IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 09
Africa
12 January 2001


CONTENTS

NEWS:

SOUTH AFRICA: Shock report on teacher infection rate
SOUTH AFRICA: Tributes for Nkosi Johnson
SOUTH AFRICA: Nevirapine trials to go ahead
SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS no longer a notifiable disease
KENYA: Crisis in schools
ZAMBIA: Donors question government's commitment 
ZAMBIA: Kaunda to set up radio stations to fight HIV/AIDS 
NIGERIA: Islamic clergy condemn AIDS seminar
CONGO-BRAZZAVILLE: AIDS Awareness Campaign launched
ZIMBABWE: Nevirapine to be made available

LINKS:

Positive Muslims
HIV InSite
HIV/AIDS Service Organisations - Mozambique
Swaziland

CONFERENCES/RESEARCH:

Bedside manner
Fertility fails

1. News

SOUTH AFRICA: Shock report on teacher infection rate

A shock report this week has warned that AIDS will become the single biggest
killer of teachers in South Africa this year. The study, commissioned by the
department of education and conducted by an international consultancy firm,
calls for a total overhaul and replanning of the education system, including
calling retired teachers back to replace those who have died, the WOZA news
Web site reported. 

According to the findings, up to 16 percent of teachers - 20 percent in
KwaZulu-Natal province - and 7-8 percent of heads of departments in schools
nationwide are HIV-positive. One in four undergraduates, one in eight
post-graduates and one in five technikon students are also infected with the
virus. The opposition Democratic Alliance has called on Education Minister
Kader Asmal to ensure that "proper sex education becomes a reality in South
African schools". 

SOUTH AFRICA: Tributes for Nkosi Johnson 

Former South African president Nelson Mandela on Wednesday lauded ailing
Nkosi Johnson - an 11-year-old boy with full-blown AIDS - as an "icon of the
struggle for life", AFP reported. Mandela said the deterioration of health
of Nkosi, now critically ill at his Johannesburg home after collapsing last
week, was of great concern to him. Nkosi is South Africa's youngest AIDS
activist, having reached out to thousands of delegates at an international
AIDS conference in Durban last July. "Nkosi has been a great ambassador for
our country and its people, particularly the millions of people living with
HIV," said Mandela. Streams of visitors have been to Nkosi's house including
President Thabo Mbeki's wife Zanele. Nkosi was born HIV-positive and given
nine months to live at the age of two. At the age of seven, Nkosi was
labelled South Africa's longest surviving child with AIDS. 

SOUTH AFRICA: Nevirapine trials to go ahead

Reports of the toxicity of nevirapine, the drug used to cut HIV
mother-to-child transmission, will not delay South Africa's research
programme, the 'Cape Argus' reported on Tuesday. Women at the research sites
will, however, be carefully monitored, said Saadiq Kariem, the ANC's
national health secretary. The latest warning on nevirapine's toxicity comes
from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which
found on review that nevirapine had serious toxic side-effects, including
liver damage, when used to treat people who had been exposed to the virus.
This treatment involves using the drug over many weeks, while the treatment
required for reducing mother-to-child transmission is a single dose each for
mother and baby. 

The opposition Democratic Alliance, plans to go ahead with providing
nevirapine free to HIV-positive pregnant women in municipalities it
controls. "The findings do not apply to the use of a single dose of the drug
given to mothers and infants to prevent prenatal transmission of HIV, PANA
reported party spokesman Sandy Kalyan as saying. "Safety data from three
separate efficacy trials in the US, South Africa and Uganda involving more
than 1,000 mother-infant pairs have demonstrated no severe adverse reactions
associated with a single-dose of Nevirapine," Kalyan added.

See also: 

'Serious Adverse Events Attributed to Nevirapine Regimens for Postexposure
Prophylaxis After HIV Exposures--Worldwide, 1997-2000' Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report www.cdc.gov/mmwr and
www.cdc.gov/hiv/treatment.htm

SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS no longer a notifiable disease

South Africa dropped plans on Thursday to make AIDS a notifiable disease,
Reuters reported. The decision reflected concern that people living with
AIDS could be ostracised. "Because of the climate of fear and prejudice,
people could suffer abuse and serious isolation. People would hesitate to
come and be tested if they thought the notification could be tied to them,"
said  government health spokeswoman Jo-Anne Collinge. "Notification is not
the issue that will turn the tide of this epidemic around. What has to
change is sexual behaviour and for all South Africans to be encouraged to
test for HIV," pointed out Judi Nwokedi, director of Advocacy Initiative
which campaigns for equitable health care. Under the original plan health
workers would be obliged to notify health authorities, the patient and also
his or her immediate family. 

