http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbSat, 21 Nov 2009 18:54:05 GMTJOHANNESBURG Saturday, November 21, 2009 (IRIN) - South Africans are dying younger and in greater numbers, and HIV/AIDS is to blame, according to a report released this week by the South African Institute of Race Relations.JOHANNESBURG Saturday, November 21, 2009 (IRIN) - South Africans are dying younger and in greater numbers, and HIV/AIDS is to blame, according to a report released this week by the South African Institute of Race Relations.

Average life expectancy declined from 62 years in 1990 to 50 years in 2007; it is projected to fall even further by 2011, to 48 years for men and 51 for women, according to the Institute's annual South Africa Survey.

The authors note that among 37 developed and developing countries, South Africa is one of only six where life expectancy fell between 1990 and 2007, with only Zimbabwe showing a steeper decline.

Of South Africa's nine provinces, those with the highest HIV prevalence rates also had the lowest life expectancy - KwaZulu-Natal at 43 years, followed by Free State and Mpumalanga, both at 47 years. The leading causes of death were tuberculosis (TB), influenza and pneumonia, all common opportunistic infections associated with HIV/AIDS.

Seventy percent of people diagnosed with TB in South Africa were co-infected with HIV, and "it is thus reasonable to assume that at least 70 percent of observed mortality from tuberculosis, and by extension a comparable percentage of deaths from influenza/pneumonia, also has HIV and AIDS as an underlying cause." Nearly half of all deaths in 2008 were thought to be HIV/AIDS related - up from a third in 2001.

Gail Eddy, a researcher at the Institute, commented that although neither the public health system nor the government's antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme were reaching all those in need, particularly in rural areas, a slight decrease in mortality rates in the last two years may be the result of ARVs gradually becoming more widely available.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic contributed to a 43 percent reduction in population growth between 2001 and 2008; a fall in birth rates also played a role.

Although fewer children are being born, HIV/AIDS is creating an increasing number of orphans: of the estimated 2.5 million children who had lost a parent by 2007, more than half were orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS. According to the survey, by 2015, 32 percent of South African children will have lost one or both parents to the virus.

Eddy noted that the government's social grants programme was not addressing the need of orphaned children for psychosocial support. NGOs were attempting to fill the gap created by a chronic shortage of social workers but many were underfunded. "There's a need to strengthen government/NGO partnerships," she said.

The report was released amid mounting controversy over mortality figures quoted by President Jacob Zuma during a speech on 29 October. He said that 756,000 deaths had been recorded in 2008 - an astounding 30 percent increase from the previous year.

He attributed the increase to the AIDS epidemic, an admission that the AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign, welcomed as "the ushering in of a new era", after a decade of government denial about the extent of AIDS by former President Thabo Mbeki. However, a number of researchers have questioned the figure, reportedly supplied by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Eddy confirmed that the figure was significantly higher than the one provided by the Actuarial Society of South Africa, on which the Institute based its calculations.

"I think it was really a miscalculation," she said. Estimating HIV/AIDS deaths in South Africa is particularly problematic because the disease is not notifiable.

ks/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87144JOHANNESBURG Thursday, November 19, 2009 (IRIN) - In less than seven months South Africa will host the world's biggest single sporting event - the FIFA World Cup. The chance to reach millions of local and visiting football fans presents a golden opportunity, not only for the country's business and tourism sectors, but also for its efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.JOHANNESBURG Thursday, November 19, 2009 (IRIN) - In less than seven months South Africa will host the world's biggest single sporting event - the FIFA World Cup. The chance to reach millions of local and visiting football fans presents a golden opportunity, not only for the country's business and tourism sectors, but also for its efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.

Health officials, activists and civil society organisations met in Johannesburg on 18 November to plan how to make the most of the event, which will span 30 days and take place in eight of South Africa's nine provinces.

Recent international media reports have suggested that the World Cup could aggravate the country's already severe HIV/AIDS epidemic, but several speakers saw the event as a chance to address the health crisis, among them former soccer player Ronny Zondi, who represented the Sport and Entertainment Sector of the South African National Aids Council (SANAC), the body coordinating HIV activities linked to the World Cup.

Stadiums, fan parks, hotels and bars are all potential venues where HIV prevention messages could be promoted, condoms and pamphlets distributed, and voluntary counselling and HIV testing made available. The need for all the organizations involved to work with each other and FIFA and its local organizing committee (LOC) to avoid duplication of efforts and confused messaging was emphasized.

LOC Chief Medical Officer Dr Victor Ramathesele urged participants to tap into FIFA's marketing expertise to push HIV/AIDS messages before and during the World Cup.

Noluntu Ntloko, from FIFA's marketing division, briefed participants on restrictions on the use of registered World Cup trademarks, or branding that could conflict with that of its sponsors and commercial partners, and encouraged organizations to channel any planned HIV activities through the LOC.

Through its Football for Hope Movement, FIFA is already partnering with civil society organizations involved in HIV/AIDS initiatives. One such partner, Grassroots Soccer, works with a local NGO, Sonke Gender Justice, to train soccer coaches to teach young people about HIV and AIDS.

Rather than limiting their efforts to duration of the event, several organizations are planning campaigns that will last the entire year and reach people all over the continent.

Wayne Alexander, of Dance4Life, an international initiative that enlists young people to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, told the meeting about Fair Play for Africa, a campaign to mobilise communities to advocate for quality healthcare for all Africans, and to hold their governments accountable for health provision. So far 200 NGOs have committed to getting involved and activities in 12 African countries are planned for 2010.

"We have come a long way," commented Dr Robin Petersen, chair of the Johannesburg meeting, who recalled that when South Africa started planning its World Cup bid 10 years ago, there was pressure to downplay the HIV/AIDS epidemic. "We're now planning to use this event to address one of the most significant crises our country is facing."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87109HARARE Thursday, November 19, 2009 (IRIN) - The recent "suicide" of a senior army officer in the wake of a break-in at a military armoury in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, is sowing fears that the missing guns may be used to fuel instability. HARARE Thursday, November 19, 2009 (IRIN) - The recent "suicide" of a senior army officer in the wake of a break-in at a military armoury in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, is sowing fears that the missing guns may be used to fuel instability.

In late October, 20 Chinese manufactured AK-47s and a number of shotguns were stolen from the armoury at the Pomona army barracks in Harare. The deputy commander of Pomona barracks, Major Maxwell Samudzi, had "committed suicide" while being held in solitary confinement, according to a report in the government newspaper, The Herald.

Local media reports said as many as 120 serving soldiers were detained in connection with the theft and allegedly tortured. Since then, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Pascal Gwezere, has been arrested, allegedly tortured, and charged with the theft.

Morgan Komichi, deputy organising secretary of the MDC, told IRIN that Gwezere's arrest was part of "short- to long-term strategy" by President Robert Mugabe to destabilise the MDC party, led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, which joined Zimbabwe's fragile unity government in February 2009.

The unity government - an uneasy partnership between Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the MDC - broke down in October after Tsvangirai "disengaged" from it, returning to the fold only after the Southern African Development Community (SADC) intervened.

"What we are witnessing is a ZANU-PF tried-and-tested strategy which has been used since the 1980s, so that they can crack down against our party [MDC]. Searches [by the police and military] have already been conducted at one of the houses used by senior party officials in Harare, while the transport manager [Gwezere] was kidnapped and now faces charges of stealing the guns," Komichi said.

"My interpretation of the development is that there are elements, especially from the military, who are [allegedly] behind the break-in; who, in the event of a constitutional referendum or election, would use the guns to terrorise people," he said.

"If, as is expected, the MDC wins the next election - if it is free and fair - we could see the emergence of armed people with roots in ZANU-PF who would create an unstable environment for an MDC government."

Political analyst John Makumbe told IRIN it was unlikely that the theft of weapons was part of a plan to create a resistance movement to any future MDC government, and was more likely to be the work of one of two ZANU-PF factions, which both wielded influence over the military.

"What is happening is that the two factions in ZANU-PF are trying to upstage and outflank each other in the battle to succeed Mugabe, and we may see some people being eliminated," Makumbe commented.

"It is important to remember that the Air Force commander [Perrance Shiri] survived an attempt on his life [in 2008], and although it turned out that the attempt on his life was based on a love triangle, the suspects have not been arrested, even though the gun used was traced back to the military armoury."

General Solomon Mujuru, a retired Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander, leads the ZANU-PF faction that wants his wife, Zimbabwe's vice-president Joyce Mujuru, to succeed the 86-year-old Mugabe, who has held power since independence from Britain in 1980; the other faction is led by the defence minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa. ZANU-PF will hold its annual conference in December.

"The MDC may still be harassed in connection with the missing guns. However, the most frightening and unsettling prospect is that if there is a referendum, an election, or the power-sharing deal collapses ... ZANU-PF is not capable of winning a free and credible election without terrorising people," Makumbe said.

A relapse into violence?

Political analyst Eldred Masunungure told IRIN the current developments were pointers indicating that the political instability and violence which had rocked the country during the elections in 2008 could return.

