gays roped in to fight aids?

Source: News24/ AFP

December 13, 2006: Southern African countries on Tuesday began a three-day meeting to look at how sex workers and homosexuals could be roped in to fight HIV/Aids in the world's worst affected region.

"To make advances in prevention, we must begin to tackle honestly the difficult questions that the epidemic raises ... addressing positively the needs of sex workers and of men who have sex with men," Malawi's health minister Marjorie Ngaunje said.

She said the fight against HIV/Aids "will take a better turn if we stop doing business as usual ... we must address the real drivers of the epidemic and target groups that are most vulnerable".

Ngaunje, speaking at the opening of the third annual forum of national Aids authorities from the 14 member nations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said southern Africa needed to break the silence on the most vulnerable group.

The host minister told AFP outside the meeting: "Let's be open and start talking about prostitutes and homosexuals because it's only South Africa among the SADC states that recognises homosexuals.

"These issues are a strange phenomenon in most countries ... prostitution is not officially accepted in Malawi and other countries but the truth is that it happens and let's open up and we need to start talking about these issues."

Vulnerable populations

Omotayo Olaniyan, African Union regional delegate to the SADC, told the meeting that poor provision of services for sex workers and drug users had allowed HIV to take root in society's most vulnerable populations.

Olaniyan said young people and women were also vulnerable to infection due to poverty and their lack of control over their sex lives in male-dominated societies.

"These are the heart of the acceleration of the spread of HIV," Olaniyan said.

He said southern Africa was the "epicentre" of the pandemic, since one third - or 32% - of all people with HIV worldwide lived in the region and 34% of all deaths arising from Aids in 2006 occurred in southern Africa.

"You will agree with me that these are not acceptable developments...it is a well known fact that we are not yet winning the war against HIV and Aids."

A 2006 report by UNAids shows that 63% of all adults and children with HIV live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the report, adults and children newly infected with the virus rose to 2.8 million in 2006 from 2.4 million in 2004.

The meeting will also tackle the burning issue of whether male circumcision helps prevent the spread of HIV.

SADC groups Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.