Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 12/3/2004

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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 - ANGOLA: HIV infection rate for pregnant women at 2.8 percent

2 - GUINEA-BISSAU: Brazil to sponsor first ARV treatment programme

3 - MAURITANIA: Nouakchott gets its first HIV/AIDS test and treatment

centre

1 - ANGOLA: HIV infection rate for pregnant women at 2.8 percent

LUANDA, 3 December (PLUSNEWS) - The rate of HIV infection among pregnant

women in Angola is 2.8 percent, half earlier estimates, according to a new

national study.

A health ministry report covering all of Angola's 18 provinces found that

the highest HIV rates were in southern Cunene (9 percent) and Cuando

Cubango (4 percent), which border Namibia.

" The provinces neighbouring [on] countries with high prevalence, like

Namibia ... have the highest rates of seroprevalence, and inland provinces

that have been more protected by the effect of war have lower figures of

prevalence, " vice minister of health, Van Dunem, said at the launch

of the 2004 National Study of Seroprevalence in Pregnant Women.

At the other end of the scale were the coastal province of Kuanza Sul and

central Bie, both with 0.7 percent prevalence, and Benguela with 0.9

percent. In Luanda province, which takes in the capital of Angola, the

prevalence rate was an estimated 3.2 percent.

The study offered the newest official data to be released on the spread of

the epidemic since 2002, which estimated the rate of infection at 5.5

percent.

" It's very good news but we cannot relax - we have to continue with

prevention, voluntary counselling and testing, " World Health Organisation

spokesman Caetano told PlusNews.

Van Dunem also warned against an over-optimistic interpretation of the

figures, saying they should only be regarded as " a baseline " .

He noted that Angola had a window of opportunity in which it could fight

the spread of the epidemic that has wreaked devastation in other countries

in the region.

" We must use this opportunity we have properly. The world is looking at

us - and I think that, ... [just] as we have been able to achieve peace,

we will also be able to win the fight against AIDS, " he said.

Around a million people died in Angola's 27-year civil war and millions

more were displaced, either internally or fleeing to neighbouring

countries. Health officials say that, paradoxically, the conflict probably

helped control the spread of HIV because it restricted the movement of

people. But with the end of the war in 2002, people are once again free to

move around the country, which could cause a rise in infections.

" We have no choice, we must all - government, civil society, church, mass

media, people living with AIDS - everybody must join in this effort to

shift the trend of this epidemic, " said Van Dunem.

He added that people already infected with the virus could receive free

antiretroviral therapy from the government.

" It is for everybody, free of charge. We can't forget that we have more

than sixty percent of the population living below the poverty line, so we

couldn't adopt a different policy, " he said.

Although HIV-positive people seeking treatment currently had to come to

Luanda, plans were afoot to open three new centres: in Huila province for

southern Angola, Huambo for the centre and Malanje for the north and east

of the country.

" We don't have enough laboratory support; we don't have enough

technicians, so we must use properly the few resources we have, with some

rationality in order to cover the whole country, " Van Dunem said.

[ENDS]

2 - GUINEA-BISSAU: Brazil to sponsor first ARV treatment programme

BISSAU, 3 December (PLUSNEWS) - Brazil will start supplying Guinea-Bissau

with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to launch its first treatment programme

for HIV-positive people in the first quarter of 2005, Health Minister

Odete Costa Semedo has announced.

Speaking during World AIDS day in the central town of Bafata, 110 km east

of the capital, Bissau, she said doctors and nurses from two hospitals

would first be sent to Brazil for training on how to administer the

medication.

Costa Semedo, who visited Brazil in September, said the ARV programme

would be administered through the new Sant Egidio/Raoul Follereau hospital

in the capital, and Cumura hospital, 10 km outside the city.

Until now, people seeking ARV treatment in this small West African country

have been forced to travel to neighbouring Senegal.

The health minister gave no details of how many people would be treated in

the first phase of the programme, or how much patients would be charged

for the drugs.

A sentinel survey of pregnant women who voluntarily underwent HIV testing

at antenatal clinics in 2003 estimated that four percent of the adult

population of Guinea-Bissau were living with the HI virus. At 5.9 percent,

Costa Semedo said, the prevalence rate was highest in Bafata.

The health ministry estimated there were now 42,800 HIV-positive people in

the country, and between 25 and 40 people were being infected each day.

Although HIV prevalence rate in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3

million people shot up after a brief but bloody civil war in 1998-99,

public discussion of the disease remains taboo.

Condom usage is low, prompting Costa Semedo to remark that there were more

than 190,000 sexually active people in the country, who never used the

prevention method.

No well-known personalities in Guinea-Bissau have ever admitted to being

HIV positive and there is no association of people living with HIV/AIDS in

the country.

However, two NGOs, ALTERNAG, which is locally based, and Ceus e Terras

(Skies and Lands) an Italian charity, both help people living with the

virus.

