Integrated Regional Information Networks - December 5, 2002

"Utilising focus groups, debates, and meetings in markets, streets and bars, we have sensitised on average 150 people each day to the danger HIV/AIDS poses to the individual, the nation and humanity," Souleymane Mohamed, a member of the campaign team, told IRIN on Thursday.

To achieve this, he said, the group launched door-to-door campaigns to inform residents on the need to get vaccinated against polio, but used the opportunity also to inform them about HIV/AIDS. In this way more than 2,000 people were briefed on the dangers of the disease in just over 15 days.

Mohamed added, however, that "we have noticed that there is a lot more to do in terms of educating [the public] on AIDS". Many people, he said, still believed that AIDS did not exist and that they did need not worry about using condoms.

"There should be even more of these grass-roots campaigns to achieve better results," he said.

During the 15-day campaign, financed by the UN Children's Fund, pamphlets on the disease and condoms were distributed. The campaign was launched under the theme "HIV/AIDS, human rights, and the need to fight the stigmatisation linked to the disease".

The Congo National Programme in the Fight against HIV reported the country's prevalence rate as being 7 percent in 2001, thereby including the ROC among the worst-affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa and ranking it third in Central Africa after the Central African Republic (13.8 percent) and Cameroon (7.7 percent). The prevalence rate in 2000 in Brazzaville, was 5 percent, and 14.7 percent in Pointe-Noire, the country-second largest city.

On World AIDS day - commemorated on Sunday - Congolese parliamentarians vowed to engage in the sensitisation campaign against AIDS. They also undertook to ensure that efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS featured in the government's plans and budget, and also to push for laws to protect and promote the rights of people infected by HIV/AIDS.

The parliamentarians called on the government to find urgent solutions to the problems affecting the acquisition of anti-retroviral drugs; to include instruction on HIV/AIDS in school curriculums; to intensify sensitisation efforts targeting young people; and to develop dynamic partnerships with civil society and international organisations promoting associations of people living with HIV/AIDS.

The lawmakers also called on the government to provide the funds needed for drawing up a national plan to fight the disease and to appeal to international bodies to support the plan.

The parliamentarians adopted this stance during a debate organised by the UN Development Programme on 26 November on the role of the legislature in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

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