Country's first AIDS treatment centre opens in renovated hospital

Guinea-Bissau has opened its first treatment centre for people living with HIV/AIDS in a newly refurbished hospital, which will provide antiretroviral therapy free of charge. It is is situated in the 116-bed Raoul Follerau hospital in the capital Bissau which reopened on Thursday after being completely destroyed during the 1998/99 civil war. The hospital was renovated with the help of a US $5 million grant from the Santo Egidio Community, a Roman Catholic centre for the promotion of peace based in Rome. Marco Impagliazzo, the president of the Santo Egidio Community, said at a ceremony to mark the reopening of the hospital that its HIV/AIDS treatment centre would distribute antiretroviral drugs free of charge to people living with the virus in Guinea-Bissau. Impagliazzo said the hospital would also treat AIDS patients from other countries in the sub-region. Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people, is bounded to the north by Senegal and to the south and east by Guinea-Conakry. According to the latest available estimates from UNAIDS, there were 17,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Guinea-Bissau at the end of 2001. About 1,200 people in the country died as a result of AIDS-related illnesses that year.