Panafrican News Agency - December 5, 2001
Thomas Atenga, PANA Correspondent

The first control effort is to provide access to information on the disease, followed by health care and prevention campaigns.

Before the recent boom in migrant-centred initiatives, it was the immigrants who mobilised to form associations meant to curb the infection rate of AIDS in Africa.

Their struggle will now have to focus on Africans living in France.

According to the "immigrants" section of AIDS Info Service -- a counselling institution established by the ministry of state for health -- foreigners in France have no easy access to HIV screening and early treatment in case of HIV infection.

They also account for 30 percent of the 5,000 new HIV cases reported yearly in France.

In fact, the rate of black Africans with AIDS doubled within five years, rising from 13.2 percent in 1995 to 27.2 percent in 2000, according to official reports.

More than half the number of Africans with HIV lives in the Paris. And women from sub-Saharan Africa are the most affected, with an increase of more than 57 percent in cases between 1999 and 2000, while men from the same region recorded a 14.5 percent less.

Over the past three years, 60 percent of men and 68 percent of women from sub-Saharan Africa were not aware of their HIV status before it was diagnosed, as compared with 47 percent of the overall population.

According to Reda Sadki of Migrants against AIDS, the major causes of the spread of AIDS among Africans are "insufficient information on the modes of transmission, the refusal to face reality, ignorance of health care networks, the fear of being stigmatised and rejected by the community".

On the AIDS Info Immigrants radio station (FM 106.3), most listeners' questions tend to confirm the view of Sadki.

Callers generally focus on understanding problems related to the rights of patients, understanding treatments, interpretation of symptoms.

The spread of HIV among immigrants has become so worrisome that the French government has made it a priority in its new campaign to control the pandemic.

Several associations involved in sensitising migrant populations on the dangers of AIDS welcomed the government's position.

Sadki commended the fact that "for the first time, a competent authority acknowledged that foreigners are as threatened by AIDS as nationals".

However, he called for a comprehensive assessment of the ravages of HIV among immigrant populations, instead of targeting a specific community.

"Data and signs show that the disease is also spreading among Maghreb nationals, but everything is done as if health authorities do not want to face reality, either because they over-estimate the influence of religion, or because they do not want to antagonise the youths from that part of Africa," Sadki noted.
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