KENYA: Crisis in schools

Some 3,000 teachers died from AIDS-related causes in one Kenyan province
alone last year, 'The Daily Nation' reported on Friday. The newspaper quoted
Nyanza Province Director of Education Roseline Onyuka as saying: "The
worst-hit are the primary schools, where we are losing more than eight
teachers every month." She added that the crisis had spilled over to
secondary schools, where the death rate has increased to about four every
month. "The situation is getting out of hand, especially now that no
teachers are being recruited and deployed. The positions of the teachers who
have died cannot be filled," said Onyuka. 

ZAMBIA: Donors question government's commitment 

A ban on broadcasting condom advertisements deemed too explicit on
television has led foreign donors to question the government's commitment to
the anti-AIDS fight, news reports said. "The donor community wanted to know
whether there had been a government shift of policy in the fight against
HIV/AIDS," Minister of Health Enoch Kavindele said on Friday.

Church leaders led the opposition to the frank condom advertisements on
state-run television - broadcast at prime time - alleging they encouraged
promiscuity. The government of President Frederick Chiluba, himself a
born-again Christian who last week questioned the morality of condom use, on
Wednesday bowed to the church pressure and the advertisements were taken off
the air. However, a compromise has reportedly been reached in the
controversy, and new condom adverts next week will include mention of the
importance of abstinence and monogamy.

ZAMBIA: Kaunda to set up radio stations to fight HIV/AIDS 

Zambia's former president Kenneth Kaunda is to launch two radio stations
primarily aimed at disseminating information on HIV/AIDS, state media
reported on Wednesday. The two radio stations are to be set up under the
auspices of the Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation, an
organisation he set up to help AIDS orphans after he retired from active
politics last year.
Kaunda said the two radio stations based in the Western and Northern
provinces of Zambia would cover the whole southern African region. 

NIGERIA: Islamic clergy condemn AIDS seminar

The council of Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano State condemned a
planned seminar this week on HIV/AIDS saying it was likely to encourage
sexual promiscuity and subvert Islamic values.
"We totally condemn the seminar and call on all Muslims not to attend it
because it is against the Sharia [Islamic law]. We will not allow the West
to use AIDS as a gimmick to spread immorality in our society," Ibrahim Umar
Kabo, chairman of the Kano State Council of Ulamaa (clerics), was quoted by
AFP as saying.

However, a spokeswoman for the organisers expressed disappointment at the
cleric's position. She said that Nigeria's HIV infection rate of 5 percent,
and rising, was due mainly to the low level of national awareness of the
disease. An e-mail message received by IRIN this week on the  awareness
controversy stated: "In northern Nigeria women are looked upon and being
considered property of men. But the women folk are [more] intelligent than
their [male] counterparts."

CONGO-BRAZAVILLE: AIDS Awareness Campaign launched

Congo-Brazzaville has launched a door-to-door awareness campaign among
adolescents against HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), PANA
reported. "Emphasis will be laid, among others, on prevention as the only
effective remedy to control STDs/HIV/AIDS," said Faustin Ekon, chairman of
the Marlene Meava Foundation which is organising the campaign. He explained
that "the door-to-door strategy is to provide some 20,000 youths with the
appropriate level of awareness."

ZIMBABWE: Nevirapine to be made available

The anti-retroviral drug nevirapine is to be approved for use in public
hospitals in Zimbabwe before the end of the year, the independent 'Daily
News' reported this week. It said the drug is cost effective and considered
a good alternative to AZT. Health Minister Timothy Stamps announced that an
unnamed German company had pledged to supply nevirapine to Zimbabwe for the
next five years. A ministry spokesman said separate clinical trials by
doctors on nevirapine were being conducted to evaluate the effects of the
drug on mother-to-child HIV transmission.

AFRICA: More funds needed to fight epidemic

The international effort against AIDS is "greatly incommensurate" with the
severity of the epidemic, an article in the medical journal 'Lancet' by two
prominent academics at Harvard's Centre for International Development has
argued. Amir Attaran and Jeffrey Sachs said that between 1996 and 1998,
official financing from OECD countries for AIDS programmes in sub-Saharan
Africa averaged US $69 million annually. However: "Lack of finance is now
the primary constraint on progress against AIDS, notwithstanding the
widespread belief that a lack of interest from the governments of poor
countries is limiting. We argue that to produce a meaningful response to the
pandemic, international assistance must be based on grants, not loans, for
the poorest countries; be increased within the next 3 years to a minimum of
US $7 billion or more".

