ICASA 2011: The 16th Annual International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa

IRMA's Project ARM is is a project with the goal of expanding African mobilization and enhancing community capacity around rectal microbicide advocacy, eventually hoping to aid the development of an African rectal microbicide agenda through community participation. IRMA and Project ARM are going to be at ICASA - the 16th annual International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa - this December in Ethiopia - are you?

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Who? IRMA, Project ARM, and thousands and thousands of other advocates from all over Africa and the world. YOU too!

What? The theme for this year's conference is OWN, SCALE-UP & SUSTAIN.

Where? Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

When? 4-8 December 2011

Why? Register to impart your knowledge, experience and best practices on HIV, AIDS and STIs; call up all players to raise ownership, commitment and support; and get your voice heard in an international platform.

 [If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

ETHIOPIA: Bid to boost ART adherence

via PlusNews

A three-month campaign by Addis Ababa's health bureau hopes to boost adherence to antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs in the Ethiopian capital by improving communication between patients and health service providers.

A 2009 study by the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office found that on average, 72.3 percent of patients on ARVs were still on first-line medication one year after starting treatment.

"The remaining are lost... it could be due to any number of reasons such as death or an unannounced change of location but it is a cause for concern," said Addis Akalu, head of the disease prevention and control department at the Addis Ababa Health Bureau.

According to Esmael Wabela, HIV prevention and treatment adviser at the city's heath bureau, insufficient food, high transport costs to drug collection points and stigma-related issues such as fear of disclosure are some of the main reasons HIV-positive Ethiopians fail to stick to ARVs.

Such failure can hasten progress from HIV to AIDS; patients taking their drugs irregularly also run the risk of developing drug resistant strains of the virus, requiring significantly more costly second- and third-line ARVs.

Addis Ababa's health bureau is partnering with the national AIDS Resource Centre (ARC) on the three-month campaign, launched in March and funded by the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Through a mass-media campaign and the use of toll-free telephone HIV/AIDS information services, it seeks to promote "astewai" (responsible patients), and "tagash" (tolerant service providers) as part of its efforts to improve adherence.

"There are findings to suggest that if there is good communication between clients and service providers, better services are provided," said Anthoula Assimacopoulou, ART communication programme officer at the ARC.

Some 26 state-run health centre, five state-run hospitals and 13 private facilities that provide ART in Addis Ababa will participate in the campaign, with a plan to roll it out to the rest of the country should it prove successful. 

Read the rest.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Ethiopia's five-year plan to halve new HIV infections

via Afrique en ligne

Ethiopia's government has come up with an ambitious plan to halve new HIV infections, quadruple its annual condom distribution and put 85 percent of people who need life-prolonging HIV medication on treatment within five years. An estimated 1.2 million Ethiopians are HIV-positive. According to the government, the country's national prevalence is 2.4 percent, with stark differences between urban HIV prevalence, which stands at about 7.7 percent and rural levels of under 1 percent...

... The country's HIV plan aims to be comprehensive, but glaringly absent from its HIV strategies is any programming specifically for men who have sex with men (MSM), who generally fall into "most at-risk" populations.

According to Israel Tadesse, a lawyer at Addis Ababa city municipality, Ethiopia's criminal code imposes prison terms of 3-12 months on people found having sex with members of the same sex. Fear of legal repercussions is often a hindrance for gay people seeking HIV prevention and treatment services.

"There is anecdotal belief that the number of MSM is increasing but we don't have any credible or official study or data," HAPCO's Yibeltal said. "Ethiopia is no island to the global state of things so I am sure in the near future it will be a threat. Therefore, necessary intervention should be implemented but the problem so far is a hidden agenda."


Read the rest.



[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]