BLANTYRE, Dec 12, 2006 (AFP) - Southern African nations Tuesday mulled ways to rope high-risk groups into the fight against HIV/AIDS in the world's worst-affected region as they started a three-day meeting in Malawi.
The meeting will hammer out a "comprehensive strategy on how to accelerate prevention and we are addressing key drivers of the epidemic in terms of prevention," Stephen Sianga, an official from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), told AFP.
"Yes, the problem of sexual workers and gays is there ... why stigmatise this group as our strategy is multi-pronged and we want to cover all risk groups?" said Sianga, who is in charge of social and human development at the SADC secretariat.
Southern Africa is the epicentre of the pandemic accounting for a third of the global HIV infections.
It is also grappling with the heaviest death toll from AIDS. A total of 1.2 million out of the worldwide toll of 2.8 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year in southern Africa.
Roy Hauya, director of policy and programmes at Malawi's National AIDS Commission, told AFP the meeting would also try to come up with a strategy on male circumcision.
"We want to determine what role circumcision can play to accelerate prevention... as a region we are not experienced in programming male circumcision," as a tool to control the spread of HIV, he said.
"There is evidence that in regions where the majority of men are circumcised, HIV infection is lower than in regions where circumcision is not practiced."
Five southern African countries hard-hit by the AIDS pandemic -- Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia -- are in talks with the UN AIDS agency on making circumcision more accessible to men.
The new strategy follows the results of a three-year study in a South African township -- Orange Farm near Johannesburg -- that showed that circumcision reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 60 percent.
Less than 20 percent of men are said to be circumcised in southern Africa where HIV prevalence is the highest.
Malawi's Health Minister Marjorie Ngaunje set the tone for the meeting by saying: "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."
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."
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 percent -- of all people with HIV worldwide lived in the region and 34 percent 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."
SADC groups Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
061212
AF061236
Copyright ©AFP 2006. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, Bridgestone Firestone Trust Fund, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2006. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2006 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