"The possibility of a relapse into the 2008 violence is an omnipresent danger; those who engineered the violence are still around, and still have the same resources. All it might take would be the issuing of a new command to unleash more violence. The announcement of the date for another election will see violence increasing, as the infrastructure of violence is still there," Masunungure said.

In 2008 ZANU-PF lost its majority in parliament for the first time since independence, and Mugabe lost the first round of the presidential poll to his rival Tsvangirai - who narrowly missed the 50 percent plus one vote that would have seen him elected president.

Tsvangirai withdrew from the run-off in protest over political violence that killed over 120 people and displaced thousands. Mugabe won the run-off unopposed, but his victory was not recognized by international observers, including SADC.

dd/go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87119JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (IRIN) - The number of Zimbabweans displaced after some of their shacks in an informal settlement outside De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, were attacked and demolished by local South African residents, has risen to about 3,000, said the South African Red Cross Society. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (IRIN) - The number of Zimbabweans displaced after some of their shacks in an informal settlement outside De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, were attacked and demolished by local South African residents, has risen to about 3,000, said the South African Red Cross Society.

The Red Cross has appealed for R2 million (about US$270,880) to help provide urgently needed blankets, water, food, first-aid kits, toiletries, clothing, fuel for transport, and logistical support for the displaced.

Red Cross spokesman Kelvin Glen told IRIN that the aid agency had responded to a call for help by local authorities on 15 November to provide meals and blankets for about 80 people, "but the numbers have risen since". Most of the displaced are being sheltered in a marquee tent pitched on the local sports ground.

More Zimbabweans fled following attacks by local residents early in the morning of 17 November. The South Africans were unhappy that local farm owners were employing Zimbabweans, according to police at De Doorns. The situation was stable at the moment, said the police.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87107JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, November 17, 2009 (IRIN) - Fearing a resurgence of xenophobic attacks, around 2,500 Zimbabwean migrants have taken refuge in government buildings in De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, after some of their shacks in an informal settlement were attacked and demolished, said a police official. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, November 17, 2009 (IRIN) - Fearing a resurgence of xenophobic attacks, around 2,500 Zimbabwean migrants have taken refuge in government buildings in De Doorns, a farming town about 140km from Cape Town, South Africa, after some of their shacks in an informal settlement were attacked and demolished, said a police official.

The attacks took place early in the morning of 17 November in Stofland, meaning dustland in Afrikaans, the largest squatter camp in De Doorns. All the displaced Zimbabweans are documented.

The local police station commander, Superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen, told IRIN the local residents were unhappy that farm owners had been employing Zimbabweans for "less money", and had complained that farmers were "excluding the local community".

The global economic recession has hit South Africa hard; the government's latest labour force survey said 484,000 jobs had been lost in the last six months, and unemployment stood at 24.5 percent for the period July to September 2009, up from 23.2 percent during the same period in 2008.

Van der Westhuizen told IRIN that the situation had been tense since 13 November, when Zimbabweans had been involved in a violent spat in an informal tavern. "Following that incident, some 68 Zimbabweans" had fled the area, fearing a resurgence of xenophobic violence.

In May 2008 a tide of xenophobic violence erupted in Johannesburg and quickly spread through most parts of the country, killing more than 60 people and displacing about 100,000 others.

"The same area was affected in 2008," van der Westhuizen said. The 68 Zimbabweans took refuge in government buildings in De Doorns during Saturday and Sunday.

The police, accompanied by local government and disaster management officials, held a meeting with the informal settlement residents on the evening of 16 November to calm the situation. "But the residents threatened to prevent the Zimbabweans from going to work on 17 November [Monday morning]," van der Westhuizen told IRIN.

Police had to fire rubber bullets to disperse the residents, who attacked some more shacks in Stofland, forcing the Zimbabweans to flee. "Fortunately, none of the Zimbabweans were harmed and they all moved out with their personal belongings voluntarily," the police superintendent said.

The local authorities are trying to erect a tent shelter and provide portable toilets for the displaced people on the town's sports ground. Van der Westhuizen told IRIN: "We are making interim arrangements to keep them here for a week until we try and mediate with the local residents to get the Zimbabweans integrated back into the community."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87090LUSAKA Monday, November 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Abigail Mwanashimba has been looking after her five siblings since the age of eight, when her parents died of AIDS-related illnesses. She is now 19 years old, and without relatives to represent her at her lobola (bride price) negotiations, she was forced to hire traditional counsellors to organise the process of marriage according to the tribal customs. They did a bad job.LUSAKA Monday, November 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Abigail Mwanashimba has been looking after her five siblings since the age of eight, when her parents died of AIDS-related illnesses. She is now 19 years old, and without relatives to represent her at her lobola (bride price) negotiations, she was forced to hire traditional counsellors to organise the process of marriage according to the tribal customs. They did a bad job.

"I don't know anything about my tribe or its culture because there has never been anyone to teach or show me," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I got very little lobola, but the last straw was the humiliation I suffered at my in-laws' home, when I embarrassed them by performing the wrong dance."

Losing out on the bride price was one thing, but when she realised that the counsellors she had hired had taught her the wrong traditional dances, she refused to pay them their 500,000 Zambian kwacha (US$100) fee, and is now facing a lawsuit.

Agnes Ngubeni, from the central town of Kabwe, also knows this kind of humiliation; she has lived with the embarrassment of not having undergone an initiation ceremony when she came of age, and not being able to speak the language of her tribe.

"People called us goats ... they said we were 'cultureless' and were not educated in the ways of our tribe. It never occurred to them that there was no-one to teach us - we lived without elders," she said.

Ngubeni and her siblings were orphaned fifteen years ago when her oldest brother was just 10. A Norwegian family living in Zambia committed itself to looking after them, which meant they were clothed and fed, but this presented them with social problems.

Their neighbours ridiculed them for eating pasta, bread and rice, instead of the staple, nshima - thick maize-meal porridge - that neither she nor her three sisters can cook.

"The neighbours laughed at us for eating the white man's food, which they said was not real food, but what are we supposed to do? We eat what we are given. That's just how it is," Ngubeni said.

Ngubeni recommends that people helping child-headed families should consider placing an adult relative or any other person of the same tribe among them to guide and mentor them in the ways of traditional society.

Out of touch with culture

In its latest report on Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that about 20,000 households in Zambia were led by children, but the number is increasing.

The report outlines the severe deprivations of food and shelter these children often face, and concludes that with more youngsters having to take on the responsibilities of running a household at an early age, there is every likelihood that more of them will end up on the street.

Joseph Banda heads Tisunge, a local organisation that assists child-headed households to deal with the trauma of loss, and teaches them income-generating and life skills, so that the children are able to fend for themselves and can continue their schooling.

Banda said it had never occurred to him that these children would struggle with cultural issues. "I am ashamed to say that I never saw the children's situation in this way," he admitted.

"We are so engrossed in keeping the children off drugs and alcohol, and the girls from getting pregnant, and making sure that they become good citizens, that we lose sight of the fact that children need to be socialised in the ways of their tribe."

Child psychologist Trina Mayope warned that children growing up without the value of custom and tradition would have problems in future. "It's about growing up with a cultural identity ... The children feel isolation because the communities treat them as aliens, or as something not quite right because of their seeming lack of 'traditional etiquette'."

There is also the stigma attached to being orphaned by HIV/AIDS, as is mostly the case. "If these children don't conform to the cultural norms of the society they live in they will suffer a double discrimination," she noted.

Mayope acknowledged that urbanisation and the passing of time had caused people to discard many traditions, but the basics of culture were still important and largely defined how someone was perceived.

"It's difficult for most people to comprehend how a child can grow up without knowing anything about his or culture. People think they [children] are trying to act like a muzungu [European], but when you have children whose mentor is a fellow child, how are they supposed to learn traditional norms and customs?"

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87056LUANDA Monday, November 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Esperança Mutamba (not her real name), who has been living with the virus for 10 years and works as HIV/AIDS counsellor in the Angolan capital, Luanda, is still not ready to publicly disclose her HIV status. LUANDA Monday, November 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Esperança Mutamba (not her real name), who has been living with the virus for 10 years and works as HIV/AIDS counsellor in the Angolan capital, Luanda, is still not ready to publicly disclose her HIV status.

"I consider myself to be good at what I do. I don't want to have my name used, because in my private life only my two sisters know what my job is and that I'm been HIV positive for more than ten years. My children and my boyfriend don't even have any suspicions.

"I provide counselling to so many people that I've lost count. Twice a week I carry out visits to HIV patients in the hospital, and I go to patients' homes and fetch them water when they aren't able to.

"I also pick up medication at the hospital for those who aren't strong enough to go there. Sometimes I get up at five o'clock in the morning to get there early and find a bed in the hospital for those who live far away. I also find time to work with HIV-positive children and take care of my grandchildren.

"When I converted to my church in 1995, I was already HIV positive. I was always sick, I gradually lost a lot of weight, and ended up with malaria and skin tumours, and I had to move into my sisters' home so they could take care of me.

