26 October 2008
Inhaminga — Mozambique's Deputy Health Minister, Aida Libombo, has called for research into cultural habits in the country to see to what extent they are contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS.
She was speaking at the second National Youth Meeting, under way in Cheringoma district, in the central province of Sofala.
HIV prevalence in Mozambique is estimated at 16 per cent among people aged between 15 and 49. This means that around 1.6 million Mozambicans are HIV positive.
Libombo told the meeting that the group most at risk are young women aged between 15 and 24. To avoid infection, young people needed to embark early on "good practices". The ways of preventing infection, she added, were sexual abstinence, fidelity to a single sexual partner, and the use of condoms in casual sexual relations.
She said that the risk factors for women included poverty, an inability to negotiate the use of condoms, early start to sexual activities, sexual abuse - but also widowhood and certain traditional ceremonies.
Widowhood is included because of the brutal "tradition" in parts of the country that obliges a widow to have sex with a male relative of her late husband in order to be "cleansed". Initiation rites also have their risks (notably the use of unsterilised blades in scarring the young victims), but Libombo admitted that such rites cannot be abolished overnight.
She added that risk factors for men included excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs, but claimed that men can gain some protection from circumcision.
Some people in he audience asked the government to make female condoms available in all the provinces. Libombo pointed out that female condoms are seven times more expensive than male ones.
Nonetheless, female condoms are included in a shipment of 700 million condoms due to arrive in Mozambique shortly. They have been acquired under the government's partnership with UNAIDS, and will be distributed free of charge throughout the country.
Female condoms, Libombo said, are currently available in private pharmacies - but because they are relatively expensive, not many are sold.
The Executive Secretary of the National AIDS Council (CNCS), Diogo Milagre, alleged that homosexuality is contributing to the spread of HIV infection. No reputable figure has ever made such a claim publicly before, and it has been generally accepted that HIV in Mozambique is overwhelming spread through heterosexual relations.
But now Milagre launched an attack on bisexuals. He claimed there are young people who have both gay and straight sexual relations and demanded "this practice must be combated immediately because it leads young people to a field of multiple, diffuse and uncontrolled sexual relations".
Milagre announced that next year a household survey will be held that will include HIV testing of people of all age groups. He hoped this would give a picture of HIV prevalence that reflects the real situation - there are fears that the current methodology, which extrapolates from blood samples taken from pregnant women, may not give an entirely accurate picture of the epidemic. Taking the samples should be a serious problem, since Milagre said there were no signs of resistance to HIV testing among the Mozambican population.
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