AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Fri, 7 Dec 2001

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Fri, 7 Dec 2001
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* Eight Foundations Expected to Announce $50M Pilot Program to Reduce
  Vertical HIV Transmission in Developing Countries
* Nigerian Sex Workers Aware of AIDS, But Unaware of Viral Transmis-
  sion Routes
* Nigerian Deputy Health Minister Announces Generic AIDS Drug Trials;
  Many Selected Centers Still Lacking Drugs

--
Eight Foundations Expected to Announce $50M Pilot Program to Reduce 
Vertical HIV Transmission in Developing Countries

Eight foundations are expected to announce today a $50 million, five-
year pilot program aimed at reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission 
in developing nations, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Rockefel-
ler Foundation, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the Robert 
Wood Johnson Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the Bill and 
Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the David and 
Lucile Packard Foundation will fund the initiative, which will pro-
vide testing, drug treatment and other health care services for HIV-
positive pregnant women and their newborns. A lack of programs pro-
viding the low-cost drug regimen to reduce the risk of transmission 
has "discouraged" HIV-positive pregnant women from seeking treatment, 
the Journal reports. Although fundraising has been "set back" because 
of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- 
the commitment of funds has declined by $10 million since the origi-
nally scheduled September announcement -- the foundations intend to 
raise a total of $100 million for the project. Rockefeller Foundation 
President Gordon Conway said that although the new fund is separate 
from the $1.5 billion U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis 
and Malaria, it will work in cooperation with the United Nations' 
fund. Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health will ad-
minister the funds to organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin Amer-
ica, and part of the money will go to the United Nations Children's 
Fund. Experts estimate that of the 26 million pregnant women in sub-
Saharan Africa this year, more than 2.5 million are HIV-positive, and 
without treatment, 500,000 infants may become infected (Bank, Wall 
Street Journal, 12/7).


--
Nigerian Sex Workers Aware of AIDS, But Unaware of Viral Transmission 
Routes

The majority of Nigeria's 80,000 sex workers are aware of HIV/AIDS, 
but most do not know how it is transmitted and almost half do not 
take measures to protect themselves, according to a recent study by 
the Nigerian Society for Family Health, Agence France-Presse reports. 
About 60% of the 2,578 prostitutes surveyed were unaware that condoms 
could lower the risk of HIV transmission, and 35% thought that regu-
lar use of antibiotics could "ward off" the virus. Nigerian sex work-
ers, who make about $130 a month -- three times the minimum wage -- 
see an average of four clients a day. Because higher prices are gen-
erally offered for sex without condoms, many do not take measures to 
protect themselves from HIV and other STDs. Of the prostitutes sur-
veyed, 24% said they used condoms for "casual" customers, but not for 
"regulars" or "boyfriends," and 18% thought that they could tell if a 
client had HIV by looking at him before engaging in sex acts. Sex 
workers in northern Nigeria, where cultural and religious beliefs 
limit discussions about sex, knew even less about HIV transmission 
routes than sex workers in other parts of the country. In 1995, 35% 
of Nigerian sex workers were HIV-positive compared to 4.5% of the 
general population. Today the national HIV rate is 5.8% with an esti-
mated 3.5 million people infected (Cunliffe-Jones, Agence France-
Presse, 12/6).


--
Nigerian Deputy Health Minister Announces Generic AIDS Drug Trials; 
Many Selected Centers Still Lacking Drugs

Nigerian Deputy Health Minister Amina Ndalolo told reporters last 
week that the government intends to launch a nationwide trial of ge-
neric AIDS drugs on Dec. 10, but several of the 18 designated centers 
said that they have not yet received the drugs or any training on 
their administration, Agence France-Presse reports. The trial, which 
was scheduled to begin in September but was postponed, is set to be-
gin Monday at 18 centers across the country with a "limited" number 
of patients. After three months, the trial, which is testing generic 
AIDS drugs supplied by two Indian pharmaceutical firms, will gradu-
ally be expanded to include 100 centers and 10,000 patients by the 
end of its first year. However, officials at two Lagos hospitals cho-
sen to participate in the study said they had not yet received the 
drugs or any training in how to administer the treatments. "As I am 
talking to you, neither has my hospital received the drugs nor have I 
been told when and how to administer them," Dr. Charles Okany, head 
of the HIV/AIDS team at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, told 
Agence France-Presse. Officials at Lagos' military hospital reported 
similar circumstances. Mohammed Farouk, head of the Nigerian AIDS Al-
liance, said that people with HIV/AIDS were "fed up" with the delays 
and would initiate a street protest if the trial failed to start as 
scheduled. He said that he has seen the drugs, which are in the coun-
try, and "commended" the government for importing them (Obisesan, 
Agence France-Presse, 12/6).

--
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. c 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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