"It was only in 2003 that I got up the courage to get tested. The test came back positive for HIV. At the time there was practically no treatment available in Angola.

"I managed to begin mine because I confided in a woman from the National Health Council who sent people abroad [to Brazil or Portugal] for treatment. She sent me to the Multiperfil Clinic in Luanda, which was the only one providing this type of treatment in the country.

"Soon thereafter, I participated in the creation of an NGO that provides prevention and with care to HIV patients, and I've been working there since.

"I've been in a relationship for six years, but my boyfriend doesn't know I'm HIV positive. I take care of him, so I'm not interested in telling him. I stopped having children very early on, when I was 20.

"This is not very common in Angola, where we women are encouraged to have lots of children. I had two and didn't want any more. When my boyfriend begins to pressure me to have sex without a condom, I say that I don't want any commitment with children.

"In the beginning I hid my HIV status from my children so they wouldn't suffer [from stigma and discrimination], but now, at 46, I live alone, I'm independent and healthy, and I don't see the need to tell them.

"I also can't stop working, as it does me a great deal of good, so I'm living this double life. I tell my relatives, my boyfriend and my friends that I work as an activist in NGOs that work in the health sector.

"I don't want my picture taken, even from the back: my children are very clever, they're always on the Internet, and they could find out."

cmb/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87064JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 13, 2009 (IRIN) - Guesstimating the number of undocumented migrants living in South Africa is like asking, "How long is a piece of string?" and the answer is - no one knows.JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 13, 2009 (IRIN) - Guesstimating the number of undocumented migrants living in South Africa is like asking, "How long is a piece of string?" and the answer is - no one knows.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, when asked how many undocumented migrants were living in South Africa at a parliamentary media briefing on 12 November in the port city of Cape Town, answered candidly: "I don't know. If somebody's here illegally, how do I know they are here? I do not know - that's an honest answer."

The home affairs website cites a 1996 study by the Human Sciences Research Council, which estimated that between 2.5 million and 4.1 million undocumented migrants were living in South Africa, but that survey was conducted before neighbouring Zimbabwe's economy collapsed.

It is thought that since 2000 more than 3 million Zimbabweans have fled the country's economic freefall and political violence, many to South Africa - the continent's economic powerhouse - and others t6o countries as far afield as the UK and Australia.

The SA Police Services (SAPS) in its latest (2008/09) annual report said, "According to various estimates, the number of undocumented immigrants in South Africa may vary between three and six million people."

If the upper figure of 6 million is accurate - although other estimates have put the number at 10 million - then about 11 percent of people living in South Africa are undocumented.

A survey released on 13 November by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), South Africa Survey 2008/2009 - Demographics, estimates the country's population at 49.32 million.

Marco MacFarlane, SAIRR's head of research, told IRIN he had heard of estimates of between 500,000 and 2 million undocumented migrants, but their numbers were not included in the demographic survey because "undocumented migrants are undocumented".

"Everyone has a methodology and it all looks like a best guess ... the SAPS figure of 3 to 6 million [undocumented migrants] means that there could be 3 million people who may or may not be here," MacFarlane told IRIN.

"It would be a very useful thing for the country to know how many people are here, but home affairs inefficiencies are dire and deeply engrained; to know how many people are here requires home affairs to become less corrupt and more efficient."

The government of President Jacob Zuma is discussing the introduction of a permit for undocumented migrants.

Asylum seekers

"What I can tell you is that [in 2008] there were about 110,000 applications for asylum. Only 10,000 were agreed to as genuine asylum seekers and those were then given refugee status," minister Dlamini-Zuma told the parliamentary media briefing, according to local news reports.

"The rest would have had to leave by either deportation or voluntarily ... But as for those who don't turn up at our offices, either as asylum-seekers or permit-seekers or anything, it's very difficult [for me to] give you a figure for that."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87032DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November [http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak340e/ak340e00.htm], published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.

The report highlights a contradiction: world cereal production is at its second-highest level ever, yet food prices remain very high. It identifies 77 countries that are both low-income and food deficit.

In East Africa, cereal prices range from 68 percent to 177 percent over the 2007 numbers. In southern Africa, prices are 58-200 percent higher than in 2007, and in most of Asia prices are up 40-70 percent. Since most low-income food deficit countries are food importers, they lose far more from high prices than they gain from steady crop production.

Hunger, in most cases, is caused by lack of money rather than a shortage of food production, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). [http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes] In 2008 the number of undernourished people in the world increased by 40 million, despite record harvests. [http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/icode/]

The new FAO report suggests that 2009 is likely to see a similar increase in hunger.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87006MASERU Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Mokete Tsehlo, 26, a shepherd working in the Berea district in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, told IRIN/PlusNews how his nomadic lifestyle contributed to his HIV-positive diagnosis. MASERU Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Mokete Tsehlo, 26, a shepherd working in the Berea district in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, told IRIN/PlusNews how his nomadic lifestyle contributed to his HIV-positive diagnosis.

"My father let me go to a little school and I can write my name, but what I know most is sheep - how to keep them out of danger. Sheep can feed you and give you fleeces that can keep a person warm; you can sell them at the market. The more sheep you own the more prosperous a person is.

"Just because I am out here now with the sheep does not mean I am out here all the time. I have friends; we play football. But you have to keep the body out of danger, like I do the sheep. You have to avoid the wild dogs, like HIV, that kill you.

"I don't know how I got HIV. They said it was from sex ... Sometimes I go all over with the sheep. We don't just stay here; we must go where the grass is.

"I meet girls - I don't sleep with men's wives because that can get you killed - but I guess one girl I slept with slept with someone before me and I got HIV.

"I don't take [antiretroviral] drugs. I can take them but it is not easy finding a place to get them. I cannot go to the same place for drugs and get a check-up every week because I am moving around with the sheep. It was easy to get HIV, but in this country there are not that many places we know to get treatment.

"My parents know nothing about HIV, so I do not worry them about it. These are my father's sheep, and their descendants will be my sheep one day. I hope to live to have many hundreds of sheep."

jh/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87009SELEBI-PHIKWE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - In most respects, there is nothing remarkable about Selebi-Phikwe, a mining town in northeastern Botswana with a population of about 50,000. The central business district is a sun-baked main street with a few shops and a taxi rank; the copper and nickel mine on its outskirts is the main source of employment.SELEBI-PHIKWE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - In most respects, there is nothing remarkable about Selebi-Phikwe, a mining town in northeastern Botswana with a population of about 50,000. The central business district is a sun-baked main street with a few shops and a taxi rank; the copper and nickel mine on its outskirts is the main source of employment.

No one knows for sure why Selebi-Phikwe has the highest rate of HIV infections in the country, just as they cannot say with any certainty why Botswana - and southern Africa - have been so hard hit by the global AIDS pandemic.

Recent figures from a national prevalence survey revealed that 26.5 percent of adults in Selebi-Phikwe were living with HIV, compared to a national rate of 17.6 percent. Half of the town's men and women aged 31 to 49 are infected.

More HIV-positive people now access antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and live longer, so prevalence rates can be misleading, but Selebi-Phikwe also led the country with its annual HIV incidence (rate of new infections) of 4.7 percent: 6.9 percent in women, and 2.4 percent in men.

Mining towns have often been associated with high rates of HIV infection, but there are many mining towns in Botswana. "We're still not sure why Selebi-Phikwe," said District AIDS Coordinator Lamech Myengwa. There are plans to conduct a study to identify the factors driving the town's epidemic.

In the meantime there is no shortage of theories. One is that since a number of textile factories closed in the late 1990s, high unemployment among the town's female residents has made them financially dependant on male mine-workers; truck drivers stopping over on their way north from the border with South Africa also provide a market for sex workers.

Could commercial and transactional sex between local women and the miners and truckers be driving the high infection rate? "Most of the women don't have money, especially since the factories closed," said Dikgang Keabetswe, a project leader with Men Sex and AIDS, a local community-based organization.

The mine, owned by Bamangwato Concessions Ltd. (BCL), is easily reached from the town rather than being located in a remote compound, as is the case with most other mines in the country. The miners and the local townspeople mix freely, particularly in Botshabelo, an informal settlement where many of the miners that BCL can't accommodate find cheap housing.

In bars and shebeens (informal drinking places), alcohol fuels risky behaviours like having multiple and concurrent sexual partners (MCPs) - a practice that recent research indicates may be the biggest driver of HIV infections in southern Africa. "Here is the birthplace of MCPs," remarked Keabetswe, who coordinates a group of volunteers who visit the bars and talk to patrons about their HIV risk.

BCL has taken steps to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in Selebi-Phikwe, but most of the initiatives focus on its 4,200 employees rather than the local community. Eighty trained peer educators conduct regular "wellness sessions" that include HIV prevention, and distribute 25,000 condoms a month to their fellow employees.

They have succeeded in persuading 90 percent of the workforce to take advantage of voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) for HIV at the mine hospital, which also provides ARV treatment, but community outreach efforts were scaled back after recent budget cuts.

