Sleepy town waking to HIV

Kapiri Mposhi is normally a sleepy little town of crumbling buildings and ox carts in central Zambia. But once a week, on Thursday evenings, it comes to life. That's when the TAZARA (Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority) passenger train pulls in to disgorge its weekly assortment of tourists, travelling salesmen and drifters from the Tanzanian capital, Dar-es-Salaam. The long distance truck drivers arrive on its heels, along with the inevitable mob of out-of-towners that hit the town towards the end of each week. As darkness descends, the central business district assumes a boisterous air. Malila Bar and Restaurant for example, a nondescript diner by day turns into a garish dancehall at night. As the evening progresses, many of the skimpily dressed women grinding to the beat of the sound system, will slip out into the darkness for intimate, if casual, encounters with at least one partner each. Condoms are not always used. "It is like this every Thursday," explained Theresa Mapulanga, the chairperson of the Street Kids, Orphans and Widows Association (SKOWA), a local non-governmental organisation. "The whole province awaits the TAZARA and then converges to cash in on the increased activity. For many people, this is the only source of livelihood." Until the mid-1990s, Kapiri Mposhi was one of the fastest growing rural districts in Zambia. Standing between the capital, Lusaka, in the south and the strategic Copperbelt Province in the north, it flourished by providing support services to the country's main economic centres. At the same time, TAZARA, which links Zambia to the port of Dar-es-Salaam, and the Great North Road, linking it to Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, put it in the centre of the sub-region's economic activity. A thriving glass manufacturing plant, the country's only one, kept hundreds of the district's 200,000 people in steady employment. All that has changed. Reduced copper production on the Copperbelt and the post-apartheid re-emergence of South African ports as viable routes to the sea, have seen a slowdown in economic activity throughout the district. Meanwhile, Kapiri Glass Factory and other local industries that oiled the district's economic engine have collapsed, casualties of a painful transition towards economic liberalisation. "Most people have lost their sources of livelihood because of structural adjustment. Not surprisingly, the loss of conventional employment opportunities has seen a marked increase in commercial sex work. Inevitably, that has seen an increase in the rate of HIV/AIDS infection," said Mapulanga. It is not only the residents of the district that depend on the business brought by transiting visitors for their livelihood. Many of the sex workers on the streets come from as far afield as the capital, Lusaka, and Kabwe in the south, and the depressed mining towns of Kitwe and Ndola in the north. Zambia has one of the highest HIV-prevalence rates in the world, with an estimated 20 percent of its 10.3 million people believed to be HIV-positive. The pandemic has pushed life expectancy down from a peak of over 50 years at independence in the mid-1960s to around 37 years. Some 520,000 children have been orphaned, and the United Nations expects that number to rise to 895,000 by 2009. However, even those statistics pale in comparison to rates in Kapiri Mposhi where, recent studies suggest, HIV-infection figures are markedly higher. "Recent studies we carried out in the district indicate that up to 35 percent of the population may be HIV positive," Kapiri Mposhi Red Cross district secretary, Pascal Chola, told IRIN. "We are convinced that the high level of infection is tied to the high level of mobility in the population". The itinerant nature of the population could be frustrating interventions to slow down the impact of HIV infection. "We have found that it is becoming more difficult to treat HIV-related complications. Sexually transmitted illnesses [STIs] for example, are becoming more difficult to cure. In fact, some of the STIs we have encountered in the recent past seem to be alien," Chola said. "Our medical system is able to effectively treat STIs we are accustomed to, such as gonorrhoea and syphilis, but some strains of STI we are receiving from Tanzania are new and do not respond to existing treatment". Recently, the Red Cross started to deliberately target truck drivers and cross-border traders in an effort to curb the importation of STIs. "We have established a network of 20 care facilitators in the community to distribute condoms to those people that are seen to have a propensity for moving around," said Chola. "However, our efforts are not enough. A programme to deliberately target mobile groups should be made part of the national HIV/AIDS policy." A small boost has been a US $8.1 million grant from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) international development fund for the hardest hit countries in Africa, and Zambia will be among the countries to benefit for the HIV/AIDS awareness initiative. The Trendsetters project also aims to provide information on reproductive matters and HIV/AIDS, mainly to young people. But until conditions improve for the people of Kapiri Mposhi, the harsh realities means that behaviour is unlikely to change any time soon, and the revellers will continue to throng the town's bars and night clubs.