Education key to curbing HIV/AIDS, say NGOs

Key NGOs in the Republic of Congo (ROC) have stepped up outreach and education drives to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in the impoverished central African country. The Association Panafricaine Thomas Sankara (APTS) leads neighbourhood campaigns against AIDS. The group uses trained outreach officers to inform and educate youth against the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. In the context of its project entitled "Women and AIDS: Know Better to Act Better" ("Femmes-Sida, mieux connaître pour mieux agir"), financed by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), a network of educators was put in place last year to tackle the need for outreach and education. "We advise youth to remain faithful to their partners and to always use a condom to protect themselves against the illness," Cephas Germain Ewangui, the president of APTS, said. "Our campaign is also aimed at prostitutes, who, according to the surveys we have done, charge two different prices: one for the use of a condom, and one without." "And we object to those who still insist that AIDS is a punishment from God," he added. For APTS, the participation of religious leaders is of utmost importance. "It is easy to organise conferences or debates during which religious leaders could help spread the message of the fight against AIDS. This is one of the reasons why a nation such as Senegal, at two percent, has one of the lowest rates of infection in the entire world," Ewangui said. For the Association Monde Action (AMA), the message must be communicated everywhere - in bars, in the workplace, in schools, in playgrounds - until all taboos have disappeared and the silence is broken, so that everyone understands that the best protection against AIDS is behavioural change. "Here in Congo, it is rare to find someone who admits that they are seropositive," Artur Madzou, the secretary-general of AMA, said. "It is clear that the wall of silence is an obstacle in our fight. If people suffering from AIDS would only join our fight by speaking about their condition, they would contribute enormously in helping to influence people to change their behaviour." He added: "We also fight against the marginalisation of people affected by this illness." While acknowledging the benefits of outreach and education efforts, Jean-Claude Ganga, head of Afrique Avenir, believes that the government could fight AIDS by fighting the poverty that contributes so heavily towards the spread of the virus. Also involved in the fight against AIDS is the Fondation Congo Assistance (FCA), headed by First Lady Antoinette Sassou-Nguesso, which supports efforts to prevent mother-to-infant transmission of HIV. Thanks to a partnership with the German pharmaceutical company, Bohringer Ingelheim, the ROC is benefiting for five years from a cost-free supply of Viramune, which prevents the transmission of HIV during labour. FCA was the beneficiary of a CFA 170-million (US $263,668) purse from the Amitie France-Afrique horse race, run in Paris in June. The money has been used for further support of the Viramune programme. During a cabinet meeting on 16 November 2001, the government vowed to redouble its efforts in the fight against AIDS. It promised that the ROC would adhere to the "Access" initiative to take advantage of reduced prices of antiretrovirals from pharmaceutical companies, so that triple therapy, which currently costs CFA 400,000 per month per patient, would instead cost between CFA 21,000 and 56,000. Another CFA 584 million was also promised for the treatment of 1,000 patients per year. However, to date, the government has not done anything. At the end of 1996, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported 10,777 cases of AIDS in the country. However, the reporting system is believed not to have worked systematically for a number of years. Studies carried out between 1990 and 2000 showed the rate to be between 7 percent and 9 percent among blood donors, 10 percent to 15 percent among pregnant women, 30 percent to 70 percent among prostitutes, and 17 percent among patients suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. The years of conflict during the 1990s, including sexual violence, have raised concern that the prevalence rate is now rising dramatically. Recent studies indicate the current rate to be at least 10 percent to 12 percent. If the pandemic is not contained, a risk arises that all relevant efforts made in the ROC during the post-conflict period will be wasted. WHO, the UN Population Fund, the UN Development Programme and the UNICEF are involved in an inter-agency effort to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, accompanied by a long term investment to reinforce national capacities, including the support of local NGOs. [see related IRIN Focus on multi-agency HIV/AIDS initiative]