Marumo Johane, BCL's Acting HIV/AIDS Superintendent, admitted: "The Phikwe community is the BCL community and I think maybe we need to focus more on community participation."

BCL has achieved a 3 percent decrease in HIV prevalence among its workers, but infection rates among the townspeople, particularly young women, have continued to climb: among those aged 20 to 24, 39 percent of women were infected, compared to 5.8 percent of men. In the group between 30 and 35 years of age, a staggering 61 percent of women were infected, compared to 47.7 percent of men.

Johane is puzzled - high rates of female unemployment, alcohol consumption and MCPs - "These are social factors that apply to other towns as well as Phikwe," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

With its confluence of factors known to drive HIV, Selebi-Phikwe represents a microcosm of southern Africa's multifaceted HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the failure of one-dimensional prevention campaigns to address complex underlying issues such as poverty, gender inequity, and socially acceptable norms of behaviour.

ks/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87011JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - The South African cabinet has approved a new policy prohibiting discrimination against soldiers and would-be recruits on the basis of their HIV status.JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - The South African cabinet has approved a new policy prohibiting discrimination against soldiers and would-be recruits on the basis of their HIV status.

Previously, HIV-positive members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) could be excluded from recruitment, international deployment, and promotion, but a 2008 high court decision declared such policies unconstitutional and gave the SANDF six months to amend them.

The high court case was brought by the AIDS Law Project (ALP) on behalf of the South African Security Forces Union (SASFU) and two HIV-positive men. One man was an SANDF member who had not been allowed to join his unit on foreign deployments; the other had been denied employment in the SANDF, based on his status.

The ALP expressed disappointment about the length of time the SANDF took to comply with the court order and the persistence of unfair discrimination against HIV-positive soldiers and recruits, but in October one of the men, Sergeant Sipho Mthethwa, became the first known HIV-positive soldier to be deployed on international service.

The SANDF had argued that people living with HIV were unfit to withstand the stress and physical demands of foreign deployments. An estimated 25 percent of SANDF employees are HIV positive, higher than the national adult prevalence of 18 percent.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86974HARARE Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Tendai Javangwe (not his real name) is 16 years old but looks half his age; he was born HIV-positive and has been staying at a home run by Mashambanzou Care Trust, a community care and support organisation. HARARE Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Tendai Javangwe (not his real name) is 16 years old but looks half his age; he was born HIV-positive and has been staying at a home run by Mashambanzou Care Trust, a community care and support organisation.

He had been living with his aunt since his parents died, but illness forced him to drop out of school and seek medical treatment at Mashambanzou - meaning "the dawn of a new day/life" in Shona - in Waterfalls, a residential area southwest of the capital, Harare.

When Javangwe was admitted the staff were shocked that his relatives had allowed his condition to deteriorate to such an extent. "He was thin and seriously ill. His relatives ... just kept him at home without realizing he needed help," Chipo Munyorovi, the sister in charge of Mashambanzou, told IRIN/PlusNews.

Javangwe is now well enough to go home but officials have classified him as a child in need of state protection after the neglect he was subjected to at home, and have said he should be placed in an orphanage or home, which has magnified his problems.

Zimbabwe has almost a million orphans, but the country's political and economic meltdown means the extended family is often too poor to cope with additional children.

High levels of stigma and discrimination prevent many HIV-positive children from being adopted or being adequately cared for by relatives, so caregivers find it hard to place those who have been abandoned in homes or orphanages.

A recent report by a local child rights organization, Streets Ahead, said at least 52 percent of children living and working on the streets of Harare and its satellite towns had lost one or both parents to AIDS-related illnesses. Most did not live on the streets permanently, but came occasionally to supplement meagre family incomes, begging to raise money for school fees and food.

"Individuals don't want to adopt them into their families, they want healthy children. Even the established orphanages tell us they have no space for the children ... This is why these children end up stuck with us," said Munyorovi.

But Mashambanzou's finances were stretched and the staff struggled to cope with the large numbers of children, who often stayed for a long period of time because they had nowhere else to go.

Paurina Mpariwa-Gwanyanya, Zimbabwe's Minister of Labour and Social welfare, attributed these problems to the collapse of social services after years of neglect and underfunding by the previous administration, and told a recent media workshop that the unity government was working hard to restore social services to protect orphans and vulnerable children.

New government estimates put the number of HIV-positive children in Zimbabwe at more than 105,000, of which only about 13,000 were on treatment. Javangwe may be one of the few lucky ones on antiretroviral drugs, but without a stable home he may not get the support he needs to make his treatment work.

st/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86986HARARE Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - An acute shortage of labourers on Zimbabwe's newly resettled farms, combined with the farmers' inability to raise loans from financial institutions to purchase agricultural inputs, and money owed to them by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), do not bode well for food security.HARARE Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - An acute shortage of labourers on Zimbabwe's newly resettled farms, combined with the farmers' inability to raise loans from financial institutions to purchase agricultural inputs, and money owed to them by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), do not bode well for food insecurity.

"The majority of our members have indicated that their farming activities have been severely affected by the shortage of manpower to use on the farms. We are poorly prepared, and our hands as farmers are tied because we don't have the money to keep the farm workers," said Denford Chimbwanda, president of the Grain and Cereal Producers Association (GCPA).

Chimbwanda told IRIN that although banks have finally agreed to provide loans, with the government's offer letters on the land as collateral, the slow pace of approving loans was not taking into account the window period of the main planting season.

Offer letters, or 99-year leases, have been issued to farmers settled on land redistributed from white-owned commercial farms to landless blacks in President Robert Mugabe's fast-track land reform programme, which began in 2000. Banks have only recently started accepting the offer letters as collateral for loans.

Renson Gasela, an agricultural analyst and the secretary for agriculture in the breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Arthur Mutambara, told IRIN that many farmers who had sold their previous harvest to the GMB - the sole grain purchaser in Zimbabwe - were still awaiting payment, further turning the screws on their cash flow.

"Farm workers are deciding that enough is enough. I am aware that some farmers have managed to keep some of their workers, on the promise that once they get paid by the GMB they will settle the wage arrears, but these promises have gone for too long, forcing them [workers] to look for other sources of income," he said.

In some cases wages had not been paid for three months, "and this has led to frustration among the employees, who, together with their families, need to subsist on a daily basis," Gasela said.

In the first quarter of 2009 nearly seven million Zimbabweans depended on food aid, but a relatively successful harvest of 1.14 million metric tons of maize, the staple food, in June 2009 - a two-fold increase on the previous year - brought optimism that the country was turning the corner on its food insecurity.

"Moving across the country, you cannot believe that we are already in the main farming season. Only a privileged few have managed to till their land, using tractors and the diesel that they managed to buy, but the story is different with the majority of farmers," Gasela said.

"It is easy to notice the absence of farm workers, who, in the past, would be seen busy in the fields at this time of the year. Instead, they can be found by the roadside selling firewood, or fish from nearby dams," he commented.

Tapiwa Zivira, spokesperson for the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union (GAPWUZ), told IRIN that labourers were "fleeing" farms because wages were not being paid.

"Farming should be for those who are prepared to meet the costs that go with agriculture. It is disturbing that the wages we are asking them to pay our members are way below the poverty datum line, but the farm owners still insist that they are too much," Zivira said.

Farm workers are paid a maximum of US$30 a month, when they are paid, and the GAPWUZ bid for a minimum monthly wage of US$50 has so far fallen on deaf ears.

Low wages, non-payment of wages, and poor living and working conditions were accelerating the flight of farm labourers. Zivira said children were being employed in their place "because they [farmers] know that these minors lack the capacity to demand what is due to them".

Another round of "farm invasions" by high-ranking officials in Mugabe's ZANU-PF party - after the formation of the unity government in February 2009 - meant ongoing instability on farms. More than 3,000 families had been forced to migrate from farms whose ownership had changed since February, with some finding refuge by the roadside, Zivira said.

Ennia Samson, 40, a widow of Malawian origin, moved to a business centre in the Murombedzi district of Mashonaland West Province, about 65km northwest of the capital, Harare, because ownership of the farm she was raised on changed hands in March.

"When the new farmer arrived he encouraged us to stay, saying he would look after us well, but by the time I left in September only a few workers had been given a maximum of US$15," Samson told IRIN.

Other women and girls had left the farm and were now domestic workers or had gone into commercial sex work. Samson had cleaned shops at the business centre and managed to raise the capital to start a small second-hand clothes business

She now lived in a makeshift shelter with her two school-going children. "Even though we are living as squatters, life is much better here than on the farm, where we were almost starving," Samson said.

fm/go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86989BALAKA Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Obstetric fistula is preventable and treatable, but many women in Malawi are unaware of this. The condition is caused by prolonged obstructed labour and is not only one of the most serious complications of childbirth, but also one of the biggest and most disabling health afflictions.BALAKA Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Obstetric fistula is preventable and treatable, but many women in Malawi are unaware of this. The condition is caused by prolonged obstructed labour and is not only one of the most serious complications of childbirth, but also one of the biggest and most disabling health afflictions.

