Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 12/1/2004

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U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

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

CONTENT:

1 - AFRICA: UN highlights gender-based violence and AIDS treatment

2 - ETHIOPIA: Prime minister's wife takes public HIV test

3 - KENYA: HIV/AIDS prevalence down to seven percent, says gov't

4 - UGANDA: US awards grant for AIDS and TB research

1 - AFRICA: UN highlights gender-based violence and AIDS treatment

JOHANNESBURG, 1 December (PLUSNEWS) - On World AIDS Day the UN has

highlighted the importance of treatment, as well as the need to address

violence against women and girls, as an integral part of the global AIDS

response.

Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr LEE Jong-wook, said

it was important that countries set their own national targets to ensure

equitable access for women and girls to prevention and treatment services.

" The targets must match the proportion of men, women and children who are

living with HIV/AIDS and in need of treatment, " Jong-wook said in a

statement.

Although 47 percent of people infected with HIV around the world are women

and girls, there is no reliable information on how many have access to

anti-AIDS treatment.

UNAIDS chief Piot stressed that violence against women should not be

tolerated at any level.

" The fear of violence prevents many women from accessing HIV information;

from getting testing and seeking treatment. If we want to get ahead of the

epidemic we must put women at the heart of the AIDS response, " he said.

It is estimated that between one in three and one in five of the world's

women have been physically and sexually assaulted by intimate partners in

their lifetime.

Studies from Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania show up to three-fold

increases in the risk of HIV among women who have experienced violence,

compared to those who have not.

The UN warned that unless women and girls became the key focus of

prevention, treatment and care programmes, addressing the HIV/AIDS

pandemic would remain a considerable challenge in large parts of the

world.

[ENDS]

2 - ETHIOPIA: Prime minister's wife takes public HIV test

ADDIS ABABA, 1 December (PLUSNEWS) - The Ethiopian prime minister’s wife

became one of the few high-profile figures in the country to take a public

HIV test on Tuesday.

Azeb Mesfin, 38, joined seven female ambassadors to take the test to mark

World AIDS Day and urged others to be tested and " know their status " .

" I would encourage others to follow our example and find out their

status, " the mother of three said after her test at Zewditu Memorial

Hospital in Addis Ababa, currently Ethiopia’s largest HIV/AIDS treatment

centre.

She is spearheading a campaign in the country to raise awareness, as part

of the National Coalition of Women Against HIV/AIDS, a group of

high-profile women including senior government ministers. Azeb added that

her husband, Meles Zenawi, had taken a test.

Voluntary counselling and testing is seen as a critical weapon in the

fight against the epidemic. Still, few Ethiopians have the opportunity to

be tested, as there are only a handful of centres around the country.

Currently, some 9,000 Ethiopians receive antiretroviral treatment. The

government hopes to expand that number to almost 50,000 by next year.

Azeb joined Mulu Ketsala, state minister for finance and economy, as well

as US Ambassador Aurelia Brazeal in taking the test.

" HIV/AIDS is of special concern to women and especially to African women, "

the American ambassador said. " When it comes to HIV/AIDS, knowledge is

power. Knowing how the disease is transmitted, how transmission can be

prevented, how it can be treated and how best to help those living with

the virus are all key pieces of information that each of us needs to

have. "

Ambassador Brazeal said the results of their tests would not be released

as testing should remain " safe, simple and confidential " .

According to recently revised figures released by the government, some 1.5

million people are estimated to be HIV-positive. The prevalence rate in

rural areas is a little over two percent, while in urban areas some 12

percent are infected. Roughly one million children have also been

orphaned, according to the government's HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control

Office.

[ENDS]

3 - KENYA: HIV/AIDS prevalence down to seven percent, says gov't

NAIROBI, 1 December (PLUSNEWS) - The national HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in

Kenya has dropped from 14 percent four years ago to about seven percent

and the level of public awareness of the disease has risen to an estimated

90 percent across the country, the government said on Wednesday.

" HIV/AIDS is now an established epidemic in Kenya, " a statement issued by

the Ministry of Health to mark World AIDS Day 2004, said. " It is a

declared national disaster and all efforts are being directed to evoking

the necessary response to containing it. "

About 10 percent of reported HIV/AIDS cases, the statement noted, occurred

in children five years of age or under, mostly due to mother-child

transmission of HIV. Some 200,000 infants and children were living with

the virus across the country, it added.

As part of national efforts to contain the epidemic, Kenya has set up

national institutions and local committees in communities, and is working

on a new strategic plan for 2006-2010 to continue the fight against

HIV/AIDS, especially among women and girls.

" In Kenya, the number of infected women is twice that of men, " Prof Miriam

Were, chairperson of the National AIDS Control Council said in a separate

statement. " To make it worse, in the group aged 15 to 24 years, the number

of infected young women is four times that of young men. "

In September, Kenya announced that a local pharmaceutical company would

soon start manufacturing and selling generic versions of antiretroviral

(ARV) medication in a move to make the drugs considerably cheaper for

HIV-positive people across the East African region.

An international pharmaceutical firm, GlaxoKline (GSK), said it had

licensed Cosmos Pharmaceuticals Limited to make ARVs containing Zidovudine

and Lamivudine. The medicines would be marketed in Kenya, Tanzania,

Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. GSK holds patents on both drugs.

Cosmos would be able to produce generic versions of Zidovudine, currently

sold by GSK as Retrovir, Lamivudine (Epivir) and the combination of the

two drugs known as Combivir. This, the government added, would push the

monthly cost of treatment down from about US $46 to $33.

The government plans to provide ARVs to 181,000 people living with

HIV/AIDS by 2005. The number of beneficiaries would rise to 250,000 by

2010. An estimated 1.5 million Kenyans have died of AIDS-related illnesses

since 1984, while there are roughly 1.8 million orphans in the country.

[ENDS]

4 - UGANDA: US awards grant for AIDS and TB research

KAMPALA, 1 December (PLUSNEWS) - Uganda is one of the four countries to

benefit from a $12 million grant from the US to carry out further HIV/AIDS

and tuberculosis (TB) research and training, the US embassy in the

capital, Kampala, said on World AIDS Day.

" The project will broaden the national capacity to meet the public health

and scientific challenges of the evolving HIV and TB epidemic in Uganda, "

an embassy statement said. " Infrastructure will be developed in Uganda to

translate basic and clinical research findings into public health policy

and interventions and to evaluate their effectiveness. "

A Ugandan researcher, Mugyenyi, of the Joint Clinical Research

Centre in Kampala, will work with researchers from America's Case Western

Reserve University on the research. Other countries benefiting from the

research grant include China, Haiti and Russia.

" These first four sites will provide critically needed training in the

design and conduct of AIDS and TB research, to scale-up promising

interventions as they are brought into health care systems, " the statement

added.

The programme would support collaborative and multidisciplinary research

training in the countries where the two epidemics have taken an enormous

toll on individuals, families and communities.

" This program will play an important role in meeting the training needs in

countries struggling to gain control of the scourge of AIDS, " said Sharon

Hrynkow, acting director of the Fogarty International Center, in the

statement. " These first four sites will provide critically needed training

in the design and conduct of AIDS and TB research to scale-up promising

interventions as they are brought into health care systems. "

Since 1983, a million Ugandans have died from AIDS-related illnesses and

the same number is estimated to be living with the virus. However, due to

an intensive campaign against the epidemic, the country's prevalence

rate - that used to run as high as 30 percent in the early 1990s - has

been brought down to about 6 percent.

[ENDS]

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