UNDP grants national anti-HIV/AIDS committee US $140,000

The Central African Republic’s anti-HIV/AIDS body, the Comite National de Lutte contre le Sida (CNLS), has signed an agreement with 30 NGOs granting each about one million francs CFA (about US $1,734) to help fight the pandemic, according to the CNLS acting coordinator, Marcel Massanga. Massanga, an epidemiologist, told IRIN on Wednesday that the NGOs included those concerned with the media, youth, women, AIDS-widows, and prostitutes. Funding for the effort is coming from a 91.89-million-franc grant the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has agreed to give the CNLS. UNDP and the committee signed the grant agreement on Monday. Massanga said the funds would be used during the first quarter of 2003, after which the CNLS would submit a report to the UNDP and request funding for the next quarter. Bangui’s Institut Pasteur, a medical research facility, produced an HIV map of the country in December 2002, in which it put the country’s HIV-infection rate at 14.8 percent. The figure for rural areas is 16.5 percent; Bangui, the capital, 15 percent; and provincial cities 12.8 percent. The nationwide survey from which these figures were taken was carried out from March to October 2002, and targeted 9,124 pregnant women reporting to 48 hospitals and health centres for antenatal consultations. These hospitals and centres represent 87 percent of the national health facilities. The survey divided the country into two zones: the south, along the borders with the two Congos, where the infection rate varies between 10 percent and 14 percent; and the north, along the Sudanese and Chadian borders, where the infection rate varies between 15 percent and 28 percent. The survey showed that the high rates of prevalence in the north were registered in diamond-rich zones, and other areas of intense economic activity. The Institut Pasteur said its report showed that "the most-affected age bracket was the 25-29 one". It recommended that anti-HIV campaigns be more focused in these zones. With this new official HIV-infection rate, the CAR remains the most-affected nation in the subregion.