Lucy Chikoti, 19, who lives in Balaka, a town in southern Malawi, suffers from obstetric fistula. This is her story.
 
"I got married last year, when I was 18. My parents were not happy that I was getting married at such a tender age - they wanted me to continue with my education. I was so much in love with my boyfriend and I was getting none of their advice.
 
"I moved in with my boyfriend when I realized that I was pregnant. My village is about 20 kilometres from the main town of Balaka, where the main district hospital is. Most expectant mothers do not go for antenatal check-ups because of the distance.
 
"Sometimes women deliver on the way to the hospital. Vehicles pass through our village once in a while. The bicycle taxis that we use here are not as reliable as vehicles. In my case I delivered at the hospital, but I arrived there late.
 
"My mother-in-law took me to an Azamba [traditional birth attendant] to assist me, but it was a big mistake. I spent a night there but nothing happened. It was after my situation had worsened that they decided to take me to the hospital.
 
"Doctors said there was little they could do. It was a stillbirth. They told me my case was obstetric fistula. I was referred to another major hospital where a specialist assisted me, but they told me I would never conceive again.
 
"Today, I pass out urine and faeces uncontrollably. My husband has assisted me quite a lot. However, my mother-in-law says my husband has to marry another woman because there is nothing he can do with me in my condition.
 
"My mother-in-law says she wants grandchildren. It pains me because it was her who took me to the Azamba instead of the hospital. If I had gone to the hospital earlier, doctors could have assisted me.

"Today, she wants my husband to marry another woman, as if I deliberately planned to find myself in this condition. She is not being fair. I walk with difficulty and I need special care.
 
"This was my first marriage and my first pregnancy. I cry every day and ask, 'Why did it happen to me?' At the hospital I met women who are in a similar condition. They also told me terrible stories - they are discriminated against in their families and communities.
 
"Most people do not come near me because of the bad smell I produce. Sometimes you think that dying would save you a lot of trauma."

jk/go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86990JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is also not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.

Food aid should include foodstuffs fortified with micronutrients and animal protein. "The emphasis is more on quantity rather than quality, and rarely does the food aid target the most vulnerable groups: children under five, pregnant women and lactating mothers," said Stéphane Doyon, of the international medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a co-author of the organization's report, Malnutrition: how much is being spent?

"Barely 1.7 percent of interventions reported as 'development food aid/food security' and 'emergency food aid' between 2004 and 2007 actually address nutrition needs," he said.

The MSF report was published ahead of a new UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, which points out that the level of child and maternal undernutrition "remains unacceptable" throughout the world; 90 percent of the developing world's chronically undernourished or stunted children live in Asia and Africa.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86993HARARE Tuesday, November 10, 2009 (IRIN) - Intervention by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to resolve a dispute between Zimbabwe's unity government partners has highlighted the redundancy of an oversight body specifically established to smooth the road of political reconciliation.HARARE Tuesday, November 10, 2009 (IRIN) - Intervention by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to resolve a dispute between Zimbabwe's unity government partners has highlighted the redundancy of an oversight body specifically established to smooth the road of political reconciliation.

The Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) was constituted on 30 January 2009 by the SADC Facilitation Team to ensure that the signatories abided by the terms of Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement (GPA), signed on 15 September 2008.

According to article 22 of the GPA - which paved the way for the formation of the unity government in February 2009 - JOMIC would "ensure full and proper implementation of the letter and spirit of this agreement ... [and] receive reports and complaints in respect of any issue related to the implementation, enforcement and execution of this agreement."

JOMIC has been plagued by funding shortages and "does not have legal or statutory powers to enforce the implementation of the GPA. That therefore means it has limitations in terms of ensuring the full and proper implementation of the political agreement, and that forces everybody to work on consensus," Elton Mangoma, economic planning minister and co-chair of JOMIC, told IRIN.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, "disengaged" from the unity government on 16 October in protest over President Robert Mugabe's alleged refusal to abide by the terms of the GPA.

This, the most serious breakdown in the unity government so far, has been patched up after the SADC Troika on Defence, Security and Politics met in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, where all parties in the unity government were given a 30-day deadline to resolve outstanding issues.

Mangoma said one of JOMIC's mandates was "to serve as a catalyst in creating and promoting an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding between the political parties, and to promote continuing dialogue ... If everything was working according to plan, then the recent meeting in Maputo would not have taken place." The secretariat now had "reasonable" resources and could not be dismissed as "toothless".

"We cannot change the mandate of the JOMIC without amending the GPA. For JOMIC to function smoothly, all outstanding issues to the Global Political Agreement and the SADC communiqué of January 2009 have to be implemented in order to give the country a fresh start," Mangoma noted.

Among the outstanding issues was a transparent land audit to identify multiple farm ownership, halted by fresh farm invasions; the swearing-in of provincial governors, most of whom are MDC representatives, stalled by Mugabe since elections in 2008; media reforms; and the furore over deputy minister of agriculture designate, Roy Bennett.

Bennett, a former white commercial farmer who lost his farm in 2003 during Mugabe's fast-track land reform programme, is currently on trial for weapons possession and intent to commit terrorism and banditry. Bennett's defence team has dismissed the charges as based on a confession extracted under torture.

The MDC has also listed as a stumbling block Mugabe's unilateral appointment of the reserve bank governor and the attorney-general, contrary to the terms of the GPA.

In turn, Mugabe's ZANU-PF contends that the MDC has not done enough to persuade the US and European Union to lift sanctions against hundreds of senior ZANU-PF officials, as well as Mugabe and his family, and that the MDC has failed to stop radio stations funded by foreign governments from broadcasting into Zimbabwe.

Ben Freeth, a Zimbabwean commercial farmer, told IRIN: "As far as we are concerned, JOMIC does not exist. They have not done anything to stop the fresh farm invasions taking place." His farm was taken over by a senior ZANU-PF government official.

"The SADC Tribunal has ruled that some aspects of the land redistribution were illegal, and the government of Zimbabwe has been in contempt of that ruling since June, but JOMIC has not said or done anything about it."

According to JOMIC communications manager Joram Nyathi, "It [JOMIC] cannot force parties to perform any specific provision. JOMIC can only persuade the parties to be faithful to the letter and spirit of the GPA. Where the parties hit a deadlock, JOMIC's role is to try and break it or propose alternatives."

In a recent newspaper column he wrote: "More importantly, because of its role as a 'permanent' negotiating forum of the parties to the GPA, JOMIC cannot afford the luxury of standing on hilltops to attack or condemn its constituent partners for the infringements of the GPA."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86965JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, November 10, 2009 (IRIN) - A television advertisement that will air in South Africa in November aims to reach deaf people with vital information about how to protect themselves from HIV, while giving hearing South Africans a brief experience of a world without sound.JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, November 10, 2009 (IRIN) - A television advertisement that will air in South Africa in November aims to reach deaf people with vital information about how to protect themselves from HIV, while giving hearing South Africans a brief experience of a world without sound.

A recent survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) found that 14 percent of disabled respondents were living with HIV, but levels of knowledge about HIV were much lower than among other groups: only 21 percent had an accurate understanding of how the virus was transmitted, and just 20 percent knew their HIV status.

The silent one-minute ad features Eric Mahamba, a member of the Deaf Federation of South Africa, who uses sign language to communicate the dangers of having unprotected sex with multiple and overlapping partners. Subtitles ensure that the message is not lost on other viewers.

"There is a new man in South Africa; a man who chooses a single partner over multiple chances with HIV," Mahamba signs. "A man whose self-worth is not determined by the number of women he can have."

According to the HSRC survey, 14 percent of disabled people reported having multiple and concurrent partners, a practice identified in recent research as one of the most risky behaviours for contracting HIV.

The commercial was created by Brothers for Life, a national campaign aimed at encouraging men to positively influence each other on issues relating to HIV, gender-based violence and male sexual and reproductive health.

"We saw from the survey that they are a vulnerable group, but not many campaigns have targeted them in the past," said Richard Delate, country programme director of Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa, which is leading the Brothers for Life campaign funded by USAID and a number of local partners.

Brothers for Life is also issuing a brochure in Braille to reach South Africa's blind population with information about HIV prevention.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86966LUSAKA Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - An estimated 82,700 Zambians will become newly infected with HIV in 2009, up from just over 70,000 in 2007, according to new figures from the National AIDS Council.LUSAKA Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - An estimated 82,700 Zambians will become newly infected with HIV in 2009, up from just over 70,000 in 2007, according to new figures from the National AIDS Council.

The 2009 Zambia HIV Prevention Response and Modes of Transmission Analysis noted that the percentage of new HIV infections had stabilized, but the absolute number of new infections increased due to population growth.

As many as 71 out of every 100 new infections occur as a result of sex with a non-regular partner, while people who reported having only one sexual partner accounted for around 21 percent of new infections.

"This shows significant HIV risk even for those who are faithful. The country is facing new and tough challenges to reduce the infection rate because the disease is threatening the foundation of families and marriages," the report commented.

Other drivers of Zambia's epidemic are low levels of male circumcision in most parts of the country and inadequate condom use, particularly among discordant couples (in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other negative).

