WFP to launch feeding project for HIV/AIDS patients

The World Food Programme confirmed on Monday it would in October begin feeding 35,000 people affected with HIV/AIDS in the Republic of Congo. An official of the UN agency told IRIN that WFP had agreed to provide food, allowing patients to stay on the anti-retroviral cocktail of drugs. WFP says that by providing the families with food, the money they save form feeding themselves could be used to pay for medicines. WFP said that the international pharmaceutical firms had agreed, in principle, to sell drugs to the government at cost price. In addition, the government has agreed to reduce the price even further to low income families. PANA, quoting sources at the National AIDS Eradication Programme, reported on 3 October that the target feeding population were residents of Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Dolisie in southern Congo and Ouesso in the north. The food, it said, would be distributed by Caritas and Christian Women's Movement for Peace, or MOPAX. PANA also quoted health officials as saying that HIV/AIDS prevalence in Congo was around 7.78 percent and was expected to reach 11 percent by the end of the year. It added that close to 100,000 people were HIV infected but that this figure could be higher because victims of sexual violence during the 1993 and 1997 to 1999 wars have not been fully considered.