Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 9/5/2005

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CONTENT:

1 - ZAMBIA: Agencies step in to address HIV/AIDS in prisons

1 - ZAMBIA: Agencies step in to address HIV/AIDS in prisons

LUSAKA, 5 September (PLUSNEWS) - Prison walls have not insulated inmates from

the effects of Zambia's HIV/AIDS pandemic, aid workers warn.

Prisoners are rendered vulnerable due to overcrowding, poor nutrition, limited

access to healthcare, injecting drug use, unsafe sex and tattooing, according to

government officials and NGOs.

According to the Zambia Prisons Service (ZPS), last year about 450 inmates in

the 52 prisons across the country died from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses.

In response, government agencies and NGOs have been implementing programmes to

prevent and address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its most prevalent opportunistic

disease, tuberculosis (TB).

ZPS deputy-director of international relations and corporate affairs, Doreen

Ngoma, cited HIV/AIDS, which has claimed the lives of both officers and inmates,

as one of the major problems the service has had to deal with in recent times.

She pointed out that some inmates were already infected with HIV at the time of

their conviction and the service had to take responsibility for providing them

with healthcare.

Having identified the challenges and problems posed by the pandemic, the ZPS was

developing an HIV/AIDS policy with a range of prevention measures to address the

pandemic among inmates, officers and their families, and working with a number

of stakeholders to sensitise prisoners to the dangers of HIV/AIDS, Ngoma said.

A project run in collaboration with the Copperbelt University (CBU) clinic has

paid some dividends: the 'In But Free' (IBF) programme, which implies that

prisoners can be in jail but free from disease, provides inmates with

information on how to protect themselves.

'In But Free' teaches prisoners to avoid contracting the disease by not sharing

razor blades, and about the dangers of sexual intercourse. " They are also taught

how to live positively if they are already infected, " Ngoma noted.

Some officials have also been trained to provide psychosocial counseling, and

inmates have enrolled as peer educators to disseminate information on HIV/AIDS.

The Community Responses to HIV/AIDS (CRAIDS), a component of the Zambia National

Response to HIV/AIDS, recently launched a primary healthcare project for

prisoners to tackle the pandemic at the Mukobeko Maximum Prisons in Kabwe, the

administrative capital of Zambia's Central Province, about 150 km north of the

capital, Lusaka.

CRAIDS has trained some prison officers and inmates in home-based care, and has

recommended that prisoners should have access to HIV/AIDS education, care and

treatment, and cleaning materials such as bleach.

Central province CRAIDS regional facilitator Julius Kampamba said, " Denying

access to such measures for people in prisons places them at increased HIV

infection, and those living with HIV/AIDS at increased risk of health decline

and coinfection with TB, and death " .

Kampamba observed that to effectively strengthen the health system and services

in prisons, the government should identify more partners who could help with

needed resources to fight HIV/AIDS.

The ZPS and CRAIDS welcomed the government's provision of free ARVs to the

prisoners. Ngoma pointed out that although HIV-positive inmates were accessing

ARVs from government hospitals and clinics, they would be able to get them

through the prison system once the Prisons Health Care Service had been

established and Prisons Act number 16 of 2004 had been amended.

Ngoma said the establishment of the healthcare service would enable the ZPS to

employ its own medical staff to provide much-needed support.

The Prisons Fellowship of Zambia (PFZ), a prisoner rehabilitation programme

operating in 40 jails in the country, recommended that ARVs be provided. " If we

are to combat this scourge effectively, all sections of society must be

targeted. This includes the prisons, " PFZ executive director Bishop Enocent

Silwamba said.

PFZ uses a community-based health approach in providing health information and

medical services to inmates with the help of volunteer care groups, clinical

officers and as peer educators.

The programme has been advocating the isolation of prisoners suffering from

tuberculosis (TB) and the decongestion of penal institutions.

" So far there has been positive cooperation from prison authorities. Kamfinsa

Prison [in Kitwe, Copperbelt Province,] is an example of this cooperation, where

TB patients and those chronically ill are isolated, " said Silwamba.

PFZ also conducts weekly mobile clinics in Copperbelt prisons and has formed

support groups for positive living.

But the programme is against providing condoms to prisoners, to avoid promoting

sodomy. According to Silwamba, " Condoms should be provided to those being

released from prison, who are infected, so they do not transmit to their

spouses. "

[ENDS]

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