Focus Media (Kigali)
Sam Ruburika
2 October 2008
opinion
In the fight against a killer disease such as HIV/AIDS, you have to join forces. That is the idea behind the forum of partners in the fight against AIDS. However, in its three years of existence the forum has achieved little. The partners now plan to change that.
"If they do not take their drugs regularly, the self-assessment will enable AIDS patients to change."
Addressing the forum, Health Minister Dr. Damascene Ntawukuriryayo pointed out that the associations of people leaving with HIV/AIDS are not advising people on the prevention HIV/AIDS.
"Association members are often shy to speak out about AIDS due to the Rwandan tradition," Minister Ntawukuriryayo said.
He further remarked that parents need to advise their children about AIDS prevention, insisting that keeping quiet about issues of sexuality might lead to their children contracting HIV/AIDS.
The Minister also pointed out that, whereas the ministry had taken tough action to prevent transmission through injections and blood transfusion, the main way of transmission of HIV/AIDS is still through sexual intercourse, which the ministry obviously cannot control insisting except by sensitization.
Yet Minister Ntawukuriryayo said that the ministry is considering making male circumcision obligatory by law, as it is has been shown that it significantly reduces the risk of transmitting HIV. Yet the issue is still under debate.
According to Antoine Semukanya, the deputy executive director of CNLS, the intention of the forum was to evaluate the activities of the various entities involved fighting HIV/AIDS. This, he said, does not only concern evaluating organizations, but also individuals.
"It has to go down to the people infected with HIV/AIDS in the villages. With the individual evaluation, people have to ask themselves whether their contribution in the fight against AIDS is adequate. After that, there is the evaluation at an institutional level to see what can be done to improve the fight against HIV/AIDS," Semukanya said.
Asked how the evaluation would finally help a poor AIDS patient in a village, he said that since the procedure is to be decentralized, such people will also evaluate themselves.
"For instance, if they do not take their drugs regularly, the self-assessment will enable them change. It actually helps them to understand their weaknesses and work on them," he explained.
Work harder
As for the effectiveness of the forum, the deputy director conceded that there has been little progress since its inception three years ago. He partly blamed leaders of associations of persons living with HIV/AIDS for not implementing some of the strategies conceived during such forums.
"We have to work together, and work harder, to reduce new incidences of HIV/AIDS," Semukanya said.
The priority now, according to him, is to significantly reduce the number of people being infected with HIV. He also expressed the desire for improved collaboration between all partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS, which include the One-UN program, USAID, PEPFAR as well as the civil society and all the umbrellas organizations and associations of people living with HIV/AIDS.
He further said that the forum was aiming to work more with the beneficiaries so as to be able to understand the help they need.
"We have to look at the needs of the beneficiaries and assess what can be done so that they are better able to sustain themselves," Semukanya said, adding that all the associations of people leaving with AIDS have become cooperatives so as to be profitable, and thus sustain themselves.
According to the UNAIDS country program coordinator, Dr. Kekoura Kourouma, such forums are important as an opportunity to listen to people who are involved in the field and to exchange ideas on how best to implement strategies.
On the other side, he found it imperative that the forum also makes sure that the strategies that have been designed are implemented, and that it also helps to transfer responsibility from the center to the local people, so that all can be involved in the process.
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