Although Zambia has recorded successes in its prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme, ensuring a safe blood supply, and behaviour-change communication campaigns, the authors recommended urgently focusing future prevention efforts on curbing common practices such as having multiple concurrent partners, transactional sex and inter-generational sex.

"Multiple concurrent partnerships are the leading cause of HIV infection in Zambia. Within these relationships, correct and consistent use of condoms remains dismally low despite condoms being readily available, in most cases free of charge," President Rupiah Banda said at the opening of the National HIV Prevention Convention in Lusaka, the capital, last week, and called for more concerted efforts to curb new infections.

However, the report revealed that the annual estimated requirement was 200 million male condoms and 2 million female condoms, yet only 96 million male and 500,000 female condoms were available.

Vice President George Kunda blamed the high number of new infections on the poor uptake of HIV/AIDS services and reluctance to change risky behaviours.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86946JOHANNESBURG Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Thinning out the top-heavy governance system of Comoros is creating tensions in the Indian Ocean island state, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its October 2009 country report.JOHANNESBURG Monday, November 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Thinning out the top-heavy governance system of Comoros is creating tensions in the Indian Ocean island state, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its October 2009 country report.

More than 90 percent of voters in a May 2009 referendum favoured constitutional reform to reduce the complex governance system that costs one of the world's poorest nations about 80 percent of its gross domestic product.

The 2001 Constitution, known as the Fomboni Accords, was designed to put an end to more than 20 coups and secession attempts since independence from France in 1975, earning Comoros the nickname of "the coup-coup islands".

Besides a rotating presidency for the over-arching Union government, each of the three islands - Grand Comore, Moheli and Anjouan - had a separate president, parliament, and many other prerogatives, making few resources available for poverty alleviation, health and education.

Constitutional reform will downscale the island presidents to governors, and ministers will become councillors, in the hope of shaving between "10 and 15 percent" off annual government expenditure.

"Tensions between the Union and island authorities remain, fuelled by the latter's reluctance to cede more power to the central government," said the IMF report. "These risks are being addressed through determined actions to enhance inter-island cooperation."

go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86947JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been feeding people in Lesotho since 1965, yet the tiny mountain kingdom is still not much closer to achieving food self-sufficiency. Time to overhaul the approach, aid agencies say.JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been feeding people in Lesotho since 1965, yet the tiny mountain kingdom is still not much closer to achieving food self-sufficiency. Time to overhaul the approach, aid agencies say.

WFP generally only ships and provides food in crisis situations like civil conflicts and natural disasters. Programmes sometimes linger on after the emergency has passed, when food aid used to help communities rebuild, but the goal is usually to move out.

"Something needs to change," said Bhim Udas, WFP Country Director in Lesotho, the only southern African country to harvest less in 2009 - around 86,000 metric tons (mt) of cereals - than in 2008; maize production, the country's staple, would be about 10 percent lower, the UN food aid agency projected.

The Lesotho Vulnerability Assessment Committee (LVAC) said between 400,000 and 450,000 people would be in need of food assistance before the next harvest in April 2010. "That's a quarter of the population," Udas told IRIN.

Part of a worrying trend

Annual per capita cereal production in Lesotho has been shrinking since the 1970s. According to WFP, domestic cereal production met about 80 percent of the national requirement in 1980, but this dropped to 50 percent in the 1990s, and by 2004 only 30 percent was being produced locally.

The worst drought in 30 years hit in 2006 and 2007, sparking a further drop in production; by 2008 maize prices had risen more than 35 percent. "This year [2009] production was even less [than in 2007], even though there was no crop failure or drought," Udas noted. WFP's food flow mix has changed dramatically since 1988, reflecting the drop in food security.

Over the years, "programme" assistance - food aid usually supplied on a government-to-government basis - practically disappeared, and "project" aid - in support of specific poverty-reduction and disaster-prevention activities - declined steadily, while "emergency" food aid - for victims of natural or man-made disasters - started climbing.

Continued food and agricultural support, coupled with falling production, have led some to believe that aid might actually be at the root of the problem. A common complaint, often with specific reference to WFP assistance programmes, has been that food handouts create disincentives to produce.

If only it were that simple, Udas said, pointing out that lowered local production was not a matter of choice. Lesotho had a shortage of arable land, and a lack of agricultural inputs and poor farming practices meant the quality of already scarce farmland was deteriorating too.

Increasingly erratic weather patterns and the impact of HIV/AIDS on farming families – the 23.2 percent prevalence rate is one of the highest worldwide - all but crippled the country's agricultural production capacity.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has been supporting agriculture in Lesotho since 1983. "A convergence of several issues [is] causing the decline," said Farayi Zimudzi, the FAO Acting Representative and Emergency Rehabilitation Coordinator in Lesotho.

"In rural areas families manage to produce, on average, three to four months' worth of food supply – that's in a good season. The rest is aid, or is bought [with money made] through [basic] employment opportunities," she told IRIN.

Location, population and too little land

Lesotho is barren, mountainous and dwarfed by South Africa, which completely surrounds it; most of its two million people live in rural areas, where 85 percent eke out a living from agriculture. "It's the type of topography, and pressure from population growth," Zimudzi said.

Less than 10 percent of the country's total area of 3 million hectares is arable - which equates to less than a single hectare of suitable farmland per rural family - but soil erosion and urban encroachment have brought down the quality and quantity of land available for growing food at an alarming rate.

Government estimates put the loss of soil to erosion at 40 million tons annually - equivalent to more than 2 percent of the country's topsoil. Years of poor farming practices have added to the problem. "People extract the nutrients but don't put them back through adequate fertilizing so they start from a lower fertility point every year," Zimudzi commented.

The country receives adequate rain on aggregate, but its mountainous topography means runoff is exceptionally high and water had little chance to seep into the soil. Rainfall distribution - usually a large amount over short periods, with long intervals – was also problematic, "because the window of opportunity to plant is very narrow".

WFP's Udas said the soaring prices of essential inputs added to farmer despair. "Because of the high prices of fuel, fertilizers and seeds, farmers could not buy inputs in time ... so they decided not to plough; most of the arable land was left fallow." FAO estimated that since 2007 the price of maize seed has gone up by 60 percent, and fertilizer by a whopping 170 percent.

A heavy dependence on South Africa - Lesotho imports over 60 percent of its food requirements, livestock and almost everything else from their only neighbour - has often been blamed for stifling the local economy, with farmers unable to compete with huge commercial farms across the border. "There is no way to ignore the overhanging presence of the ... country next door. They do it bigger, better and cheaper," Zimudzi said.

Importing food has also become much harder: prices in South Africa have rocketed in recent years, while spending power in Lesotho has plummeted. Retrenchments in South Africa's mining sector, where many Basotho men worked as migrant labourers, and an ailing textile industry - the cornerstone of Lesotho's tiny industrial base – delivered another blow to food security.

Not for lack of ideas

Zimudzi called for a shift in strategy. "Lesotho will have to look for a competitive advantage," she said. Focusing on niche crops like seed potatoes was one option, because "due to the altitude and climate there is an absence of disease."

Udas suggested growing high-value crops like beans, apples, grapes and peaches, "that would benefit from the specific climatic conditions - they don't have to produce everything they need, as long as they have other resources so they can pay [for what they need]."

Zimudzi noted that harnessing Lesotho's water resources would be key, but "irrigation schemes require heavy investment, [so] crops need to provide adequate return."

The Lesotho Highlands water scheme, which supplies much of South Africa's industrial hub, is located high in the mountains and bringing water to where it was needed for irrigation would not only be extremely difficult but also financially unviable.

Farmers were already exploring alternatives by planting crops like sorghum, which are more resistant to changing weather patterns, instead of maize. But whatever the crop, "there has to be a fundamental and revolutionary change in the way that agriculture is practiced," Zimudzi said.

Improved farming practices like crop rotation, and the more novel concept of conservation agriculture - which minimizes soil disturbance, applies more precise timing for planting, and utilizes crop residue to retain moisture and enrich the soil - would need to be widely promoted.

The promise of agriculture

Boosting agriculture and food production are major components of Lesotho's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, but despite the introduction of the Lesotho Food Security Policy in 2005, "agriculture has not received much support," FAO's Zimudzi commented.

WFP's Udas agreed: "They have the policy and an excellent plan, but now it needs to be implemented; if that is done then most of the problems would be solved - but that would require the right budget allocation."

Therein lies the problem. In 2003 the Southern African Development Community leaders met in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, and committed to allocating at least 10 percent of their national budgetary resources to agricultural sectors, but Lesotho has only managed to allocate around 3 percent annually towards meeting the target set in the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security.

Lesotho's representatives will go to the World Summit on Food Security in Rome from 16 to 18 November with an eye to garnering more donor finance for agriculture and food security programmes. "But that would only be realistic if the country showed a genuine commitment to implementing their own policies," Udas said.

In the meantime, FAO will continue supporting agricultural development, and WFP will keep feeding people through its "Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation" and "Development Project" - but only the most vulnerable.