For more details:
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol357/iss9249/full/llan.357.9249.editori
[Please NOTE: This is a free article, but free registration is required to
access the article]  

Source: AEGiS

DRUGS: Warning over Zerit and Videx

Bristol-Myers Squibb has issued a warning to AIDS doctors around the world
cautioning that two of its AIDS drugs, Zerit (stavudine) and Videx
(didanosi), should be used sparingly in pregnant women after the deaths of
three expectant mothers who were taking the medications, the 'Wall Street
Journal' reported this week. A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
official suggested it was possible that although toxicity problems affect
other drugs in the nucleoside analogue class - which includes the
GlaxoSmithKline drugs AZT and 3TC - the reaction to a particular enzyme is
stronger for the two Bristol-Myers products than for other drugs in the
class.  

Two of the deaths occurred in clinical trials outside the United States,
with one of those deaths taking place in South Africa, where the issue of
AIDS drugs is particularly volatile. The women died of lactic acidosis, a
rare but recognized complication associated with the nucleoside analogue
class, and seven other cases of non-fatal lactic acidosis have been reported
among pregnant women taking either a combination of Zerit and Videx or of
Zerit with 3TC.

For more details: www.fda.gov/medwatch/ 
       
Source: AEGiS 

DRUGS: Flu shot safe

A study by the US Centre for Disease Control shows the influenza vaccination
to be safe for people who are HIV-positive. HIV-positive individuals who are
given a flu shot suffer no impairment of their immune system, and are
slightly less likely than non-immunised HIV-positive individuals to progress
to clinical AIDS. Scientists studied more than 36,000 infected adolescents
and adults.

2. Links

Positive Muslims

Although some Muslims may think that HIV and AIDS are not issues for the
community, the reality is they are.

Contact:
Abdul Kayum Ahmed (Convenor)
mailto:ahmed121@yebo.co.za

HIV InSite

HIV InSite based at the University of California San Francisco, is the only
comprehensive, multidisciplinary source of global information on the
Internet about HIV disease that is created, written, and edited by
internationally recognized experts. The site offers a global repository of
best practices in HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and policy.
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu)

HIV/AIDS Service Organisations - Mozambique

Monaso Manica, a network of NGOs working on HIV/AIDS issues in Chimoio,
Mozambique, would like information on free subscriptions to any newsletters
or other literature in Portuguese for education and training purposes.

Contact:
Bernadine Baskin
HIV/AIDS Service Organisations Advisor
mailto:monasomanica@teledata.mz

Swaziland

Reverend Zwanini Shabalala, HIV/AIDS Coordinator in the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Southern Africa - Eastern Diocese and for the Council of Swaziland
Churches (CSC). mailto:zwanini@realnet.co.sz

3. Conferences/Research

Bedside manner

New research indicates people with HIV will be more satisfied with their
doctors if they believe their physicians are knowledgeable about the disease
and show empathy, according to 'AIDS Alert'. Researchers questioned 203
HIV-infected individuals, taking into account sociodemographics, HIV risk,
alcohol and drug use, and health status and quality of life. After six
months, the researchers interviewed 146 of the patients, asking them if
their primary care physician met their expectations and how satisfied they
are with that individual. More than half of the patients were almost
completely satisfied with their doctor. Whereas previous studies have shown
a significant association between a patient's characteristics, the
characteristics of the site of care, and overall satisfaction, this study
revealed no link between satisfaction and any sociodemographic, risk, or
health factors. Principal investigator Dr. Jeffrey Samet of Boston
University's Schools of Medicine and Public Health, notes, "The important
qualities of primary care physicians had to do with how they communicated
with their patients." 

For more details: www.ahcpub.com/online.html

Source: AEGiS

Fertility fails

A study published in the December issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes reported that the probability of pregnancy among
HIV-positive women in three African cities was significantly reduced,
Reuters said this week. The researchers studied fertility data for more than
4,000 women attending antenatal clinics in Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia. Based
on their findings, the authors estimated reductions in the likelihood of
pregnancy among HIV-infected women from 16 percent to 26 percent. The
researchers noted that because HIV reduces fertility, the findings may be
useful in better predicting health care needs, for monitoring interventions,
and for population estimates.

Source: AEGiS


IRIN-AIDS - Tel: +27-11 880 4633
Fax: +27-11 447 5472
Email: AIDS@irin.org.za 


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