EC increases funding to fight against HIV/AIDS

The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday said it will provide US $22 million to help fight HIV/AIDS in Zambia. The funding is aimed at improving care and treatment for people living with the HI virus. "We are looking for projects that have young women as the focus. For a variety of reasons, research has shown that young women are especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. Women are particularly subject to constraints and various forms of sexual violence in the home, at school, at the workplace because of social and economic factors," an EC spokesman in Lusaka, Mwansa Pintu, told IRIN. Zambia has an HIV infection rate of almost 22 percent. The initiative is intended to bolster the work of NGOs already working in the health sector. "There are already many organisations working with HIV/AIDS patients but these under resourced. The money will hopefully improve awareness programmes directed at the youth and strengthen the country's ability to cope with the pandemic," Pintu said. He added that projects which integrated the fight against HIV/AIDS with wider issues of poverty reduction would be given priority. The programme comes as an additional contribution to the implementation of the EC Plan of Action adopted last year, aimed at fighting three major communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. It also forms an important part of the Commission's policy to fight poverty through improving health.