[afro-nets] AIDS Threatens Mozambique Education System

[Ingrid Kloet <Ingrid@spinn.net>]

AIDS Threatens Mozambique Education System
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Hello Friends

MAPUTO, Mozambique - AIDS is threatening Mozambique's education
system by killing teachers and orphaning students who have to
leave school to take care of relatives, Prime Minister Pascoal
Mocumbi said Tuesday.

About 17 percent of the country's teachers are HIV positive - 4
percent higher than the national prevalence rate among people
aged 15 to 49, Mocumbi said.

Speaking at a regional seminar on education and AIDS in the
capital, Mocumbi said this will lead to the death of 1.6 percent
of teachers each year. According to UNICEF, Africa's fourth-
poorest country will be home to 926,000 AIDS orphans by 2010.

"Many children in Mozambique have already begun to act as heads
of households," Mocumbi said. "They begin to work at a tender
age, to attend to the needs of their relatives, or to spend all
their time supporting them. And so they are obliged to leave
school."

Last year, Mozambique's agriculture ministry said that 1 million
children had already left school.

Mocumbi said it is vital to develop new information and preven-
tion strategies and to educate the youth to halt the spread of
the AIDS.

"If we are not capable through education to ensure that young
people know how to avoid the disease, then all other efforts we
make will be meaningless," Mocumbi said.

Warmly,

Ingrid Kloet
http://www.gnpplus.net
NM POZ COALITION
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NMPWAs/
Planet Poz
http://www.planetpoz.org
5300 Eubank Blvd. NE 9-D
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