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headline[currentCount] = new headline ("58634","1","HIV / AIDS Daily Report","HIV Prevention Efforts in Five African Countries Not Reaching At-Risk Groups, Report Says","National HIV prevention strategies in at least five African countries are not reaching the groups most at risk of infection, according to a report from UNAIDS and the World Bank conducted in conjunction with the national HIV/AIDS authorities of Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland and Uganda, IRIN/PlusNews reports. The study was conducted between 2007 and 2008 to determine how and where most HIV cases were occurring in each country. It also aimed to examine whether prevention programs and spending aligned with those findings.
According to the report, most prevention initiatives are not based on evidence of the behaviors that spread HIV in the five surveyed countries. For example, most new infections in Lesotho occur because of concurrent sexual partnerships, both before and after marriage. However, the country does not have any prevention strategies aimed at concurrent partnerships, or couples who are married or in long-term relationships.
In addition, the report found that in Mozambique, an estimated 19% of new HIV infections were spread through commercial sex work, 3% from injection drug use and 5% among men who have sex with men. According to the report, few programs in the country target sex workers, while none are tailored to IDUs or MSM.
According to the report, spending on HIV prevention often is low in the surveyed countries. Lesotho spends 13% of its national HIV/AIDS budget on prevention, while Uganda spends 34%. Director of the World Bank\'s Global HIV/AIDS Unit Debrework Zewdie said that the economic downturn makes it important to maximize the impact of HIV prevention investments. \"These syntheses use the growing amounts of data and information available to better understand each country\'s epidemic and response and identify how prevention might be more effective,\" she said.
The report includes recommendations on how the surveyed countries can better implement evidence-based prevention efforts. It said that Lesotho should revise its prevention messages to address multiple concurrent partnerships and integrate the subject into future initiatives. In addition, Mozambique should focus condom promotion on groups such as sex workers, the report said. According to IRIN/PlusNews, the five-country program aims to enhance capacity to ensure that the countries can conduct similar studies in the future (IRIN/PlusNews, 5/27).
![\"Online\"](\"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/images/paper_icon.gif\")
The report is available online. ","2009-05-29 00:00:00","May 29, 2009","2");
currentCount = 2;
headline[currentCount] = new headline ("58635","1","HIV / AIDS Daily Report","Report Estimates Significant Impact of Widespread Circumcision Effort in Botswana","Botswana\'s campaign to circumcise about 500,000 men by 2012 will prevent nearly 70,000 new HIV cases by 2025, according to a report published Thursday in the Journal of the International AIDS Society, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. The government\'s national campaign aims to circumcise 460,000 men over the next five years, and the country has begun airing television and radio advertisements to encourage men to be circumcised at local clinics. \"Scaling up safe male circumcision has the potential to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS in Botswana significantly,\" according to the study.
The report puts the estimated cost of the circumcision campaign at about $47 million. A UNAIDS report estimates that the HIV prevalence among pregnant women in Botswana was 43% in 2003, the year that antiretroviral drug access was introduced in the country (AFP/Yahoo! News, 5/28).
An abstract of the study is available online. ","2009-05-29 00:00:00","May 29, 2009","3");
currentCount = 3;
headline[currentCount] = new headline ("58616","1","HIV / AIDS Daily Report","About 75% of People in Rwanda Who Have Experienced Discrimination Are HIV-Positive, Survey Finds","A recently released survey on stigma in Rwanda indicates that at least 74% of people in various segments of society who have experienced discrimination are HIV-positive, the New Times/AllAfrica.com reports. The discrimination often is in the form of isolation from family and physical harassment, according to the survey.
The study was conducted by the Association of Vulnerable Widows Infected and Affected by HIV and AIDS in conjunction with the Network of People Living with HIV and UNAIDS Rwanda. It found that although 87% of respondents reported never having been denied health services, 88% reported being denied other social services, such as family planning, because of their HIV status. An estimated one-third of respondents reported that their rights had been abused because of their HIV-positive status.
Chantal Nyiramanyana, AVVAIS president, said, \"We conducted this survey as a way of providing basis for advocacy, policy change, and programmatic interventions by the government and other interested bodies to address stigma and discrimination related to HIV.\" The survey found that other groups experiencing stigma in the country include commercial sex workers and asylum seekers (Kwizera, New Times/AllAfrica.com, 5/27). ","2009-05-28 00:00:00","May 28, 2009","3");
currentCount = 4;
headline[currentCount] = new headline ("58618","1","HIV / AIDS Daily Report","Fishing Industry Contributing to Spread of HIV Around Africa\'s Lake Victoria","The fishing industry and some cultural practices in communities living around Africa\'s Lake Victoria are contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections in the area, according to a panel of experts at a recent meeting in Kisumu, Kenya, The Citizen reports. According to the panel, cultural practices such as widow inheritance, commercial sex work for fish and the long-distance trucking industry have led to the spread of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS prevalence among women and people who live along the beaches of the lake is particularly high, the meeting participants noted.
