Maputo — Gender inequalities, the lack of economic opportunities, limited power, socio-cultural habits, and lack of knowledge about sexual health are among the factors that put women at increased risk of infection by the HIV virus that causes AIDS, warned Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido on Friday night.

He was speaking in his capacity as deputy chairperson of the National Council for the Fight against AIDS, at the launch of a joint programme with the United Nations and the government of the Belgian region of Flanders on gender and AIDS, dealing specifically with the "feminisation" of the pandemic.

Garrido said that, although the rate of HIV prevalence is lower in Mozambique than in several other southern African countries, it remains among the highest rates in the world. The most recent Health Ministry estimate is that 14.9 of Mozambican aged between 15 and 49 are HIV positive.

But within this there are sharp sex and age disparities.

Garrido said that 58 per cent of those living with HIV are women, while 75 per cent of Mozambicans infected with the virus are aged between 15 and 24.

Despite years of campaigning around the disease, the level of ignorance remains alarmingly high. Thus 44 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men know "at least two ways" to avoid HIV infection: which means that 56 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men don't.

Knowledge is one thing, acting on it another. The latest surveys show only six per cent of Mozambican women and 12 per cent of men reporting use of a condom during their latest sexual encounter.

A report from the Task Force on Women, Girls and AIDS in southern Africa, set up on the initiative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, identifies six areas of intervention - prevention strategies among girls and young women, the education of girls, violence against women and girls, inheritance and property rights, the role of women as care givers, and care and treatment for infected women.

In combatting the feminisation of the disease, the central idea is to identify the gaps in how women and girls are currently addressed, and to support what the UN calls "the development of an integrated national strategy with a sustained advocacy campaign to highlight the situation of women, girls and AIDS".

Geert Bourgeois, the visiting Foreign Minister of the Flemish government, declared at Friday's launch that the programme can become a good example of cooperation between Mozambican civil society and the international community, in order to establish "zero tolerance" for sexual violence, and bring to justice those responsible for violence against women.

The UNAIDS country coordinator in Mozambique, Telva Barros, declared "Focusing on women and girls is essential. Women are not often in a position to negotiate safe sex in Mozambique, and when women lose their husbands or partners to AIDS, they are often denied their inheritance rights, leaving them destitute and even more vulnerable".

This joint programme is financed by the Flemish government, to the tune of 10 million euros (about 13 million US dollars), and will be implemented over a period of four years.