AIDS cases on the increase

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Somalia is on the increase, AIDSOM, a group campaigning against the disease has said, according to the 11 October issue of 'Qaran', a Mogadishu daily. AIDSOM said the number of AIDS cases was "increasing tremendously, particularly in Mogadishu". The paper quoted the head of AIDSOM, Abdullahi Hasan Jama Koronto, as saying his group had so far registered 350 cases. Koronto said AIDSOM had offices in Mogadishu and Baidoa in south-central Somalia and Garbaharrey, southwestern Somalia.

Doctors involved in the campaign said the true figure was probably higher. Dr Muhammad Mahmud Ali Fuje, a World Health Organization consultant, who runs a private clinic, told IRIN that the number of HIV/AIDS cases greatly exceeded 350. "In Keysaney Hospital (an ICRC-supported hospital in north Mogadishu) alone there had been 102 cases between 1993 and 2001". The figure had been arrived at on the basis of people who had agreed to be tested before donating blood, Fuje added. There was no compulsory screening in Somalia, he said.

Fuje said AIDSOM deserved the support of all Somalis, including that of the Transitional National Government. The group had been at the forefront of AIDS-awareness campaigns in Somalia, and "should be encouraged and supported", he said. [For further details of HIV/AIDS in Somalia and Mogadishu see IRIN Somalia: Focus on HIV/AIDS of 29 January]