AIDS efforts must address gender issues - NGO

A women's rights group is urging the Zambian government to address gender gaps in its draft national HIV/AIDS policy, according to the Zambia News Agency. Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) charged that the policy had not taken into account the gender dimension of the AIDS pandemic and only made a "cursory reference" to the issue. Although the document estimated that 50 percent of people with a history of sexually transmitted infections were HIV-positive, it did not indicate how many of these were men, women, boys or girls. Priscilla Chileshe, a senior WiLDAF official, recommended that the policy include more information on the patterns of heterosexual sex and their implication for women, if current anti-AIDS interventions were to be successful.