InterPress News Service (IPS); 21 April 1997
Edmond Toka

Though governments set aside money for anti-AIDS campaigns in their annual budgets, some fail to deliver the amounts they allocate. In other places where the core of the projects are funded by foreign organisations, external shocks sometimes force the agencies to reduce funding and in some cases, stop the handouts.

In Solomon Islands, a country of 400,000 people which officially recorded its first ever HIV case in 1995, most of the funds for the awareness campaign is provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Since 1988, the WHO has been providing the island nation with 15,000 US dollars annually to carry out its campaign. But last year, funding stopped and there is no clear indication whether the assistance will resume in 1997.

"As a result, our World AIDS Day campaign was scaled down to only one radio talkback show" says George Clay, former Health Educator at the Ministry of Health in Honiara.

The WHO, from 1988 to the end of 1995, contributed about 175,000 US dollars to Vanuatu's national campaign and 3.0 million US dollars for 1996-97 period.

This slight increase is reflected in the shift of the core funding from WHO to UNAIDS - with funding pooled from six United Nations agencies namely the UN Fund for Population Activity, UN Chidrens' Fund, UN Development Programme, World Bank, World Health Week and UNESCO.

The government does not provide any cash contributions but pays the salaries of a coordinator and an assistant programme manager for the AIDS/STD unit in the department of health.

It is hoped that funds for the UNAIDS-managed project will be well utilised and benefit a wider range of sectors as opposed to when it was handled by WHO for health purposes only.

"AIDS is no longer a health problem alone" says Katie Kaun, assistant programme manager at National AIDS/STD Prevention Programme here. "It has now become both a social and economic problem which requires the participation of everyone in all sectors of the economy to campaign against its prevalence."

Churches in Soloman Islands together with NGOs such as the Soloman Islands Planned Parenthood Association and the Soloman Islands Development Trust have been very active in the campaign, especially after the country's first HIV case was reported.

Clay says NGOs are targetting various audiences in the communities through workshops, video shows and educational talks.

"Too often young girls get pregnant because they take sex for granted - sex for fun" says Blandine Boulekone, executive director of the Vanuatu Family Health Association.

She adds that in her visits throughout the islands, she discovered that the subject of sex was met with shyness whenever it is discussed in public fora. "Understandably, this is because of the cultural taboos tied to the subject and the fact that parents don't feel comfortable discussing the matter around the dining table" she says.

"But, I have always told them that one of these days you will have to decide between the cultural taboos which will lead your daughters to make the mistake many had made before and discussing the subject to enforce respect for their bodies".

World Vision International (WVI) encounters similar difficulties in its literacy classes in the outer islands. "People are not open when it comes to discussing issues that relate to sex," recalls Simon Boe, WVI Programme Manager.

Despite the difficultuies, the head of the AIDS/STD unit at the department of health, Myriam Abel, commended the NGOs for their efforts in trying to maintain Vanuatu's status as an AIDS-free country -- no matter how short.

The high number of STD cases in Vanuatu at present clouds its chances of remaining totally free from AIDS or HIV. Last October, 39 people between the 18 and 49 were admitted to the Vila Central Hospital with gonorrhea. And each month around 33 people are treated with gonorrhea in hospitals and clinics in the capital, Port Vila, authorities say.

"With this record, how can I forever claim that Vanuatu is free from AIDS?" asks Abel. "Maybe as I talk, someone is carrying the virus." But because the disease shows no immediate symptoms, she predicts Vanuatu will offically record its first AIDS case in three to five years.

To prevent the disease from spreading, Abel says, people should change their sexual behaviour and practice safe sex and "stick to one partner".

The Manila-based WHO says an estimated 250,000 people in the Western Pacific region are infected with HIV, 11,000 of them AIDS cases.

The success of any campaign to prevent the disease from spreading will hinge on the ability of both the government and the private sector to pool resources and efforts. (END/IPS/AP- HE/ET/RAL/97)

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