It is widely acknowledged that the media has a crucial role to play in the battle against AIDS. But how exactly do we go about doing this? Panos Features editor Dipankar de Sarkar argues that journalists and editors must seize ownership of the 'AIDS story', and approach it with greater professionalism by highlighting the voices of those who are affected.

This is designed as a one-stop compendium of tools and resources for Health Reporters, Writers and Educators in and out of Africa desiring to source credible and reliable background information and data about health and development issues in Africa for purposes of research, report writing, teaching and/or training.

Mr. Edward Clay, the British High Commissioner to the Republic of Kenya threw both pairs of his hands and feet into a serious controversy with the Kenyan government last week. In a memorable choice of words he blasted unnamed government officials for being corrupt and behaving "like gluttons" and "vomiting on the shoes" of foreign donors.

The truth is that there are many Africans in different countries who will recognise those graphic words and apply them to their countries. So if the diplomat had spoken true words why the furore? Is it because the truth hurts?

Many people including government ministers will admit privately that he was right but are angry that he spoke out. It is not in the nature and business of diplomats to be so blunt. After all it is said that a diplomat 'is someone sent abroad to lie on behalf of his country'. It should have been added too that the same person is not expected to be openly truthful to his hosts and is expected to be awfully nice to them at all times.

That is the code that Edward Clay had broken. The responses in Kenya depended on whether you are a supporter or opponent of the faltering NARC government of Kenya. There are many of us who are neither in both camps but are still caught in a dilemma as to how to respond to the Clay bluntness.
Only 18 months ago President Mwai Kibaki led the overarching multi party alliance to an unprecedented victory over KANU. It was a silent revolution that was welcomed and celebrated across Africa, promising people's power and peaceful democratic changes as opposed to violent military ones. Kenya showed itself able and willing to follow the democratic path and we were all thrilled. But in just under two years the illusions are clearing. It was an unrealistic, even if unavoidable, mass expectation that the new government will quickly transform Kenya from the corrupt and authoritarian KANU power structure it inherited.

However, ordinary Kenyans, while giving NARC the benefit of the doubt, had a right to expect some light at the end of the dark tunnel. This was not to be. They are harvesting more pain and misery from their would be liberators. The uneasy alliance is unravelling and bursting at the alter of ethno-regional politics and unbridled ambition on the part of the hydra headed leadership of the coalition.

The promised transparency, accountability and clean government have given room to KANU-type corrupt business as usual. Maybe this is not surprising given the solid KANU history of most of the leaders themselves. What can one expect from KANU refugees?

The ordinary people that were inspired to hope for a different Kenya now despair at the politicians who seem to care little about the country but a lot about their bank balances. Many of them went for the treasury like hungry lions in reckless abandon.

Things are so bad that many people are beginning to miss former president Moi and KANU. At least they are devils they knew for four decades and were predictable. The new hungry lot cannot just be second-guessed! The paralysed and paralysing leadership of the gerontocratic President Kibaki does not help the situation. Zimbabwe and Kenya's presidencies are unique on this continent. Between the President and his deputy there are probably more than 150 years! Are these the people to inspire the future: tired old men who are tiring the country!

So why are people complaining about Edward Clay for daring to say in public what many know to be true and opposition parties and CSO activists have been saying about the Kibaki leadership?

For someone who takes special delight in being irreverent to those in officialdom my instinct is with Clay. Yet I am still troubled by the politics of the bluntness. The man has a right to say whatever he wants to say without being hounded for it, whether he is a diplomat or not. The world can do with more outspoken ambassadors and other diplomats. We are surely tired of people just wearing suits whatever the climate and saying sweet nothings in the name of diplomacy.

But my problem with Clay and all the aspiring Clayites of Western diplomacy in Africa is the selective nature of their bravery and courage. They seem able to say and do things in Africa and other poorer countries that they wouldn’t dare to say in the West or North America. In fact, many of them behave in Africa like latter day colonial governors and bureaucrats. They have views on everything and our spineless media collude in their delusions of grandeur by giving all their whims and caprices saturation coverage. How many times has one seen lead stories on African televisions and other media of Western Ambassadors 'donating' ordinary footballs to one hapless school or the other? That is news! Many of them deliberately cultivate the image of being 'the opposition' to the government hosting them.

But more importantly I will accept the opinionated interference of Western diplomats in Africa if and when African diplomats in Europe or America are also able to do the same about the countries they are sent to. How would the British take it if an African Diplomat to the court of St James were to express his or her view publicly on the various failings of the hypocritical Blair regime? Can you imagine an African diplomat in Washington just repeating some of the more moderate stupidities that daily emanate from Bush's white house?

The fault is not that of Western leaders or their diplomats but our own colonial mentality that makes us accept from Westerners what we cannot take from our own compatriots and fellow Africans. We need a mental revolution, 'by any means necessary', as Malcom X would have said.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])

* Please send comments to [email protected]

On Sunday, August 15th, the African and Haitian Communities will hold their Fourth Annual Health Fair at Clark Park in West Philadelphia. The event is supported by the Philadelphia Health Department and the Coalition of African Communities and among the organisations providing information during the fair are the American Red Cross and the University of Pennsylvania's Dental School. For more information please contact the Outreach Co-ordinator, Tiguida Kaba.

The Gates Award is an annual award established by the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation to recognise an organisation that has made a major and lasting contribution to the field of global health. Nominations for the 2005 award are now being called for and any organisation from any country that has substantively improved the health and the lives of people may be nominated. The deadline for submission is 31st October 2004.

