Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Saturday November 30, 2002
On the eve of World AIDS Day on Sunday, UNAIDS head Peter Piot said the social prejudice suffered by people with AIDS could be as destructive as the disease itself.
"Discrimination and stigma continue to stand as barriers. Stigma silences individuals and communities, saps their strength, increases their vulnerability, isolates people and deprives them of care of support," Piot told an audience in Addis Ababa.
"We must break down these barriers or the epidemic will have no chance of being pushed back," he added.
Piot said there were encouraging signs that prevention efforts were bearing fruit among young people in Ethiopia and South Africa, the worst hit country where some one out of nine people are already infected with the disease.
"HIV prevalence for pregnant South African women under 20 fell from 21 percent in 1998 to 15.4 percent in 2001 while in Addis Ababa infection levels among women aged 15-24 attending antenatal clinics dropped from 24.2 percent in 1995 to 15.1 percent in 2001," Piot said at a news conference.
Piot said Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic was fueling a widening and increasingly serious famine threat in southern Africa, where more than 14 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe face critical food shortages.
"AIDS combining with other factors including droughts, floods and in some cases short-sighted national and international policies cause a steady fall in agricultural production and to cut deep into household income," he said.
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