The government launched a three-year plan to fight AIDS in July after

receiving US $19 million from the World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight

AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

[ENDS]

3 - MAURITANIA: Nouakchott gets its first HIV/AIDS test and treatment

centre

NOUAKCHOTT, 3 December (PLUSNEWS) - Mauritania opened its first HIV/AIDs

testing and treatment centre this week in the hope of improving early

detection of the disease in this staunchly Islamic desert state where

public discussion of AIDS has long been restrained by social taboos.

Run by the French Red Cross, the new day care centre in the capital

Nouakchott will offer HIV tests as well as treatment for those living with

AIDS. The outpatient clinic will offer HIV-positive people free medical,

psychologicial and welfare help as well as nutrition, all in the same

place.

" Now that we have the centre and the drugs required, doctors are going to

do their best to produce early diagnoses, " Abderrahmane ould Mohamedoune,

who is the head doctor of the day care centre told IRIN. " A few months

back some doctors were reluctant to test patients because there was no

medicine available. "

The new centre will be manned by three Mauritanian doctors trained by the

French Red Cross as well as a chemist, a biologist and a nurse. It will

have a total staff of 15 and will offer seven day care beds.

The treatment centre is one of 10 outpatient clinics for people living

with AIDS being established by the French Red Cross throughout sub-Saharan

Africa.

The official HIV prevalence rate is extremely low in Mauritania - just

0.57 percent, compared to a West African average of around five percent.

But given people's reluctance to talk openly about the disease, AIDS

workers in the country suspect the real rate of infection is much higher.

Furthermore, this poor arid nation of 2.8 million people is looking

forward to an economic boom when oil, copper and gold exports start

flowing next year. And there are fears that the social changes this will

bring to a country that until recently consisted mainly of desert nomads,

may provoke a sharp rise in the spread of HIV.

" The problem must be tackled at its root as soon as there are warnings

that the epidemic might spread, " Marc Gentilini, the president of the

French Red Cross, told IRIN at the inauguration of the new day centre.

" Now is the best moment to attack the virus, " he added. " It was a very

good move for Mauritania, which has been even less affected than Senegal,

to commit now to resolutely fighting the epidemic. "

Senegal, which borders Mauritania to the south, launched a free AIDS

prevention and care programme several years ago that has had a

considerable impact in curbing the spread of the pandemic. It is widely

regarded as one of the best and most enlightened HIV/AIDS programmes in

Africa.

In 2003, around one percent of the population of Senegal, a mainly Muslim

country like Mauritania, was infected with HIV.

Houssein ould Sid’Ahmed, who runs an NGO called Espoir et Vie (Hope and

Life), said many Mauritanians living with HIV/AIDS crossed the border for

tests and treatment in order to escape from social discrimination directed

against them in Mauritania.

The opening of the new outpatient treatment centre in Nouakchott was " a

dream I can barely believe, " he said.

Visitors will be offered pre- and post-testing counseling. People testing

positive will be offered free treatment and follow-up tests as well as

psychological and nutritional support from the medical team.

" The outpatient treatment centre will enable us to hand out drugs in good

conditions, avoid prescription mistakes and make sure that no

HIV-resistant strains emerge because drugs have been prescribed in just

any old way, " Gentilini said.

Medical staff at the centre told IRIN that its opening should encourage

more people living with HIV/AIDS who, until now, were too ashamed to seek

help, or who were too poor to pay for treatment, to come forward.

Although the World Bank agreed to fund a US $20-million AIDS programme in

Mauritania in July 2003, the country still has only two testing centres,

one in the capital Nouakchott and the other in Kiffa, a large town in the

south.

World Bank money will be used to help finance the new outpatient treatment

centre in Nouakchott.

" Even though there are not many people undergoing treatment for HIV/AIDS

in Mauritania, it is absolutely necessary to increase the amount of drugs

on offer, " Gentilini said.

Around 50 patients began receiving antriretroviral (ARV) treatment free of

charge following a first delivery of ARV drugs in June 2003. A further 39

people living with AIDS have been put on ARV treatment in Nouakchott since

then. These specialist drugs improve the health of people living with AIDS

and prolong their lives, but cannot cure them.

Ould Mohamedoune told IRIN that 300 people living with HIV/AIDS had been

registered as living with AIDS in Mauritania, of whom 138 lived in the

capital. Their files had been handed to the new day care centre, he added.

Up until now, Espoir et Vie and another local NGO, Stop Sida, had been

administering ARV treatment as well as they could. They brought a

specialist doctor in from Senegal to hold a two-day clinic every month,

but he was unable to cope with the demand.

" It was very difficult for the sick to have to turn up with 100 people and

line up for hours to see a doctor in the office of an NGO, " said ould

Mohamedoune. " From now on their lives are going to change. "

Gentilini said a lack of proper care facilities and problems in

distributing drugs were the main problems faced by medical staff and

carers helping people living with HIV/AIDS in Mauritania, not a lack of

money.

" There are sufficient funds, " he said. " What's lacking in Africa are

facilities to look after the ill, to give them continued care, to evaluate

results. There are not enough facilities capable of providing proper

long-term care. "

[ENDS]

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