"We don't feed everyone here; we provide food assistance that is targeted," Udas said, to the chronically poor, and food insecure beneficiaries like orphans and vulnerable children, and those involved in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission, antiretroviral therapy, and tuberculosis treatment in remote, mountainous and inaccessible areas, and there is also a school feeding programme. Altogether the schemes benefit some 244,000 Basotho.

Udas did not think WFP would leave Lesotho anytime soon. "The country still faces too many problems - that's why Lesotho will always need donor support - but you cannot talk about [donor] dependency when it's an issue of life or death for people."

tdm/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86910MAPUTO Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Helena Numaio was 12 years old in 1990 when she lost both her legs and a finger in a landmine explosion while collecting firewood in the Moamba district of Maputo Province, Mozambique. MAPUTO Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Helena Numaio was 12 years old in 1990 when she lost both her legs and a finger in a landmine explosion while collecting firewood in the Moamba district of Maputo Province, Mozambique.

The landmine put an end to her education. Nearly 20 years later Numaio has fled an abusive marriage and now is solely responsible for bringing up her three children aged five, eight and 10. She sells food and second-hand clothes on the streets of the capital, Maputo, to make a living.

Mozambique's only local NGO dedicated to assisting victims of landmines and unexploded ordnance, RAVIM, gave her a wheelchair in 2007 and she went back to school, but had to withdraw after two years. The fees were US$4 a year, but an extra levy of $2 a month to pay for the after-hours security guard at the local school meant she would have to choose between providing for her children and improving her education.

"Before getting the wheelchair I was dependent on others to take me anywhere," Numaio told IRIN. The wheelchair enabled her to set up a small business, but the city's broken roads and sidewalks were unforgiving, and the wheelchair that had given her a new lease on life now stands immobile.

Emmanuel Mounier, seconded to RAVIM from Handicap International (HI), which works with landmine victims, told IRIN the harsh environment shortened the lifespan of crutches, wheelchairs and other aids used by the disabled, but spare parts were hard to come by and there were few specialized workshops, so repairs were expensive.

No assistance for victims

Landmines are the third leading cause of amputations in Mozambique, after diabetes and road accidents, and the threat they still pose - more than 17 years after peace came to the country following four decades of independence and civil wars - is deemed big enough for HI to spend 40 percent of its annual country budget on mine clearance.

Both conflicts saw the extensive use of landmines and HI believes that the handful of recorded victims killed or maimed each year grossly underestimates the ongoing impact of these hidden weapons.

Yann Faivre, HI's programme director in Mozambique, told IRIN that "the number of mine accidents each year are given as a minimum by the authorities, but we just don't know the number of accidents."

There are no benefits for the survivors of landmine blasts, or those who died, or their next of kin, so there is no incentive to report incidents of landmine accidents to the authorities, Faivre said.

In one of the world's poorest nations, assistance for the disabled is often far down the list of priorities. There are government-run orthopaedic centres in the 10 provincial capitals, except Manica Province, where it is situated in Chimoio, but all share a common bond of "essential equipment not working or not being replaced," Faivre said.

"For example, in Inhambane [in central Mozambique, currently the most mined province] the [orthopaedic] centre is not open. In Beira [Mozambique's second city] the oven to make prosthetics is broken and has not been replaced," he said. "The situation [at orthopaedic centres in Mozambique] is not at the level of the minimum standard."

The majority of Mozambique's 20 million people live in rural areas, and the poor reputation of the orthopaedic centres means that "most people needing assistance don't bother to go [to the provincial capital] as they see it as a wasted and expensive journey," Faivre said.

The plight of landmine victims and the lack of assistance in many of the world's mine affected territories will be a major focus of the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World, or the second five-year Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, which begins on 29 November 2009 in the Colombian port city of Cartagena.

HI, which works with all disabilities, said it supported the Cartagena summit's aims of providing greater assistance to mine victims, as it might also lead to improved resources for all the disabled in impoverished countries. "No one is going to ask someone without a leg, who goes to an orthopaedic centre, how they lost it. Improved facilities will be made available for all the disabled," Faivre said.

Self help

Luis Silvestre Wamusse, national coordinator and a co-founder of RAVIM, which was established in 2005, told IRIN: "If you compare someone who was born disabled, they had no choice but to adjust to their situation. It is more difficult for someone who lived a first life as a normal person and then, from one day to another, suddenly sees their dreams broken. They have to first accept their new condition and then start their second life."

In 1984 Wamusse was a 22-year-old student in Tete Province in northwestern Mozambique, when he lost a leg and two fingers to a landmine while looking for firewood. His family brought him back to Maputo for rehabilitation. Manuel Amisse, co-founder and programme director of RAVIM, was a 26-year-old government soldier when he stepped on a mine on 11 August 1982 while on patrol in Tete.

After being evacuated by donkey cart, Amisse was eventually treated by a "not very skilled intern" in Songo, a town east of the Cahora Bassa dam, and underwent two more amputation procedures to produce a "proper stump".

"The main priorities for victims are psychological rehabilitation, the healing of the wound, and getting a prosthesis - but that first need is already not covered," Wamusse said.

In March 2007 an armoury exploded in the city of Maputo, spewing rockets, ammunition and other ordnance into the surrounding suburbs, killing more than 100 people and injuring hundreds more. RAVIM provided counselling to people who had lost limbs or sustained other injuries.

"People did not believe that we [Wamusse and Amisse] were also victims and had had limbs amputated, so we had to take off our prosthetics in the hospital and show them that we have adapted to live a normal life ... I told them, 'You lost your leg, you did not lose your life, so please do not lose your will to live'," Wamusse said.

Tales of a child soldier

Paulino Alfredo Sambo was a 15-year-old rebel soldier when he was caught in an ambush by government soldiers near Vilanculos in Inhambane Province in 1991, a year before the civil war ended. The impact of a rocket propelled grenade severed one leg below the knee and left his remaining foot in tatters. It was amputated by a nurse in a primary health care facility soon after.

After a stint in rehabilitation and attending a government re-skilling programme for former soldiers, where he trained as a metal worker, seven years after the ambush, HI provided him with prosthetics.

"After the incident I excluded myself from society - I was ashamed of my condition - but I have accepted that I will not have legs for the rest of my life," Sambo told IRIN.

He lives with his wife, Nilsa, and three children aged two, three and four in Matola City, about 20km from Maputo. He has a lathe in the front garden and from the proceeds of his work is gradually building a family home.

The stigma associated with landmine victims and the disabled in general nearly thwarted their marriage. "Neighbours [of his prospective wife's parents] spoke against me. They told Nilsa and her parents that I would not be able to support her. I told Nilsa, 'You have the choice - I will never change."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86892SELEBI-PHIKWE Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - On a recent Wednesday evening, Gillian Otsile, a volunteer at a local NGO, Men Sex and AIDS, approached a group of young men drinking cartons of traditional sorghum beer at a tavern in Selebi-Phikwe, a mining town in northeastern Botswana.SELEBI-PHIKWE Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - On a recent Wednesday evening, Gillian Otsile, a volunteer at a local NGO, Men Sex and AIDS, approached a group of young men drinking cartons of traditional sorghum beer at a tavern in Selebi-Phikwe, a mining town in northeastern Botswana.

In a country where nearly one in four adults is infected with HIV, Otsile's focus is talking to the patrons of local drinking establishments about the risks of combining alcohol with sex.

Most of the group in the bar in Selebi-Phikwe are unemployed and rely on occasional piece-work to buy beers for themselves and any girls they meet. Tato, who is slightly older than the others and works as an electrician, confirmed that after buying a girl beers all night, he expected to go home with her.

Using a condom depended on how drunk he was. "If you're drunk, you lose half the sensation, so the only way you can do it is flesh-to-flesh. You forget about HIV."

Tato's comments echo the findings of several studies: heavy drinking is associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in sexual behaviours that put individuals at risk of HIV infection.

A 2006 study in Botswana found that both male and female heavy drinkers were above three times more likely to have unprotected sex than non-drinkers; their odds of having multiple partners and paying for or selling sex were also much higher. 

Need for policies

Alcohol use as a driver of HIV infections is evident throughout southern Africa, the region worst hit by the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, but few governments have implemented policies to address the problem.

However, in 2008 Botswana President Ian Khama's government acknowledged the link by legislating shortened hours for bars and slapping a 30 percent levy on alcohol. It is too soon to say whether these measures have changed drinking habits enough to have an impact on HIV infection rates.

Some commentators say people have simply switched to drinking traditional beer called Chibuku, which still sells for less than US$1 for a one-litre carton that can be shared between friends. One of Tato's friends pointed out that bars are also popular places to buy condoms, so "if the bars are closed, they're not going to find a condom."

The tavern adjacent to the office of District AIDS Coordinator Lamech Myengwa is still doing brisk business, especially at month-end. "In Botswana, drinking has become a pastime," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

Few small towns have a cinema or much else by way of recreational facilities. "Every evening people will go to the bars to socialise - that's where everybody mixes, young and elderly - no wonder there is this intergenerational sex going on."