International Resuce Committee

The post holder will be responsible for overseeing all of IRC's health programs in Sierra Leone and for representing the organisation to other health sector agencies, including the Ministry of Health and District Medical Officers. Applicants will be health professionals with a strong public health background. They should have at least two years experience in implementing and managing health programs in conflict/post conflict situations.

Oxfam UK

A food security specialist is required to provide additional technical capacity to ensure delivery of quality humanitarian programming and to provide support to the implementation of Oxfam's food distribution system. The successful applicant will hold an appropriate technical degree (eg: nutrition) and have proven practical experience of food security analysis and programming.

Speaking at a UNESCO/WFP Policy Discussion on Food for Education in the Context of Education for All, Mr James T. Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said that food is a factor in health and education, pointing out the link between nutrition, HIV/AIDS and human resources. For instance, antiretroviral treatment does not work without adequate food, he commented. And the situation of the teaching profession is preoccupying: Zambia lost 2,000 teachers to AIDS last year and Lesotho estimates that it will lose half of its teachers by 2010.

In the first few months of this year alone more than 1 000 nurses in South Africa have asked that their qualifications be sent abroad because they are considering leaving the country in search of better prospects. According to the SA Nursing Council, from January to May more than 1 000 nurses had asked for a verification of their qualifications to be sent to health agencies abroad.

The health delivery capacity of public health institutions has been adversely affected by the poor economic environment and some clinics and hospitals are now operating without essential drugs and medical supplies. Zimbabwe's public health sector - once the best in sub-Saharan Africa - is now reeling as a result of neglect and inadequate funding by the government.

Increased funds, people and supplies are critical now in the Darfur region of Sudan to prevent a major health catastrophe. Cholera, dysentery, and malaria threaten the survival of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people. However, risks to people’s health can be reduced through effective health interventions within an intensified relief programme. This was the conclusion of two top leaders of the World Health Organization as they wrapped up a mission to camps and hospitals in South and West Darfur.

The second Equity Gauge seeks to place the goal of equitable health care within a broader framework that links socio-economic disparities with health outcomes. This publication highlights the fact that people do not get sick at random and that health is intimately tied up with living and working conditions. In focusing on this interdependence of socio-economic determinants with health outcomes, the document also points to the relationship between health status and geographical, racial and gender-related issues.

"Unfortunately, the war that has broken out between the United States and France, and, various delegates of different ideological prisms and business orientation/persuasions have done nothing to save even one life of the millions now dying of AIDS or prevent even one young African from contracting the HIV disease. As the war of words continue regarding the best way to fight HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa, more than 8,000 people will die today of AIDS and nearly 15,000 will become infected with HIV, an almost death sentence in many impoverished nations of the world."

Botswana Health Minister Lesego Motsumi last Tuesday at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, said that the country will meet by next year its target of distributing antiretroviral drugs at no cost to about 50% of those who need them - about 50,000 HIV -positive people, Reuters reports. Currently, 17,400 people are receiving antiretroviral therapy through the country's public health service; an additional 6,700 receive the medications from the private sector.

Health systems in Africa are being drained by an exodus of health personnel to wealthy countries, even as the need for professionals to implement new AIDS programs and reconstruct battered health systems grows ever more urgent. A new report from Physicians for Human Rights proposes new measures by both rich and poor countries to address this crisis, including compensation by rich countries for the immigrant professionals they are using to bolster their own health personnel shortages. A press release from the report, along with other health-related documents, is contained in a recent edition of the Africa Focus Bulletin.

"We, economists, public health experts and policy makers involved in the fight against AIDS are committed to scaling up access to health care including ARVs for HIV positive people. We consider it a rational economic decision and an absolute priority. The goal set by WHO is to have 3 million people on treatment by the end of 2005. What it will cost, who will do it and how it will be done is still being debated and we have much to learn. There are, of course, major concerns around the scaling up of access to treatment; how can these programs improve the uptake? How can they reach the most vulnerable and poor populations? How can they achieve a high level of adherence to ARV treatments in order to avoid the spread of resistance? This declaration sets out a principle we all should subscribe to and apply: the principle of a comprehensive minimum package of treatment provided for free to all the people living with HIV / AIDS."

Kano state in northern Nigeria has ended a 10-month boycott of polio immunisations and ordered its health officials to start vaccinating children again. The move, announced on Monday night, had been long awaited by international health experts who have seen the crippling disease ripple around Africa from the Nigerian hot spot.

The Djiboutian ministry for the promotion of women is conducting training programmes on HIV/AIDS for female peer-educators, saying it is mainly targeting young women who are most vulnerable to infection. Amina Abdi, the ministry's HIV programme manager, told IRIN on Monday, at the end of a three-day seminar to train 20 educators, that her ministry's HIV/AIDS programme would support behavioural change among young Djiboutian women.

AIDS has "crippled" at least six Southern African countries, where the life expectancy has fallen to 40 years or less, according to the annual United Nations' Human Development Report (HDR) released last Thursday. The Human Development Index (HDI) in Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe has suffered a reversal since 1990, said the report.

Culture and poverty have contributed to the spread of HIV among women in Lesotho, where one in two women ages 15 to 24 is HIV-positive compared with one in four men, the New York Times reports. In addition to being biologically more vulnerable to HIV, African traditions that afford women little autonomy have contributed to the disproportionate spread of the disease in the country.