Elderly sidelined in AIDS awareness campaigns

Healthcare workers in Tanzania are concerned that elderly people are increasingly at risk of HIV infection due to a lack of awareness on how the disease is spread or prevented. Doctor Solomon Logilunore, the co-ordinator of the HIV/AIDS Control Unit of the Arusha Municipal Council, said almost fifty percent of the older groups risked infection because their lack of basic knowledge on personal safety while caring for HIV-positive family members. However, Logilunore noted that elderly people were also placed at risk through traditional practices of polygamy and the tendency of widows to have unsafe sex with young men as a means of financial security. "There is no other solution to the problem than to sensitise the care-givers on the HIV/AIDS pandemic so that they could be aware of ways of fighting the spread of the disease," Logilunore told the local Arusha Time newspaper.