Call for better HIV/AIDS campaigns

Ethiopia must radically expand the country’s voluntary testing centres if it is to curb the AIDS scourge, a conference heard on Friday. Gebeyehu Mekonnen, who heads the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia, said offering testing to the entire population was a vital weapon in the war against the deadly virus. His call came at a conference sponsored by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on how to “live positively” with HIV. According to the Ethiopian government, some 2.2 million people are infected although some experts working with HIV/AIDS say it could be much higher. An estimated 600 people a day are dying from AIDS. Gebeyehu has just returned from a fact-finding mission sponsored by UNICEF in Uganda where the HIV virus has almost been brought under control. He told PlusNews that Ethiopia must “speed up” its campaign and provide hard-to-reach communities with services and awareness campaigns. “Had we started earlier in the fight against HIV/AIDS we would have saved lives at all levels. The elite need to push this forward and advocate before we are engulfed," he stressed. “Services should be available to everyone,” he added. “Our work should not be limited to seminars, to training centres, the services should be there. “Voluntary testing must be broadened and also through mobile teams so that every health facility in the country can offer that service. “Everyone needs to have the knowledge about HIV and to know his or her status,” Gebeyehu said. Although there are several hundred voluntary testing centres around the country, many are erratic and remain closed. Others lack effective counselling. He said Uganda could act as a positive example for Ethiopia which is still in the “early stages” of the pandemic. In Uganda, infection rates soared to over 30 percent but massive awareness campaigns and government commitment brought it down to around six percent, he said. Lisa Bohmer, who head’s UNICEF’s fight against HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia, says that stigmatisation and silence is resulting in needless deaths. “People infected with HIV can lead positive lives and become productive members of society,” she told IRIN. “But the virus is still shrouded in a veil of secrecy and fear.”