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Poverty and gender inequality were fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, Nane Annan, the wife of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.
Speaking during a visit to the Kenya Network for Women With AIDS, Annan noted the need to empower women on the continent to make them key players in the fight against the pandemic.
She highlighted the disease and ongoing food shortages as the two major problems affecting African women and described them as "a catastrophe".
"Women in Africa are deprived of many things when they lose their husbands and its even worse when their spouses have died of AIDS ... impoverished people cannot always worry about protecting themselves or their partners from HIV infection when their first priority is securing daily sustenance," she reportedly said.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions