AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Wed, 27 Feb 2002

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Wed, 27 Feb 2002
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* South African Catholic Bishops Criticize Group's Campaign Against 
  Church's Stance on Condoms
* Nigeria 'Quietly' Launches Generic AIDS Drug Program


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South African Catholic Bishops Criticize Group's Campaign Against 
Church's Stance on Condoms

The South African Catholic Bishops' Conference on Monday criticized a 
Catholics For a Free Choice advertising campaign that takes issue 
with the church's stand on condoms, saying that condoms are "as 
likely to promote promiscuity as anything else," the South African 
Press Association reports. The ads -- which read, "Banning Condoms 
Kills" and "Catholic People Care, Do Our Bishops?" -- are running in 
a Cape Town newspaper and will be featured on highway billboards near 
Cape Town and Johannesburg. They are part of a worldwide campaign by 
the group against the Catholic Church's opposition to condoms even 
for HIV prevention (South African Press Association, 2/26). "The 
Catholic Church has a large following in African countries where AIDS 
is a big cause of death, and it is thus immoral for the church to be 
against the use of condoms in these changing times," Frances 
Kissling, president of CFFC, said (Associated Press, 2/22). However, 
SACBC spokesperson Bishop Reginald Cawcutt said that the group's ef-
forts "sho[w] seriously muddled thinking." He said that the "church 
strongly supports and promotes -- as it has for 2,000 years -- value-
based education and prevention programs. They are the only things 
that ultimately work." He also noted that the Catholic Bishops' AIDS 
Office is the "single largest provider" of HIV/AIDS services in South 
Africa, excluding the government. The bishops spent $1.2 million last 
year on 116 HIV/AIDS projects, including 10 orphan care projects, 31 
prevention programs and 75 care and support programs for people with 
AIDS (South African Press Association, 2/26). The debate over condoms 
in South Africa came to a head last summer when a bishop proposed re-
laxing the church's stance on condoms in light of the nation's 
HIV/AIDS epidemic. That proposal was "abruptly rejected" by the 
SACBC, which called condoms an "immoral and misguided weapon" in the 
fight against the disease (Associated Press, 2/22).


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Nigeria 'Quietly' Launches Generic AIDS Drug Program

Nigerian health officials admitted yesterday that at the end of De-
cember they "quiet[ly]" began dispersing generic AIDS drugs on a lim-
ited basis at 25 centers throughout the country, Reuters reports. 
"Our silence regarding the state of the program is on purpose," pro-
gram coordinator Dr. Sani Gwarzo said, adding, "If we announced it to 
the whole country ... the doctors would be overwhelmed." The program, 
which uses generic drugs imported from Indian manufacturers Cipla 
Ltd. and Ranbaxy Laboratories, was supposed to begin in September but 
was repeatedly delayed. So far, the centers distributing the drugs 
have yet to fill their initial quotas of 25 patients each. They are 
expected to meet those quotas within the next few weeks, and the pro-
gram should expand by the end of March. The government, which is sub-
sidizing 80% of the cost of the drugs, seeks eventually to treat 
about 10,000 adults and 5,000 children, but it has only bought enough 
drugs to treat 8,000 patients this year. Officials are carefully 
screening potential program participants to determine the stage of 
their infection and their ability to respond to therapy. "Not every 
person living with HIV/AIDS will respond to the treatment," Dr. Oni 
Idigbe, director of the Nigerian Medical Institute of Research said, 
explaining, "The criteria they use has to do with chemistry ... only 
those who meet the requirements can receive treatment." Potential 
participants are also being screened for their ability to pay for the 
treatment, which will cost them about $1 a day. Ebenezer Durojaye, an 
HIV/AIDS counselor at the Center for the Right to Health, was sur-
prised to hear that the program was up and running because officials 
have been "saying there are still delays." He added that it was "un-
believable" that the centers had not yet filled their initial 25-
person quotas "[i]n a country with as many people living with AIDS as 
Nigeria." One in 17, or 5.8%, of Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 
49 are estimated to be HIV-positive (Doran, Reuters, 2/26).

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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. © 2002 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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