IRIN Focus on the impact on children

The UN children’s agency UNICEF warned on Wednesday that if countries hoped to defeat the HIV/AIDS pandemic, they had to commit themselves to the “largest mobilisation of resources in their history” and organise themselves as if they were “fighting a full-scale war”. “HIV/AIDS constitutes the greatest threat many societies have ever faced,” Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, said at the launch of the agency’s annual ‘Progress of Nations’ report at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban. “Virtually every society understands what it means to wage a struggle for liberation,” Bellamy said. “It means mobilising every available resource, it means involving men and women on an equal basis, it means accepting the vital role to be played by young people and it means sparing no effort and brooking no diversions until all of society is liberated. That is what is needed, nothing less.” It is the impact on children that has provided the most disturbing picture of the spread of the pandemic. In its latest figures, UNICEF estimates that globally, every minute, six young people under the age of 25 are infected with HIV/AIDS. A bitter legacy “AIDS is decimating the developing world - no where more savagely than in sub-Saharan Africa - and great numbers of young people are now falling under the fury of its unrelenting attack,” the report said. UNICEF estimates there are between 2.6 million and 5.3 million young people between the ages of 15-24 that are living with HIV/AIDS. It ranked Botswana as having the highest HIV infection rate in this age bracket, with more than 34 percent of young women infected and 16 percent of men. Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique all followed in succession. In all of these countries the number of young women contracting the disease vastly outnumbered their male counterparts. UNICEF said that women are infected at a younger age, normally by older men. “To change behaviour and prevent infections therefore, intervention programmes should focus mainly on adolescents,” UNICEF said. “The HIV-infection rates among young people are a searing indictment, documenting failures of vision, commitment and action of almost unimaginable proportions. They tell a story of a leadership unworthy of the name, and the virtual abandonment of sub-Saharan Africa,” the report added. Young people not getting the message In startling evidence UNICEF said that young people, despite being the most vulnerable group, were not getting the information or not absorbing the fact that AIDS was a very real threat to them and that they were at risk. In the 17 countries surveyed including Uganda, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Chad and Mozambique, girls in general knew less about the disease than boys. In Mozambique, where the HIV prevalence in the general population is estimated at 13 percent, some 74 percent of girls between the ages of 15-19 were unable to name one method to protect themselves from getting infected. Among boys the figure was 62 percent but still disturbingly high. In Zambia, 23 percent of girls knew of no method of protection. For Zimbabwe and Cote d’Ivoire the figures were 17 percent and 22 percent respectively. UNICEF said that there had to be a greater effort in trying to reach these groups, but understood that educators were working in environments where there were intense cultural restrictions, religious taboos and lack of resources. Bellamy told journalists on Wednesday that the future course in fighting the disease “hinged on the action and knowledge” about AIDS. Seeing no risk in sex In eight countries surveyed in which HIV/AIDS had reached epidemic levels, a significant proportion of sexually active girls thought that they faced no risk in contracting the disease. In Zambia and Zimbabwe this misconception was shared among 52 percent and 50 percent of girls respectively. In Kenya the figure was 36 percent and in Cameroon 43 percent. UNICEF said that the only hope for young people was in getting them to change their behaviour and to “understand and internalise the risks of the epidemic”. Robbing children of education In one of the most disconcerting statistics, UNICEF said that an estimated 860,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa had lost their teachers to the pandemic in 1999. It said that children in Kenya, Chad and South Africa were the most affected. UNICEF said that although the disease had hit all sectors of society, its most profound effect was being felt in education. Children are also dropping out because they are unable to afford to continue with their education because of the death or illness of one or both parents. Girls in particular feel the impact as they are often the first ones removed from school. Another problem that has also arisen in recent years, is that many African countries are starting to divert resources away from education to meet the growing demand that AIDS is placing on the public sector, especially health care. “Education must be safeguarded in the face of the AIDS crisis, as schools are the key to reducing the impact of the disease,” UNICEF noted. Bellamy warned that young people were the first and last line of defence and that their education “was vital in fighting the diseas