|
|
|
The year 2003 saw several African governments
rolling out national anti-AIDS drug treatment
programmes, which should significantly improve
access to antiretroviral drugs |
In a dramatic finish to the year, the World
Health Organisation (WHO) unveiled its much
anticipated
‘3 by 5’ plan to treat three million
HIV-positive people by 2005. Government
officials are hoping the WHO target will
strengthen existing treatment initiatives and
accelerate what has been regarded as a slow
response to the pandemic by African countries.
South Africa announced in late 2003 that it
would undertake the world's largest treatment
programme providing anti-AIDS drugs free of
charge in the public sector. A plan to treat up
to 10 000 people is currently underway in Zambia
and "around 7,000 people are receiving the
drugs," in nine provincial centres throughout
the country the Minister of Health,
told IRIN, the UN information network.
Meanwhile, since the Namibian government kicked
off its treatment campaign at a few pilot sites
in 2003 the drugs have become available at a
growing number of regional and district
hospitals. Malawi also unveiled plans to provide
ARV treatment to as many as 50 000 people, using
a grant from the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria to provide medication
free of charge at public hospitals and clinics.
Botswana and Zimbabwe have also announced
similar programmes during the course of 2003.
International developments have heightened
expectations across the continent. The Clinton
Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative secured a deal
with generic drug firms to reduce the cost of
commonly used triple-drug regimens to US $0.38
per patient per day. The deal will cut by half
the cost of the ARV drug Nevirapine – used to
prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV –
for people in developing countries. By 2008 the
Foundation intends to provide ARVs to as many as
two million people in Rwanda, South Africa,
Mozambique, Tanzania and the Caribbean. But with
limited resources and the ever-increasing
problem of health care workers migrating to
developed countries it remains to be seen how
countries will cope with the lack of manpower.
Adequate nutrition and positive living have also
been recognised as crucial to the success of any
ARV drug regimen and national programmes will
need to address these issues in their rollout.
Experts pointed out that the region's drought
and food shortages, currently affecting more
than 6.5 million people, would make this more
difficult.
The year 2004 began with a small but significant
contribution to the fight against AIDS. Japan
has made a US$ 2.15 million grant to help
Zimbabwe and Swaziland prevent the disease from
spreading amongst their youth. The money, which
will be channelled through the UN Children's
Fund (UNICEF), is to be split between the two
southern African countries. In Zimbabwe the
grant will be used to help prolong the lives of
children living with HIV/AIDS. It will also be
used for seminars to increase awareness of the
disease among young people, according to a
statement from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Swaziland, where a third of the
population is infected with HIV, will use its
portion of the funds for a project to prevent
HIV transmission from mothers to infants.
Nearly 30 million of the 42 million people
infected with HIV worldwide are in Africa, and
many of them are young people who face a bleak
future. AIDS' activists told The Standard
newspaper in Bulawayo that children, because of
their vulnerability, are more exposed to the
effects of the scourge, which is decimating
Zimbabwe's population. According to statistics
one in every three people in Zimbabwe is living
with the HIV virus and over 3 800 people are
dying every week. In addition to the trauma of
witnessing the devastating effect of the disease
on their parents, children become "poorer and
less healthy" than non-orphans, psychologists
say. In most cases, because of their
vulnerability, affected children are likely to
suffer permanent damage to their cognitive and
emotional development. This is particularly the
case in the rural areas. Although statistics
indicate that extended families have assumed
responsibility for more than 90% of AIDS orphans
this traditional support system is fast caving
in under severe pressure as the economic
meltdown continues. The extended family used to
be an intricate and resilient system of social
security that responded quickly to family
members' needs.
The Child Protection Society (CPS)
advocacy manager said that children are being
deprived of their basic rights as a result of
the HIV/AIDS pandemic. At a regional level, the
problem is equally bad. Presently, more than 11
million children in sub-Saharan Africa have been
robbed of one or both parents by HIV/AIDS.
"Tragically, the number of orphans in
sub-Saharan Africa will continue to rise in the
years ahead, due to the high proportion of
sub-Saharan Africa adults already living with
HIV/AIDS and the continuing difficulties in
expanding access to life-prolonging
antiretroviral drugs," the UNICEF report
Africa's Orphaned Generations states. By 2010
AIDS will have robbed about
20 million children
under the age of 15 in the region of one or both
parents, nearly twice the number orphaned in the
same age group in 2001. Tragically, the largest
increases
will be in countries with the highest
HIV infection rates such as Botswana, Swaziland
and Zimbabwe.
Preventing mother to child transmission of
HIV/AIDS has been identified as one of the
greatest challenges facing African nations
according to the former chairman of the
National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA) stated.
According to the professor who is a former
special adviser to the president of the United
States on HIV/AIDS, one out of every three
children born to an HIV positive woman is
infected with the virus. She noted that over
half of the estimated
25 to 28.2 million
Africans infected with the virus are women,
adding that about 11 million African children
under the age of 15 have been orphaned by the
disease. She said that about 2.2 million
children under the age of 15 had died due to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic.
If current trends continue half a million
African youths aged 15 to 24 will die from AIDS
related illnesses by the year 2005. That is the
view of Pathfinder International, a Nairobi
based non-governmental organisation, which deals
with reproductive health issues. "Without
intervention, experts predict that over 85
million people will be infected worldwide by
2010, with a loss of human life to AIDS
totalling 100 million by 2020," says the Global AIDS coordinator for the United States,
in a document made available to the Inter Press
Service News Agency (IPS). During 2002 alone 3
million people died from AIDS complications. In
the same period 5 million people were infected.
The US official is leading a five-year, US $15
billion initiative to provide treatment to at
least 2 million HIV positive people. The
programme acknowledges the importance of
focusing on children and will assist an
estimated 11 million children orphaned by AIDS
in sub-Saharan Africa.
In Botswana, which has one of the highest
HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rates in the world,
the government is developing and implementing
gender-sensitive HIV prevention strategies.
These include training school teachers in how to
run gender-sensitive clubs for making young
people aware of AIDS. There are plans to prepare
girls and boys
aged 6 to 12 as peer facilitators
in the clubs. In Namibia, students aged 14 to 21
are being prepared to educate their peers in
ways to protect themselves from pregnancy,
HIV
infection, abuse and rape. |
|
|
|
Strengthen treatment and awareness initiatives in
Africa. BBC |
|
|
|
|
|
