Workshop urges greater cross-border HIV/AIDS cooperation

A regional workshop in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, ended on Wednesday with a call for seven states in east Africa to address HIV/AIDS among mobile cross-border populations in the Horn of Africa. The three-day workshop focused on transboundary prevalence levels and factors influencing HIV/AIDS transmission among mobile populations, such as refugees, transporters, migrant workers, pastoralists, fishing communities, commercial sex workers and traders. The event was organised by the World Bank and the secretariat of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), consisting of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, which was set up to foster peace and development in the region. Participants included officials of national AIDS commissions and ministries of health from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, who urged the IGAD secretariat to assist in creating an environment that would enable cross-border collaboration, to reduce HIV vulnerability in the Horn of Africa. Gerald Mbuthia, director of economic cooperation and social development in the secretariat, was quoted in a press release as saying, "A lot of work has been done and remarkable progress made, but a lot more needs to be done to contain the scourge in the region."