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December 03, 2005
AIDS rate drops in Burkina
As you know Thursday was World AIDS Day. The number of people in the world living with HIV is at its highest ever (an estimated 40.3m people currently living with the virus across the world, with almost 5m infected in 2005). Two thirds of the people living with HIV - 25.8m - are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world the AIDS rate has fallen. HIV prevalence is currently about 4% in the country as a whole. But infection rates among pregnant women living in urban areas, were down to 2.3 percent in 2004 from 4.2 percent in 2001.
Reasons for the drop in infection rate
Burkina was one of the first countries in West Africa to combat AIDS, with tackling stigma a priority. There has been a major national programme against AIDS, chaired by the Burkina President, Blaise Compaore, which has promoted awareness and assured good national co-ordination of the response. Commitment of local organisations and authorities has increased with the support of development partners. Condoms have been marketed since 1982 and femidoms, condoms for women, were recently introduced in a pilot project at 30 sites nationwide. And access to care and treatment have improved.
There is also a recent development - an African-led initiative, the Digital Solidarity Fund, will use high-speed broadband to bring treatment to AIDS sufferers in Burkina Faso and Burundi. The Fund, started in response to a call by the Senegal President, has only received $6.4 million in cash and pledges so far, but has already started spending:
"The clinics are getting videoconferencing units, with serial ports to attach stethoscopes and other medical equipment, so specialists can examine patients from afar. Lab technicians can remotely analyze blood samples and quickly determine the need for antiretroviral drugs... Each site will also get 20 to 30 computers so medical workers can store records for follow-up care and keep up on the latest treatment and prevention techniques."
But the decline in infection rates is not all good news, according to a health specialist at the World Bank. He observes that declining prevalence usually goes hand-in-hand with mortality, and that part of the decline is a result of a culmination of increased mortality."
ARV Provision
An ambitious national strategy hopes to provide ARVs to at least 90 percent of those who need them by 2010, and aims for a 25 percent drop in the rate of new infections by the same date. Some 4,500 Burkinabe currently receive ARVs, with a target of 5,000 by the end of the year. But that amounts to only around a tenth of those who need treatment.
Burkina Faso, where 40 per cent of people live on less than $1 a day, does not have the resources to meet its targets. Government coffers can spare only 22 billion CFA ($39 million) of the estimated 160 billion required over the next five years. Help is also provided by Medecins sans Frontieres, who give free ARV treatment, and by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the World Bank.
Recording life with HIV
The NGO Picturing Hope have been teaching children affected by HIV in Burkina Faso how to document their lives in pictures, and given them cameras to do just that. You can see some of the results here.
Posted by Keith at December 3, 2005 10:13 AM
