Panafrican News Agency - December 2, 2001
Deodatus Mfugale, PANA Correspondent

The Government of Tanzania, like many others in sub-Saharan Africa, depends on a small number of highly skilled personnel in almost all areas of public management and key social services.

But with the prevalence of AIDS, Tanzania is losing many of its valuable civil servants, while essential services deteriorate resources come under greater strain.

Among the government departments which are mostly hit by the pandemic are health and education where scores of doctors, nurses and teachers perish every year due to AIDS, badly leaving education and health sectors badly affected in the country.

To a certain degree the government's ability to maintain law and order is being compromised as AIDS disrupts institutions such as the judiciary and the police.

At other fronts, AIDS has affected the rich and the poor, although the poor feel the pinch most.

Almost as soon as the epidemic broke out, governments, individual scientists and NGOs began to plan and implement strategies to combat the disease by initially focussing on how to reduce its rate of infection.

One of the prevention initiatives is the introduction of sex education in primary and secondary schools. Most of the pupils and students in the schools are in the vulnerable group and one of the ways to slow down the rate of AIDS infection among them is through education.

It has been observed that the rate of infection among secondary school students is increasing partly because of lack of knowledge about reproduction and sexuality and also because of lack of access to reproductive health services.

The Tanzania Media Women Association recently launched a programme campaigning for change of behaviour among the youth, encouraging them to seek counselling and voluntary testing.

District Commissioner Gaspar Kimolo in the remote district of Makete in Iringa region has directed that students in every primary school and secondary school in the district sing a song on AIDS every morning before classes begin in a move to curb its spread.

"This should remind them about the scourge. The more they are reminded about it the more they are likely to take preventive measures," Kimolo said.

Again the district has established a system whereby people who die from AIDS are declared so at the burial.

Kimolo said this was aimed at creating awareness in the community and encouraging people to take preventive measures including safe sex.

According to AIDS epidemic update at December 2001 published by UNAIDS/WHO, more than 40 percent of adolescent girls in Tanzania have wrong information about how the disease is transmitted.

"This calls for programmes and policies to ensure that as many young men and women as possible should get information, education and services they need to defend themselves against HIV infection. Knowledge is power," the report says.

However, there is one thing about HIV prevention programmes. Most of them are based in urban areas and tend to assist only the youths who live in towns and cities, leaving out those in rural areas.

"The next important step should be to reach communities and districts with funds and the technical support they need to conduct local programmes," said Dr Michael Korff of the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam when he unveiled the embassy's plan to assist in HIV prevention programmes in Tanzania.

It will focus on national social marketing of condoms, NGO/district-based activities for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support of victims and improving access to quality HIV voluntary counselling and testing.

Yet with all the efforts made by the government and NGOs, the scourge seems to be increasing. New infections continue to occur at a high rate.

The prevalence rate in the country now stands at 10 percent, according to UNAIDS/WHO December report.

There could be a number of reasons for this trend. One is that religious and government leaders shy away from preaching preventive methods including the use of condoms.

Some religious leaders have stressed that using condom is a sin and thus the youths should be discouraged from using it. Yet they don't offer an alternative much as they know that it is not easy for adolescents to abstain from sex.

Then there is also the question of traditions. It is a taboo in some communities to engage in unprotected sex. In some tribes even today women are still inherited. The two situations do not in anyway help to reduce new infections.
011202
PA011207

Copyright ©1990, 2001. AEGiS. 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. Feedback/Contact Us.