Government figures from 2008 show that HIV infections in Selebi-Phikwe, as in most of Botswana and across southern Africa, are highest among young women and older men, demographics that tend to be replicated in the bars.

"The women are young girls, from 16 [years old]," said Dikgang Keabetswe, a project leader at Men Sex and AIDS, one of several community-based organizations receiving funding from Population Services International (PSI), a global health organization, to raise awareness about alcohol and HIV in local bars.

"Some [young women] go [to the bars] without a cent; they look for males to buy them something to drink, and even for transport money. Men mostly expect sex in return. The BCL guys [workers at the local copper and nickel mine] - those who have more money - are mostly over 25."

Employment opportunities for women in Selebi-Phikwe have shrunk since several textile factories closed in the late 1990s, and some have turned to commercial sex work, while others occasionally exchange sex for drinks or small amounts of cash.

On her way home from buying a bag of maize, Elizabeth, 27, has stopped at the tavern where Tato and his friends are drinking. "I want a drink but I don't have money, so I'm hoping someone will buy me one," she said, admitting that some men expected sexual favours in return.

"If I want, I go with him. Sometimes I use a condom, but if he says, 'I don't have a condom', and I see he has a lot of money, I'll agree ... In life, we need money."

She recently tested negative for HIV, but believes it is only a matter of time before she contracts the virus. "I think everyone nowadays has HIV," she said.

Tato and his friends have similarly fatalistic attitudes and a reluctance to change risky sexual behaviours; several said they slept with sex workers whenever they had money.

"I'm not afraid of HIV because there are ARVs [antiretrovirals] for free," said one, referring to the government ARV programme which reaches nearly 100 percent of those in need of the medication. "I'm afraid of it ... when I'm sober," laughed Tato.

Changing behaviours no easy task

Persuading people to reduce their alcohol consumption will have little effect on Botswana's HIV infection rates unless it is accompanied by fundamental changes in attitudes and behaviours.

The young volunteers doing the PSI-funded interventions at bars are trained to strike up conversations with people not only about drinking responsibly, but also about the common practice of having multiple concurrent partners (MCPs) - perhaps the biggest and most neglected driver of HIV infections in southern Africa, according to recent research.

PSI is providing technical assistance to Botswana's National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA) in an initiative launched earlier this year to raise awareness and eventually change behaviour.

The first phase is a mass media campaign featuring the slogan "o icheke" (check yourself), to get people to recognize the risks of having MCPs. Starting in December, a second phase will target demographic groups most likely to have MCPs with tailored messages, said Richard Matlhare, head of behaviour change at NACA.

"We looked at alcohol as one of the predisposing factors, and that's why the President has taken a stance on responsible drinking," Matlhare said. "We know people can't make informed judgements when they're drunk."

ks/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86899JOHANNESBURG Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's rough diamond trade has escaped a six-month suspension by the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) - an international initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds - after its own investigating team recommended earlier in 2009 that the country be temporarily barred from importing and exporting the gems.JOHANNESBURG Thursday, November 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's rough diamond trade has escaped a six-month suspension by the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) - an international initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds - after its own investigating team recommended earlier in 2009 that the country be temporarily barred from importing and exporting the gems.

No consensus on Zimbabwe's suspension could be reached at the annual plenary, said Annie Dunnebacke, of Global Witness - a UK-based NGO that seeks to prevent the use of natural resources to fuel conflict, and a prime mover in setting up the KPCS - who described the meeting in the Namibian coastal town of Swakopmund, as "the most disorganized plenary session ever held."

The KPCS, established in 2002, brings together governments, the diamond industry and concerned NGOs to police the trade in conflict diamonds, also known as blood diamonds. The organization has 49 members representing 75 countries, and covers about 99.8 percent of the global production of rough diamonds.

The credibility of the KPCS has been on a knife edge since the decision not to take action against Zimbabwe. According to one delegate, who declined to be identified, Zimbabwe's escape from suspension was ensured by its neighbours, but would not divulge which countries in the region objected to punitive measures against the offender.

Southern Africa's economies are already seeing the effects of the global recession in depressed diamond sales, and any return to international boycotts against diamonds originating in Africa would further impact these fragile economies.

"We [civil society] are very disappointed" with the outcome, Dunnebacke told IRIN. Instead of suspension, an action plan to ensure Zimbabwe's compliance with the KPCS was called for, with the dispatch of an official to monitor the country's adherence.

In July an 11-person KPCS review team, led by Kpandel Fiya, Liberia's deputy minister of mines, visited the Chiadzwa diamond area in Marange district, Manicaland Province, bordering Mozambique in eastern Zimbabwe, and documented a litany of human rights abuses.

Yet the action plan did not address human rights abuses or the militarization of the Marange alluvial diamond fields. "The implementation of the action plan depends on Zimbabwe showing commitment and sincerity," she pointed out.

The KPSC had been "undermined by this decision ... the KP [Kimberley Process] has to look at itself ... it is too important to fail, and that is why we have not walked away from it yet ... are we endorsing a system that we cannot believe in anymore?"

Ian Smillie, of Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), one of the architects of the certification scheme, has walked away. He resigned as civil society representative to the KPCS in June 2009, saying: "When regulators fail to regulate, the systems they were designed to protect collapse ... I feel that I can no longer in good faith contribute to a pretence that failure is success, or to the kind of debates we have been reduced to."

In the KPCS review team's report, addressed to Obert Mpofu, Zimbabwe's minister of mining, Fiya said: "Sir, I was in Liberia throughout the 15 years of civil war, and I have experienced too much senseless violence in my lifetime, especially connected with diamonds. In speaking with some of these people [in Zimbabwe], minister, I had to leave the room. This has to be acknowledged, and it has to stop."

A report in June 2009 by the international watchdog, Human Rights Watch, accused Zimbabwean security forces of killing more than 200 miners in 2008 - an allegation denied by President Robert Mugabe's government - and recommended that Zimbabwe be suspended from the KPCS.

A 2009 report by PAC - Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History - said, "Zimbabwean diamonds are produced from mines that benefit political and military gangsters, and they are smuggled out of the country by the bucket load."

Another KPCS review team is expected to visit the country within the next six months.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86903NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.

“Malaria kills many people in Africa, both children and adults, despite the availability of free treatment in certain African countries. While it is true many governments in Africa, with development partners, give free pediatric treatment for malaria, many still cannot access this facilities and resort to home treatment,” says Merlin Wilcox of the Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods and the University of Oxford.

Some specialists at the ongoing 5th MIM Pan African Malaria Conference in Nairobi said medicines drawn from plants that abound in the continent could be utilized to save many people, especially those in poor settings, from malaria.

BN Prakash, a researcher with the Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, based in Bangalore, said Africa could draw on experiences in India where medicinal plants have been used with great success in the control of malaria-related deaths.

“Research in India has shown a 5-10 times reduction in malaria-related deaths among communities who use traditional medicinal plants like Guduchi [tinospore coeditdia], a local medicinal plant found in India,” said Prakash.

Preserving traditional knowledge

Another speaker, Gemma Burford of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health, said while there had been increased cases of loss of knowledge about traditional medicinal plants, student-led research could be used to preserve knowledge and create a database on these plants.

“When we carried out research involving school children in rural Tanzania about traditional Maasai medicines, we found out that 48 percent of these children already had knowledge about these plants. We used [this knowledge] to create a database for the purposes of preserving the knowledge and these plants too,” said Burford.

“It is important to note that many malarial drugs are still bought from commercial pharmaceutical shops and not many of them are that cheap. Costs also involve how easy or not it is to access these government facilities, especially in Africa where medical facilities are far-flung,” Burford said.

Educating the youth

Speakers at the conference called on African governments to introduce educational programmes that would teach the younger generations about the traditional methods of treating malaria and other diseases plaguing the continent.

“The biggest obstacle to use of traditional medicines is lack of interest from the youth and teaching them about these medicines would be the best way to let them appreciate their values. Evangelical churches and development agencies must also be persuaded to stop fighting traditional African medicine because modernity and tradition can be married to provide a formidable force against malaria,” added Burford.

Effectiveness and dangers

Doumbo Ogobara, director of the Mali Malaria Research and Training Centre, and a lecturer at the University of Bamako, said there should be more research to ensure the effectiveness of traditional medicinal plants in the treatment and management of malaria.

“More research must be directed towards finding out the effectiveness of these traditional medicinal plants and their safety and efficacy because initiatives on using them could be counter-productive if this is not done. More emphasis therefore must be laid on research for plant-based prophylactics for malaria,” said Ogobara.

Mahamadou Sissoko of the Centre called for caution in taking the traditional medicinal route, arguing that many malaria-related deaths have occurred even among communities that have relied heavily on traditional plants for treatment.

“People are dying even in places where there is still widespread use of traditional medicinal plants and unless the efficacy of a traditional plant on malarial treatment can be ascertained through vigorous research, we could have our backs against the wall. Many traditional healers will abuse this and give anything as medicine so long as it is a plant - we must urge caution,” said Sissoko.

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