The annual report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), released ahead of World AIDS Day on Saturday (December 1st), said that while HIV infection has stabilised worldwide, AIDS "remains the top cause of death in Africa." According to UN statistics disclosed in the November 20th report, the number of people in Morocco carrying the virus rose from 18,000 in 2006 to 20,000 this year.

Kenyans attending rural and urban primary healthcare-based voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) services reported significant reductions in the number of sexual partners, fewer sexually transmitted infection symptoms, and increased condom use – albeit from a very low base – six months following an HIV antibody test, according to the results of an observational study of behaviour change and life events published in Sexually Transmitted Infections, published online on 8th November.

The South African Government has committed itself to announcing a new protocol for the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programme within the next two weeks. The announcement followed a meeting of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) which was chaired by the Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Thirty-seven musicians from across Africa have partnered with the UN to produce an 11-title musical album to sensitise Africans on HIV/AIDS , poverty, gender inequalities, illiteracy and conflicts. According to a statement from the UNDP office in Bamako, Mali, Thursday, the tracks sung in 18 African languages carry very clear messages on the issues.

The Tshepang Clinic in Pretoria is fully booked. The 26 people who enrolled here in November for HIV treatment will have to wait until March for the first of three counselling sessions. Completing these sessions is mandatory for anyone who wants antiretroviral drugs.

Along with partners and husbands, families also often shun women who disclose their status, placing the blame squarely on the woman’s shoulders, writes Gloria Ganyani.

24-year old Ruth Sibanda* was pregnant and could not wait to have her first baby. On one of her visits to the antenatal clinic, they gave her an HIV test.

No one really explained to Sibanda much about the test. She received no pre-test counseling to mentally and psychologically prepare her for the action she is about to take. All they said was that she must get the test done, so that if she tests positive she can get assistance so that she does not infect her unborn child.

As fate would have it, Sibanda tested positive and her world was never the same. When she arrived home and broke the news to her husband, she met with blows and insults. The most terrible thing for her was that, though she had only slept with one man, her husband, he accused her of infidelity and of infecting him with HIV.

More than 25 years into the struggle with HIV and AIDS, and this is just one among many stories of women who have experienced violent behaviour and abuse by their partners after disclosing their HIV status.

“We receive a number of complaints from women who are abused by their partners after disclosing their status,” says Sara Murera, the Programme Assistant, Gender Violence and HIV and AIDS at Musasa Project in Zimbabwe.

“It is women who usually get to know their HIV status first and if they discuss the results with their partners, they are blamed, shamed, threatened and in some cases this can lead to divorce, stigma and discrimination,” she said.

Along with partners and husbands, families also often shun women who disclose their status, placing the blame squarely on the woman’s shoulders. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), among women who disclose their HIV status in sub-Saharan Africa, between three and 15 percent report violent reactions to revealing their status.

“Even in instances where there was no form of violence in the home before, disclosure can ignite violent acts by the partner,” says Murera. “The husband can refuse to share a bed with the wife, even if he does not know who infected who. The blame is always heaped on the wife.”

Murera’s organisation runs support groups for women. Because there are many women who have been in such situations, it is easy to find some willing to come and share their experiences with affected women. “They try to show them that their problem is not unique. They have survived it and have moved on with life.”

Abusing women who disclose their HIV status encourages people to keep their status a secret and fear of testing and its consequences increases the spread of HIV and AIDS.

The WHO estimates that in Sub-Saharan Africa only 17 – 32 percent of women who test positive for HIV reveal their status. Fear of violence and reprisals prevents many women from accessing information on HIV and AIDS, being tested, disclosing their status, accessing services for the prevention of HIV transmission to infants, and receiving treatment, care and support.

The main reason health service providers test women for HIV during pregnancy is to prevent mother-to-child transmission. According to UNICEF, if a woman living with HIV becomes pregnant, there is a 35 percent chance that she will transmit the virus to her child, if there is no preventative action. Some 15 to 20 percent of children become infected during pregnancy while 50 percent are infected during delivery and 33 per cent through breastfeeding.

Yet in pursuing this worthy cause, as in Sibanda’s case, there are times when there are no supportive measures in place to help the woman deal with their newfound knowledge and to ensure that they return for follow up, or even to make them aware of treatment options or positive living messages. Ignoring women’s needs for the sake of the child’s defeats the purpose.
Men who have tested positive for HIV also have fears about disclosing their HIV status. An Ethiopian man who discovered that he was HIV positive started taking antiretroviral drugs, but kept it a secret from his wife. The man told his wife that his anti-retroviral drugs were vitamin tablets and that the doctor had prescribed him a “vitamin” to boost his energy levels because he was always overloaded with work.

He told his wife that the tablets were not good for women’s health. “My husband confessed that he knew his status for three years and did not tell me, fearing that our family and neighbours would discriminate against us. The fact that the virus is sexually transmitted shamed him,” said the 35-year-old woman whose husband died shortly after his confession.

