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Emergency plan for AIDS relief
By John Campbell
WORLD AIDS Day is December 1. Under President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, America and Nigeria are partners in building a future free from AIDS. This year's World AIDS Day observance focuses on women and girls. Worldwide, almost 50 per cent of HIV-positive people are women, but in sub-Saharan Africa, the number is 57 per cent. In some African communities, as many as 20 per cent of girls aged 15-19 are infected, compared to just five per cent of boys the same age.
Even when they are not themselves infected, women are victimised by HIV-AIDS in other ways. They are essential caretakers, caring for the sick and raising orphaned children. Their obligations put them at risk of losing jobs, income and schooling. Becoming the head of a household while still a child makes it difficult for a girl to achieve her full potential.
Women are often critical to agriculture, and their income is essential to feed their families. When women are lost, basic needs such as food security may no longer be met. Tragically, HIV-positive women may also pass the virus on to their children through pregnancy and childbirth. The challenges facing women and girls today are difficult ones. Under President George W. Bush's US $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the U.S. is helping the world " including the people of Nigeria " meet them.
The U.S. plan focuses on preventing new infections, bringing lifesaving treatment to people with HIV, and caring for those infected and affected by the disease, including orphans and vulnerable children. The United States has invested $2.4 billion in the fight this year " approximately as much as all other donor governments combined. The U.S. directly provides HIV-AIDS treatment, prevention and care in more than 100 nations, with a focus on 15 nations that are collectively burdened with half of the world's infections. Nigeria is one of these focus nations, and thus is benefiting from intensive U.S. investment.
A major emphasis is keeping HIV-positive people alive with the life-saving drugs that are widely available in the developed world. Roughly half the U.S. dollars will go to buy these drugs therapies, giving patients the strength to work, sustain their families, and support their communities. What does the U.S. strategy mean for women? Because they are disproportionately affected, making prevention, treatment, and care broadly available is the most significant intervention we can offer for women. Our teams in each country, including Nigeria, have chosen programmes with women in mind " and are ensuring that they are actually being served.
One key initiative is drug therapy and counseling to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. In fact, U.S. quickly trained 14,700 health workers and built capacity at over 900 different health care sites to prevent mother-to-child transmission in just the first 18 months of our programme. In addition, the U.S. is partnering with communities to find solutions to such issues as sexual coercion and exploitation of women and girls. We are fighting sex trafficking and prostitution, while still serving victims of these activities.
America also supports locally designed behaviour change strategies that direct tailored messages to appropriate groups, including education for girls that builds self-esteem, allows for informed choices, and fosters the communication skills to say "no" to sex, - and "yes" to abstinence. U.S. programmes support the roles of parents and others who can help protect girls, and strengthen families' and communities' ability to care for orphans and vulnerable children. We are also helping to build palliative care capacity, to relieve the burden on women as home-based caregivers.
Protecting women and girls, like the fight against HIV/AIDS generally, is a project in which everyone has a part to play. The American people are proud to join the people of Nigeria as partners in this work.
- Campbell is US Ambassador to Nigeria.
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