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Nutrition essential to tackling AIDS

AIDS dissidents and conformists appear to agree on one thing at least – that nutrition is an essential ingredient for tackling the AIDS pandemic. To stay healthy, HIV-positive people need better nutrition as well as antiretroviral drugs, UNAIDS team leader for eastern and southern Africa, Bunmi Makinwa, told a Southern African Development Community (SADC) conference on AIDS and nutrition held in Johannesburg on Monday, At the same time, Makinwa said AIDS was contributing to poor nutrition and food security, with crop production plummeting by as much as 60 per cent because of AIDS-related deaths, the South African Press Agency (SAPA) reported. American AIDS dissident Roberto Giraldo was of a similar view. "No matter what the role of HIV is, malnutrition is at the centre of AIDS," the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported Giraldo as saying.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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