Guinea and UNDP step up HIV/AIDS fight

The study on the socio-economic impact of the disease, funded by UNDP and the IDEA International Institute of Canada, has found that the incidence among people ages 15 to 49 nearly doubled from 1.5 per cent in 1996 to 2.8 per cent in 2001. It projects that the rate could increase to over 6 per cent by 2015 unless every sector of society takes action.

Unless checked, HIV/AIDS could place great strains on the health system, the study warns, taking up from 39 per cent to as much as 67 per cent of its capacity by 2015. The epidemic could also increase the poverty rate by as much as 6.5 per cent by then, it says.

Without a stronger national campaign, Guinea will not be able to reach Millennium Development Goal 6, halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, says the report. The disease also jeopardizes efforts to reduce the poverty rate by half and to reach the other goals.

UNDP is helping the Government build capacity by training staff, improving strategic planning and stepping up advocacy and awareness-raising.

Through its regional HIV/AIDS project, UNDP has provided training to more than 150 key staff in the past two years. They include HIV/AIDS focal points for the National Committee for the Campaign Against HIV/AIDS (CNLS), the Army, ministerial departments, civil society organizations, and professors and lecturers at the universities of Conakry and Kankan.

UNDP also joined with the National Committee and the Ministry of Communication to make a film on how to prevent the spread of the disease and to stage four plays in the national languages dramatizing ways to avoid high-risk behaviours.

First Lady Henriette Conte is playing an active part in efforts to raise public awareness about the disease, and UNDP Resident Representative Kinsley O. Amaning has saluted her personal commitment. She recently took her campaign to businesses in the mining sector, particularly in Kamsar, the country’s aluminium capital.

The Government has shown great determination to combat the epidemic, the report says, but added that much more needs to be done to strengthen efforts in every sector. It points to widespread lack of awareness about sexual and reproductive health, ignorance and denial of HIV/AIDS, reluctance, particularly among young people, to use condoms, risk to girls of initiation of sexual relations at a young age, and persistence of harmful traditional practices.