Couples should be encouraged to go for testing and counseling together and to be supportive of each other whatever the results. They should also try to avoid the blame game and instead focus on the way forward and living positively. In the case of women especially, there needs to be more work done to ensure that revealing one’s status is a healthy life choice, and not a catalyst for increased violence and discrimination.

Recognising that underlying gender norms are at the heart of some of the barriers women face in sharing HIV test results with their partners, and in the type of treatment they experience after revealing their status, is key to making headway in preventing and caring for women when it comes to HIV and AIDS.

* Not her real name.

* Gloria Ganyani works with Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS) Media Unit in Zimbabwe.

* This article is part of a series produced by the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service for the Sixteen Days of Activism on Gender Violence.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Biennial Commonwealth Summit takes place in Kampala, Uganda 22-24 November amidst the usual controversies that have surrounded these summits whose importance in a world in which Britain is nothing more than post imperial middle power whose claims to global leadership is no longer based on its imperial past but in recent years toadying to the USA (one of its former colonies!) The association of the organization with British colonialism has always been difficult for many radical anti colonialists to accept. However it is significant that apart from the USA that never joined most of Britain’s former colonies chose to join after their independence even countries with radical nationalists and militant anti imperialist governments like Nkrumah’s Ghana or Ghandi’s India. Instead of leaving the organization what has happened is that countries in Africa with tenuous or no direct links to British colonialism like Mozambique, Namibia and Cameroon have either joined or have some associate membership. Rwanda’s application to join has been pending since 1996.

The justification has always been that though these countries were forcibly colonized by Britain that experience has led to a number of shared institutions, histories and above all, English as their official language that could be the bases for technical, political, economic, cultural and diplomatic interface that goes beyond Britain. The Commonwealth, in typical British pragmatism, has been adjusting to the changing fortunes of Britain as a declining imperial power. It has evolved from White British Commonwealth, through British Commonwealth, to now simply, The Commonwealth. It has grown from being simply an adjunct to British diplomatic and political interests into an organization where former colonies can and do strike back and isolate Britain on many issues. Under Margaret Thatcher and her belligerent position in cosying up to Ian Smith (who incidentally died , as the Queen was heading for Uganda , Wednesday 21 November) and his ‘internal settlement’ in 1979 and her ignoble support for the apartheid regime, the British government could not get the support of the majority of the members of the Commonwealth. Indeed in spite of British support apartheid South Africa was expelled from the organization and only resumed membership after the country was liberated from Thatcher’s friends. To the right wing politicians and their media hirelings in Britain the Commonwealth is an anti-British organization therefore they query why Britain had to be providing the large support it gives towards running it.

The Commonwealth has also provided a means for the cheapest form of diplomacy for many poor countries and statelets to also fly their flag. In these countries the Commonwealth’s development cooperation, technical support and cultural exchanges are very crucial in providing capacity building on skills to the nationals and their governments. In these countries the Commonwealth perform much needed and therefore appreciated tasks that the best of UN system wide support do in many countries.

However the good work of the Commonwealth whether through education grants, training for different kinds of professionals, supporting judiciary, etc do not make headlines. One reason is that they are relatively quite modest. The other and more important reason is that the politics of the organization is what interests most people. It is Just like the way many people unfairly write off the UN because of their frustrations with the opportunistic power play in the security Council.

The focus on Commonwealth politics is not a misplaced one though they need to be tempered with due regard to other useful tasks it performs. In many cases I think there is an exaggerated expectation of what the Commonwealth can achieve. It is a talking shop with no real enforcement powers beyond expulsion of erring members. And that option has been rarely used. Zimbabwe withdrew before it could be expelled. But the exit of Zimbabwe has not diminished the controversy around the conflicts in the country within the Commonwealth. It continues to divide the organization with perceptible clear racial lines that pitches the majority members against the old White Commonwealth members (namely Australia, New Zealand, Canada and their mother country, Britain). They take a more hectoring line on Zimbabwe while the African, Caribbean and Asian countries tend to be more conciliatory towards Mugabe. The British simply do not have any moral or political right to lecture anyone about Zimbabwe. Their own inconsistencies also make them vulnerable to charges of multiple standards. The Zimbabwe conflict is parallel to Pakistan’s and the way Britain has been responding to Pakistan’s PERVERSE General Musharav is different from the way they talk to or about Zimbabwe. Why is it that what is good for the goose is suddenly not good for the gander? What has Musharaf lost by being expelled from the Commonwealth? It never affects its relations with London or his biggest backers in Washington? Although British hypocrisy does not mean that President Mugabe is right to be beating up his opponents and muscling the media, it gives his apologists ammunition to clobber opponents as agents of British colonialism and makes it even more difficult for Africans and African leaders in particular to be openly too critical of Uncle Bob and the excesses of his regime.

