Government announces first AIDS survey in fifteen years

Cote d'Ivoire will launch a national AIDS survey by November, to formulate strategies for the benefit of people living with HIV/AIDS. The six-month study is to be conducted by the Ministry to Fight AIDS and will cover 10,000 homes in both government and rebel-held areas in the north, where no reliable HIV/AIDS data exists. Mamadou Diallo, the head of UNAIDS in Cote d'Ivoire, told the UN news service, PlusNews: "What is interesting for us is to know the real prevalence rate ... it will allow us to know more about the local communities and the way to deal with the issue in the light of the way they perceive the disease." Estimates from the country's first survey, undertaken 15 years ago, suggested an HIV prevalence rate of 9.5 percent, the highest in West Africa. But health workers fear that two years after civil war split the nation in two, the real rate is now much higher.