HIV/AIDS publicity campaign launched

The Sudan Anti-AIDS Network, in cooperation with a number of partner organisations, this week launched a publicity campaign highlighting the dangers of the disease, according to Sudanese television. The organisation stressed the need for inter-agency cooperation in spreading awareness of HIV/AIDS, as well of the need for voluntary testing and psychological counseling, the report said. UNICEF had commended the initiative and stressed the need for cooperation between NGOs and the government on the matter of HIV/AIDS, it added. Though little data is available on Sudan, UNAIDS estimates that about 140,000 people in the country are living with HIV infection (whether or not they had developed AIDS) at the end of 1999. Information on HIV prevalence has only recently become available and does not yet paint a clear picture of the epidemiological situation in Sudan, according to the agency. In its Sudan fact sheet, it referred to 392 recorded cases in 1999, from a cumulative total of some 2,860 cases. Of these recorded cases, heterosexual contact accounted for HIV transmission in almost 97 percent of cases. A small number of cases were accounted for by vertical transmission from mother to child during pregnancy, birth or breast-feeding, it added. [see UNAIDS fact sheets at: http://www.unaids.org/hivaidsinfo/statistics/june00/fact_sheets/africa.html]