I thought Gordon Brown was more strategic and smarter than his predecessor, Blair, and would not be as sanctimonious as him but he has proven to be same, same. His threat not to attend the Africa-EU summit in Lisbon next month if Mugabe was invited has isolated him. He will soon discover as Blair did not just in Africa but also in the Commonwealth where even Britain needs friends. He should ask Mckinon, the Commonwealth Secretary General, about his experience at the AU summit in Accra in July. At a Pensioners’ Luncheon with the Leaders he looked on as these retired citizens praised Mugabe and demanded he address them. The wealth has never been common but it is no longer predictably British either. But when would it wean itself from the British Nanny by transforming into an organization that can welcome continued participation of Britain but can also do without it, as and when necessary.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Zimbabwe's seven-year economic crisis has forced private companies to make some difficult decisions about workplace programmes for HIV-positive staff. How do you provide life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) medication, care and support, when you're struggling to keep your business afloat? "We are meeting real challenges in carrying out HIV/AIDS programmes at workplaces, and this inevitably comes from the macroeconomic problems that the country is going though," Nyika Mahachi, the HIV/AIDS programme advisor at the Zimbabwe AIDS Prevention Support Organisation (ZAPSO), told IRIN/PlusNews.

The hunger of the seemingly healthy and well-groomed school students at Moruthane Secondary School, about 80km south of Lesotho's capital, Maseru, is at first not apparent, but as the morning progresses they become listless and their concentration lapses. Their teacher, Nigerian national Yemi Ajijedidun, 32, told IRIN, "They are not bad students; they are bright, but they are hungry."

The cost of malaria treatment is crippling Ghana's health budget, Ghana’s Health Minister, Major (retired) Courage Quashigah, told an annual health summit in the capital Accra on Tuesday. The cost of treating malaria this year amounted to US $772.4 million. This amount that equalled to the Ghana's entire health budget for 2008, represents 10% of the country's entire Gross Domestic Product for 2006.

Researchers have developed a rapid, cheap and reliable field test to detect two strains of the Ebola virus. The study, carried out by Canadian, Congolese, Dutch, Gabonese and German scientists, was published on 15 November in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. In 30 minutes, the test detects viral proteins of Zaire and Sudan Ebola virus from samples of patients' urine and serum using an 'immunofiltration assay'. The samples are chemically deactivated to prevent infection to workers.

Rift Valley Fever has killed 92 people in Sudan since reports of an outbreak surfaced a week ago and it is still spreading, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says. The UN body has started holding daily meetings to monitor the spread of the disease, which has no effective human vaccine and can kill as many as half of those who contract it.

New data show global HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—has levelled off and that the number of new infections has fallen, in part as a result of the impact of HIV programmes. However, in 2007 33.2 million [30.6 – 36.1 million] people were estimated to be living with HIV, 2.5 million [1.8 – 4.1 million] people became newly infected and 2.1 million [1.9 – 2.4 million] people died of AIDS.

Hunger and HIV/AIDS are reinforcing each other in Southern Africa, "leading to a potentially tragic new level of famine", says a book published by a regional agricultural think-tank. The World Bank's annual report, released last week, also raises concerns over the pandemic's impact, pointing out that most people affected by HIV and AIDS depend on agriculture.

Even though Burundian laws are silent on homosexuality, organisations in that country such as Association pour le Respect et les Droits des Homosexuels’ (ARDHO) – a gay rights organisation formed in 2003 – have organised themselves in order to create awareness about, to advocate for and to protect gay rights. ARDHO has been working since 2003 for the recognition of the rights and the respect of sexual minorities in that country. As a pressure group, it works mainly with NGOs fighting against HIV/ Aids.

Tuberculosis (TB) and its drug resistant strain is out of control in Zimbabwe, advocacy organisations in the country have warned. With years of health system neglect, one of the most severe HIV epidemics in the world, and the stark social and economic conditions many of its people have to contend with, prevention and control of TB is increasingly desperate in the country, the groups said in a media statement released at the 38th Union World Conference on Lung Health being held in Cape Town.

Africa First, LLC of Minnesota, USA, in association with and support of the Ghana Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS Ghana Office, Ghana AIDS Commission and Esperanza Medicines Foundation, is pleased to invite all the citizens of the world, to the 2nd Global Summit on HIV/AIDS, Traditional Medicine & Indigenous Knowledge in Accra, Republic of Ghana, from Monday, March 10, 2008 to Friday, March 14, 2008. Deadline: 15 January 2008

African migrants in the UK are among the most vulnerable to HIV infection, accounting for the greatest number of new diagnoses in recent years according to a new report by Panos. Being HIV positive can intensify experiences of stigma and marginalisation, apparent in inadequate living conditions, limited employment opportunities, and lack of visibility in policy decisions. Stigmatising media coverage of African migrants can exacerbate the feelings of isolation and frequently prevents people from coming forward to access health services.

An antibiotic commonly used to treat chest infections may be the world’s new weapon against tuberculosis, and the first new TB drug in 40 years. Moxifloxacin, already approved to treat severe respiratory infections, has entered the final phase of clinical trials, offering hope that a shorter course, four-drug combination could be available to cure tuberculosis (TB) by 2011.

Cutting-edge technology is helping Rwanda's Ministry of Health improve care for many of the nation's 190,000 HIV and AIDS-affected patients. Physicians say electronic reporting systems have changed the landscape of medical care in Rwanda.