Kaisernetwork.org (Washington, DC)
29 July 2008
Global Challenges
Latin American, Caribbean Health, Education Ministers To Attend Meeting Ahead of AIDS Conference in Mexico
[Jul 29, 2008]
Ahead of the XVII International AIDS Conference, health and education ministers from 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries will attend a meeting in Mexico on Aug. 1 to develop a common strategy to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region, Mexican Undersecretary for Prevention and Health Promotion Mauricio Hernandez said recently, Prensa Latina reports. "Education for prevention is the most important task that we want to carry out as a joint effort by the governments," Hernandez said, adding that 17 health ministers and 12 education ministers have confirmed their participation in the meeting.
According to Hernandez, a consensus exists among the meeting participants to further government policies that promote comprehensive sex education. In addition, there is a need to focus on young people, Hernandez said, adding that more than 500,000 people ages 14 to 24 in the region are HIV-positive. Hernandez also said that although young people do have knowledge about contraceptive methods, a minority of the population practices safer sex in many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (Prensa Latina, 7/24).
HIV/AIDS Increasingly Affecting Women in Mexico, Experts Say
In related news, health officials and experts have said recently that HIV/AIDS is increasingly affecting women in Mexico, Xinhuanet reports. According to Jorge Saavedra, director of the National Center for the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, women account for 20% of new HIV/AIDS cases recorded in Mexico, and AIDS-related deaths among women in the country also are increasing. Saavedra added that women are more likely to contract the virus from their husbands or stable sex partners, who often are undocumented immigrants to the U.S. Undocumented immigrants to the U.S. have been a primary source of HIV transmission for Mexican women, Manuel Yanez, professor at the Metropolitan Autonomous University, said, adding that such immigrants often have more sex partners. In addition, undocumented immigrants are more likely to have sex with commercial sex workers without using condoms and use injection drugs, placing them at an increased risk of HIV, Yanez said. He added that although many women know that their partners have sexual relations with other people, they have no power to negotiate sex. According to Axela Romero, general director of the Holistic Health for Women, women in the country also do not have the power to negotiate safer-sex practices because of fears of being mistreated or abused. "So we have women whose husbands swear to keep the fidelity but have sex with other women without protection," Romero said (Xinhuanet, 7/29).
Kaisernetwork.org is the official webcaster of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Click here to sign up for your Daily Update e-mail during the conference.
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Keeping Kenyan Girls in School, Providing HIV/AIDS, Sex Education Could Reduce Future HIV Cases, Experts Say
[Jul 29, 2008]
Reducing the school dropout rate for girls in Kenya and providing adequate HIV/AIDS and sex education could reduce HIV incidence in the country, experts said recently, IRIN News reports. Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando -- executive director of the Centre for the Study of Adolescence in Nairobi, Kenya -- said, "Young people do not have the information they need, and the dropout rate, particularly for girls, is still too high." She added, "Dropping out of school ensures a life of poverty for these girls, and many of them also wind up HIV-positive because the male-female power dynamics become even more slanted against them."
In 2003, Kenya introduced no-cost primary school education, but an estimated one million school-age children still are not attending school. In addition, up to 13,000 Kenyan girls drop out of school annually as a result of pregnancy, and about 17% of girls have had sex before age 15. HIV prevalence among Kenyan women between ages 15 and 24 is about 5%, compared with 1% for their male counterparts, IRIN News reports. According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2004, educated girls were less likely to marry early and more likely to practice family planning. In addition, their children had a higher survival rate. UNICEF also found that uneducated girls are more likely to contract HIV, compared with girls who have had some schooling.
Kenya's Ministry of Education has an HIV/AIDS prevention and sex education curriculum, but no specific classroom time is set aside for it, which leaves schools and teachers to fit the subject in at their discretion. In addition, schools in remote, rural areas, as well as low-income urban areas, often do not have the resources or guidance to teach sex education. Christopher Barassa -- principal of Genesis Joy Primary and Secondary School in Mathare, Nairobi's second largest slum -- said that the school does not "have sex education or HIV education" because the government has not provided any material or training. Muganda-Onyando said, "Not enough teachers have been trained for this type of education, so children are leaving school with academic qualifications and not many life skills." She added, "One of the big problems has been the breakdown of our traditional African systems, where an aunt or grandmother was responsible for sex education ... people say discussions about sex are taboo in Africa, but this is not true. We lost those systems through colonization and modernization, and they haven't been replaced."
According to IRIN News, CSA runs programs aimed at lowering the dropout rate for girls by teaching them about sexual and reproductive health, including HIV. "The projects train teachers to impart life skills, create safe spaces in schools where girls can freely discuss the issues they are facing and foster mentor-protege relationships between older and younger students, so the younger ones have somewhere to turn," Muganda-Onyando said. The initiative has been implemented in more than 100 schools in Kenya and has had positive results so far, IRIN News reports (IRIN News, 7/25).
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Asian Development Bank Manual Aims To Reduce Spread of HIV in Workplace
[Jul 29, 2008]
The Asian Development Bank recently released a manual that aims to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in infrastructure project workplaces by providing project developers with information and hands-on tools, the Thai News Service reports. The manual, titled "More Safety: A Resource Manual for Health and Safety in Infrastructure," highlights four steps to increase HIV prevention messages and reduce HIV risk factors in workplaces.
According to the manual, the first step is to establish an HIV prevention management team composed of three to four part-time workers. The team will be responsible for fueling HIV prevention activities in the workplace and local communities. The second step requires the team to assess workers' knowledge of HIV and risky behavior among workers that puts them at increased risk of the virus. After assessing knowledge and risk, the team can then develop an HIV prevention plan, according to the manual.
The third step involves training managers to be HIV/AIDS advocates, provide HIV education to workers and the community, and provide condoms at work sites. The final step in the manual involves monitoring and evaluating workplace HIV prevention strategies.
The manual was developed with a grant from the Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, the Thai News Service reports (Thai News Service, 7/28).
The manual is available online.
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Science & Medicine
Six-Week Course of Antiretroviral Nevirapine Did Not Clearly Reduce Risk of HIV Among Breastfed Infants, Study Finds
[Jul 29, 2008]
A six-week extended course of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine did not clearly show a reduced risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission among breastfed infants, according to a study published Saturday in the journal Lancet, the New York Times reports. According to the Times, breastfeeding "presents a life-and-death dilemma" for HIV-positive mothers in developing countries. Although using formula can reduce the risk of MTCT, when formula is mixed with dirty water, it can increase the risk of death among infants from causes such as diarrhea and malnutrition. In most developing nations, women will continue to breastfeed because it is traditional, formula is expensive and because using formula "announces" that a woman is HIV-positive, according to the Times. At least 150,000 infants contract HIV through breastfeeding annually, experts estimate.
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