Scale-up sought in AIDS efforts for prisons

The number of AIDS-related deaths in Zambian prisons in 2004 has forced officials to seek ways of strengthening HIV prevention efforts among staff and inmates. Noting that 114 officers and 449 prisoners had died of AIDS-related illnesses in the last year, Commissioner of Prisons Jethro Mumbuwa, urged the government to help address the impact of the disease. A local newspaper, The Times of Zambia, quoted Commissioner Jethro Mumbuwa as saying: "In Zambia the HIV prevalence rate in prisons stands at 17 percent, which is 2 percent higher than that of the general population." Mumbuwa noted that the pandemic had affected both production and service delivery as prisons were losing man-hours due to chronic illness and deaths.