UNICEF to provide US $10 million for health projects

The government of Burundi and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have signed an agreement on funding totalling nearly US $10 million for various public health projects across the country. According to a report from the Pan African News Agency (PANA), the greater part of the funding - about US $8 million - will be used to reduce disparities in nutrition and health care throughout Burundi, while about US $665,000 will be used in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Specifically, the funds designated for HIV/AIDS programmes will be used to “create community networks for prevention” in the worst-affected provinces of the country, namely those with the largest populations displaced by Burundi’s civil war - about 400,000 people, notes a press release from UNICEF in Bujumbura. Such networks will also be created in an effort to reach a targeted 600,000 youths with the aim of preventing the spread of HIV. Similarly, a programme to educate about 40,000 secondary school students on the danger of AIDS will be implemented, while another segment of the funds will be used to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to child by means of Zidovudine (AZT) treatment. Greater media outreach will support these efforts. In April, pharmaceutical companies reached an agreement with the government of Burundi to reduce by between 90 and 97 per cent the price of anti-retroviral medications. Despite such concessions from pharmaceutical companies, UNICEF predicts that the number of beneficiaries will remain extremely low, as annual treatment will cost some US $700 per patient - an amount out of the reach of most Burundese. Officially, Burundi has some 400,000 people with AIDS, of whom about 80,000 are children.