InterPress News Service (IPS); Tuesday, 1 April 1997.
Nhial Bol

"In our efforts to minimise the effects of AIDS, we are currently trying to change people's attitudes, but if the people themselves do not want our campaigns, then we have nothing to offer," Dr Osman Mohamed Al Khidier, head of the Health Ministry's National AIDS Committee, told IPS here.

According to Osman, reported AIDS fatalities in Sudan totalled 1,135 in 1996. He said, however, that this figure only accounted for deaths recorded in hospitals and not the many others who died without reporting to medical institutions.

He added that collecting data on HIV/AIDS was a major challenge for his committee.

In its annual report, issued in late March, the Committee estimated that about 14,000 children had become orphans as a result of AIDS. Giving an indication of the rate at which HIV is thought to be spreading in Sudan, the Committee noted that the number of AIDS orphans was expected to jump to 90,000 by the end of 1998.

Osman attributed the spread of AIDS in Sudan to a breakdown in moral standards and to homosexuality, thought to be widely praticed in certains areas, especially in the urban centres.

In its report, his committee noted that a civil war that has been going on in Sudan since 1983 had also contributed to the increased incidence of HIV/AIDS since many women displaced by the conflict were forced to become sex workers so as to survive.

But the committee's efforts to limit the spread of the virus have been hampered by the hostile reactions anti-AIDS campaigners face. Osman said his staff had received several telephone threats.

This was corroborated by a committee member who requested anonymity. "Frankly speaking, they said they would kill us if we launched any AIDS campaigns in the traditional and official media," said the source, who added that he was not supposed to die to save people's lives.

People's attitude to AIDS prevented the committee from preaching awareness in the country, said the committee member. "They want to die without anyone speaking about their death," he added.

Efforts to fight HIV are also compounded by resistance to condom use. Osman himself said condoms were not a solution to the spread of AIDS because people continue to die in the West and in some African countries even though condoms are being used there.

Moreover, he added, many people in Sudan do not understand what they need to protect themselves against.

"Our problem is we cannot talk of condoms now because people have not yet heard of AIDS," he said. "Secondary school students do not know what AIDS is. AIDS was included in the 1996 secondary examinations but the students failed to explain it. They confused AIDS with aid and relief food. Do you think such people will dream of condoms?"

"We have condoms in our office for sale but no one comes to buy them," he added.

According to Osman, AIDS has to be fought from a religious and moral perspective. "We are not living in the same world (as the West)," he said. "Our world is based on moral and religious beliefs."

Yet another factor is hampering the struggle against HIV/AIDS, says Dr Ahmed Al Tagani of the National Laboratory, which conducts HIV tests. "With our meagre labour force, we have been unable to diagnose some of the AIDS cases," he explained.

However, the work the laboratory has done so far has led him to conclude that "it is true that Sudan is becoming an AIDS zone because AIDS is coming in from Eastern and Central Africa and we also export it through our people's movements to those countries that have links with Sudan."

He added that according to figures quoted by the National AIDS Programme -- made up of representatives of the state and non- governmental organisations -- there were more than 1.5 million HIV carriers in neighbouring countries, mainly Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. "We are worried since AIDS is increasing in those countries," he said.

Mohamed Izza, a medical doctor in the Nile State in Northern Sudan, said his state had registered 2,529 HIV cases in 1996 alone. However, he said only 1.2 percent were Sudanese. The rest were people from other African nations -- mostly from West and East Africa -- who were expelled from the Middle East and North Africa.

Izza said the people expelled had been sent back to Sudan because it was from there that they had illegally entered the North African and Arab Gulf states. (END/IPS/NB/KB/97)

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