AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Thu, 9 Aug 2001

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Thu, 9 Aug 2001
----------------------------------------------

* Number of African AIDS Orphans, Orphan Centers Growing While Tradi-
  tional Family Support Breaks Down
* South African Health Minister Says Violence 'Rivals' AIDS as Cause
  of Death for South Africans
* Zambian Government Considers Importing Low-Cost AIDS Drugs


--
Number of African AIDS Orphans, Orphan Centers Growing While Tradi-
tional Family Support Breaks Down

The number of African orphans has steadily grown since the early 
1990s as parents have died from AIDS-related complications or aban-
doned their children due to their illness, giving rise to orphanages 
often funded by American charities, the Christian Science Monitor/ 
Washington Times reports. Prior to the onset of the AIDS epidemic, 2% 
of children in the developing world were orphans. Now, largely be-
cause of the effects of the disease, 10% of children in sub-Saharan 
Africa are parentless, according to U.N. estimates. Traditionally, 
extended family took in children when their parents died, but the 
"huge" number of orphans and the stigma associated with AIDS have 
broken down traditional family practices, causing many people to turn 
orphaned relatives away. "Fewer and fewer relations are willing to 
take in orphans," Roselyn Mutemi Wangahu, who led a UNICEF study on 
AIDS orphans in Kenya, said. Those who do take in relatives often 
treat them as "second-class members of the family," sometimes abusing 
the children or "forc[ing]" them to work. However, most people Wan-
gahu surveyed said they "preferred institutionalizing" the children. 
"They've realized they are not able to cope anymore," she explained. 
According to Clive Beckenham, director of the New Life Home in Nai-
robi, Kenya, more than 90% of the infants brought to his center 
"eventually test negative" for HIV.

A Rise in Children's Homes

The large number of orphans, coupled with the lack of familial sup-
port, has given rise to many new orphanages throughout sub-Saharan 
Africa, mostly funded by American charities, the Monitor/Times re-
ports. Feed the Children, an Oklahoma-based group, recently opened 
the $300,000 Frances Jones Abandoned Baby Center in Nairobi. Almost 
all of the money for the center came from the United States. Interna-
tional Children's Care, a development and relief agency based in 
Washington state, is opening five orphanages near Ndolo, a copper-
mining town in Zambia, while Gospa Missions, a Pennsylvania-based 
missionary group, is raising money to build a facility in Ogoja, Ni-
geria. Despite the wave of new centers, the need remains for more. 
"If we promoted this facility today, we would have it full tomorrow," 
Ian Harris, international director for Feed the Children, said, add-
ing that without advertising, they have had inquiries from Mozam-
bique, Zimbabwe and South Africa about setting up similar centers 
there. "It's something I don't think governments have come to terms 
with," he said. Most of the orphanages are not meant to be "long-
term" homes for the children, as many of the centers have staff de-
voted to finding foster homes or adoptive arrangements for the chil-
dren. Several homes, such as the Frances Jones Center, are also in-
cluding community outreach programs on HIV prevention as part of 
their services (Crawley, Christian Science Monitor/Washington Times, 
8/9).


--
South African Health Minister Says Violence 'Rivals' AIDS as Cause of 
Death for South Africans

South African Health Minister Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said yes-
terday that new mortality statistics show that violence "rivals AIDS 
as a threat to South African society," Reuters reports. Tshabalala-
Msimang said that a three-year study of the country's mortality sta-
tistics reveals that approximately 25% of all deaths are "non-
natural" and due to causes such as homicide, accident and suicide. 
The release of the statistics comes two days after South African 
President Thabo Mbeki said in a BBC interview that violence, not 
HIV/AIDS, was the "largest single cause of death" among South Afri-
cans and the "greatest threat to the country." But Tshabalala-Msimang 
said that statistics on AIDS-related deaths "were not yet accurate 
enough to compare with data on violent deaths." She added, "Are we 
perhaps not being sidetracked and only looking at one social condi-
tion at the expense of others. I am not saying that issues of HIV and 
AIDS should be relegated simply because we are now talking about vio-
lence, but it does demonstrate the magnitude of the problem [of vio-
lence]." UNAIDS estimates that between 180,000 and 250,000 adults 
died from AIDS-related infections in 1999. Tshabalala-Msimang said 
that 60,000 accidental deaths occurred in the country during that 
same time period, but added that the government has "no reliable sta-
tistics on ... causes of death" (Boyle, Reuters, 8/8).

Mbeki's Statements 'Disappointing'

The South African political party United Democratic Movement said 
that Mbeki's claim that violence is the leading cause of death in 
South Africa "play[s] down the horrific scale of suffering and death 
that HIV/AIDS wreaks on South Africa," SAPA/BBC Monitoring reports. 
UDM spokesperson Annelize van Wyk said that Mbeki "conveniently 
grabbed the issue of violence to avoid discussions on HIV/AIDS, with-
out giving proper attention to the link between violence and 
HIV/AIDS." Van Wyk said, "[I]t is disappointing that the president of 
the country would only admit to the astronomical rate of violence and 
murder in South Africa, in an effort to divert attention from another 
of his ill-considered positions," referring to Mbeki's questioning of 
the causal link between HIV and AIDS (SAPA/BBC Monitoring, 8/7).


--
Zambian Government Considers Importing Low-Cost AIDS Drugs

Zambian government officials on Wednesday met with representatives 
from the World Health Organization to discuss ways for the country to 
import cheaper AIDS drugs, Reuters reports. The Zambian National 
HIV/AIDS Council and Central Board of Health met with the WHO to "map 
out policies to curb the spread" of HIV through treatment. Currently, 
only private hospitals and chemists sell antiretroviral drugs, but 
they "charge prices that ordinary Zambians ... cannot afford." The 
Zambian government has "not yet officially allowed" antiretrovirals 
to be purchased for its medical centers because of the drugs' high 
cost and "the limited ability of the state health sector" to dispense 
the drugs and monitor "complicated" treatment regimes. Dr. Golden 
Bola, director-general of the HIV/AIDS council, said, "We have 
reached a point where we have to seriously put in place measures that 
will protect both the infected and affected. Sitting back and waiting 
for Zambians to reform or change their behavior is just not helping, 
the disease is spreading" (Nampito, Reuters, 8/8). In April, GlaxoS-
mithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck & Co. offered to "slash" 
the prices of antiretroviral drugs used in Zambia if the country 
agrees to keep the drugs from being smuggled out to other nations 
(Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 4/19).

--
The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. ¸ 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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