The four-day meeting was held by the Lake Victoria Basin Commission and involved members of the East African Community and other officials. Meeting delegates were taken to cross-border control posts along the Kenya-Uganda border to interact with people living with HIV/AIDS, commercial sex workers, long-distance truck drivers and district government officials. Doreen Othero, HIV/AIDS technical specialist at the LVBC Secretariat, said that the group \"managed to bring together organizations working in HIV/AIDS along transport corridors to share information, improve coordination and build synergy among the various programs so as to have maximum impact on the corridors\' most at risk populations.\"
Jean Claude Nsengiyumva, EAC deputy secretary general in charge of productive and social sectors, said that the fight against HIV/AIDS will be successful through a coordinated and collaborative effort among all stakeholders. He said that EAC has introduced a four-year Regional Multisectorial HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan, ending in 2012, that aims to address HIV/AIDS in the region. The region also is undergoing efforts to create more collaboration between regional, international and multisectorial organizations that have projects for HIV/AIDS education, care, treatment and testing. Othero said there are more than four million HIV-positive people and more than 3.5 million orphans and vulnerable children in EAC partner states (The Citizen, 5/27). ","2009-05-28 00:00:00","May 28, 2009","5");
currentCount = 5;
headline[currentCount] = new headline ("58596","1","HIV / AIDS Daily Report","Advocates at Kenya Conference Explore New Strategies To Combat HIV/AIDS in Africa","Nearly 30 years after the emergence of HIV/AIDS, the global health community must develop new strategies to curb the spread of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, some experts said Tuesday ahead of the Global Citizens Summit for Social Mobilization to End AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya, AFP/Google.com reports. The advocates also stressed the need for innovative approaches to health financing as international donors shift their attention toward other issues and as the ongoing economic downturn threatens fundraising prospects. The conference, which opens Wednesday, includes participants from 32 countries, primarily in Africa.
According to Wasai Jacob Nanjakululu of Oxfam, about 90% of HIV-positive people are unaware of their status and 70% of people in need of treatment are not accessing medical care. Leonard Okello, an HIV/AIDS specialist with ActionAid International, added that the global health community is \"far from winning the struggle against\" HIV/AIDS. Okello said the conference will examine the shortcomings of earlier HIV/AIDS policies and explore new methods to address the disease. \"There are a lot of resources in HIV/AIDS programs but not much of that reaches the community,\" Okello said, asking, \"What is it that we should radically change?\" (AFP/Google.com, 5/26). According to IRIN/PlusNews, conference participants also plan to discuss \"people-centered\" approaches to combating HIV/AIDS at the Nairobi meeting.\r\rActionAid Report Calls For Improvements in Basic Health Care To Address HIV/AIDS\r
\rIn related news, ActionAid ahead of the Nairobi conference released a report calling for countries to scale up local health care capacity in order to effectively address HIV/AIDS. According to the report, titled \"Primary Concern: Why Primary Health Care is Key to Tackling HIV and AIDS,\" equipping local health centers with more resources is the best way to tackle HIV/AIDS. Advocates at the report\'s launch in Nairobi also called for governments to expand access to primary health care by establishing more clinics and improving existing centers.
Linda Mafu, Africa regional coordinator for the World AIDS Campaign, said, \"Health centers need to be spread out and properly equipped, so they have the capacity to deal not only with HIV, but with other diseases that affect the population.\" Mafu added that this could help ease transportation burdens and delays from long waits to visit health centers. Okello added that health officials should train primary health care workers on \"the skills to integrate HIV management into their other work.\"
Although an efficient public health sector could provide HIV/AIDS services, the private sector and nongovernmental organizations might need to support health systems for the foreseeable future, the report said. According to the report, many populations such as commercial sex workers choose to \"opt out of the public health system,\" and delays in implementing HIV programs and strengthening health systems could \"lead to higher numbers of AIDS-related deaths\" (IRIN/PlusNews, 5/27).
The ActionAid report is available online. ","2009-05-27 00:00:00","May 27, 2009","2");
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