds a lot of expense and

hassle, " Oura said.

" I have only one patient who travels down from Bouna every three months to see

me and collect his antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. I don't know how he affords

it, " the doctor explained.

<b>Problems Exacerbated By War</b>

Rebel and government troops maintain checkpoints on both sides of a buffer zone,

patrolled by United Nations peacekeeping forces to keep the warring sides apart.

Fighters on both sides are notorious for charging levies and fines on passengers

and vehicles for spurious reasons.

The pervasive military presence, no matter the allegiance, poses other headaches

for health workers trying to contain the spread of AIDS.

" There's generally a higher HIV rate among soldiers than other members of the

population and you know how they are - in the open-air snack bars all the time,

a woman on their arm, " Oura said.

Even before the trappings of war were thrust on this region of Cote d'Ivoire and

its subsistence farmers, poverty made the fight against AIDS trickier. But the

conflict has made life more difficult, even in the government-run areas.

" Many families have swollen to take in relatives from the north who have been

displaced by the war stretching budgets, " said Oura.

Fatou, not her real name, is one of the doctor's patients who is struggling to

pay for treatment. She has never been to school and now, guessing her age at

about 30, she makes her money as a petty trader selling cooking ingredients:

oil, tomatoes, stock cubes and chillies.

" I used to be happy with the money I made, but it's not really enough to pay for

the medicines. Every month I have to beg money from my father, but he is old and

has nothing either, " she told PlusNews.

Fatou was married when she was about 14 and had her first child within a year of

being married. Her husband died of AIDS about five years ago.

" She has at least identified that she is HIV positive, there are many more that

we don't know about who are not getting any treatment and are perhaps not aware

of their status, " explained Oura.

Fatou is also rare, the doctor says, in that she has told her parents of her HIV

status and they have not rejected her.

" Here the stigmatisation surrounding the virus is a major problem. I have some

30 people receiving treatment but hardly any of them have told their families of

their status, " he said.

Fatou remembers when she was about 13 and her father negotiated with a man more

than twice her age. He would eventually become her husband. His death would make

her an AIDS widow.

" I was the first wife. But he took three others - all younger than me. Two of

them are already dead, " said Fatou in Malinke, which is widely spoken by traders

across northern Cote d'Ivoire and much of the Sahel region.

<b>Traditional Practice Of Polygamy Also Increasing HIV Infections</b>

She does not blame her husband. She says that despite him being much older than

her, they never had a cross word and anyway, he was away from Bondoukou a lot.

" He used to drive the big lorries to Abidjan and up to Burkina Faso or Niger.

Once he was away for a whole year, another time, five months, " she said softly.

According to the local tradition, Fatou and the other wives continued to live in

their fathers' home after they were married, with their husband splitting his

time between the four women when he passed through town.

As far as she knows, he didn't have any other wives in any other towns. But she

can't be sure.

Oura says that this local custom is helping to spread the HI virus.

" It makes it very easy for a man to take more than one wife, as he does not have

to provide them with a home once they are married as in other areas where

polygamy is practiced, " the doctor said.

On Fatou's lap sits her youngest child, swinging his legs. He's five years old

and HIV positive too. It costs her 22,000 CFA (US $45) for three months' worth

of treatment for them both. Though blood tests are free at a facility three

hours drive away in Bonguera, transporting the samples there is not.

And it's not just the cost of the medicines, that Fatou has to worry about.

" If you are HIV positive you need to eat correctly, but you need money for that

too, " Oura said.

The United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) does offer some assistance

providing basic food rations to diagnosed HIV patients, but the doctor says it

is not enough.

Fatou, who has a slight build, admits buying meat for her and her children is

something of a luxury and she worries for the health of her HIV positive son in

particular.

As for the future, Fatou wants to be able to keep scraping together enough money

to stay on the ARVs. Without them she knows she will not have much time and she

wants to see her two eldest daughters, who are not HIV-positive, finish school.

" I want things to be different for them, " she said.[ENDS]

3 - SOUTHERN AFRICA: New thinking needed on impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture

JOHANNESBURG, 15 March (PLUSNEWS) - The impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture in

Southern Africa is now well recognised. But a new report is calling for a

rethink of current views on the effects of the epidemic and more concrete and

specific regional responses.

Despite current thinking on the effects of the epidemic on farming, which has

mainly been based on qualitative methods, the study found that most quantitative

household-level studies gave " a less catastrophic assessment of the impacts of

rising AIDS-related mortality on the agricultural sector " .

According to the report, to be presented next month at an international

conference on 'HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security' in South Africa, it has

been generally accepted that the loss of productive family members would have an

adverse impact on household agricultural production.

However, prime age mortality affected households differently, as some were able

to adjust to the shift in availability of resources through sharecropping

arrangements, substituting hired labour for family, and reducing the amount of

land cultivated.

The recent shift by countries in the region from cultivating maize to roots and

tubers has led to growing speculation that HIV/AIDS was responsible for these

changes. Although it was possible that AIDS had contributed to the move, the

report noted that major changes in agricultural policy were largely behind it.

" Maize marketing policies in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe were either

eliminated or scaled back significantly, starting in the early 1990s, as part of

economy-wide structural adjustment programmes. These policy changes clearly

reduced the financial profitability of growing maize ... and has shifted

cropping incentives toward other food crops, especially those relatively

unresponsive to fertilizer application, such as cassava, " it noted.

As a result, " the evidence is mixed as to how AIDS is affecting agricultural

systems and cropping patterns, " the report added.

Nevertheless, the researchers identified three emerging trends that could help

governments come up with responses based on localised farming systems, the

suitability of alternative crops, and household characteristics.

" As the supply of skilled and semi-skilled labour becomes relatively constrained

as the disease progresses, the costs of skilled labour in the (mostly

non-agricultural) formal sector is likely to rise " , causing a decline in the

competitiveness of knowledge-intensive activities both in agriculture and

non-agriculture. The authors called for steps to accelerate skills training in

the sector.

Secondly, mortality among rural households could cause a reversed migration of

unskilled labour from urban to rural areas, to make up for the loss of

agricultural labour caused by AIDS. This would enable rural households and

communities to preserve existing farming systems, or slow the transition to less

labour-intensive ones.

Agricultural systems were likely to become less capital-intensive in hard-hit

areas, exacerbating income inequalities as poor households sold off assets and

land to those who could afford to buy, the paper pointed out.

Agricultural policy could contribute to slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS through

poverty reduction; living standards could be raised through

productivity-enhancing investments in agricultural technology, improved crop

marketing systems, basic education, infrastructure and governance, to help

communities withstand the social and economic stresses caused by the disease,

the report concluded.

To access the report: <a

href= " http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/adult_death/cross_cutting/eJade_Jayne_Vi\

llarrea_Pingali_Hemrich.pdf " target= " blank " >www.aec.msu.edu</a> <img

src= " ./images/pdf-logo.gif " width= " 12 " height= " 12 " align= " absmiddle " alt= " pdf

Format " >[ENDS]

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