A Gender Baseline Study has revealed that gender is not well integrated into HIV/AIDS coverage. Speaking at the launch of the HIV/AIDS and Gender Baseline Study findings and Media Action Plan (MAP) at the Maharaja Conference Centre in Gaborone last week, Communications, Science and Technology minister, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, noted that cross generational sex, gender- based violence and gender power relations, which are significant drivers of the epidemic, received less than six percent each of the total coverage while cultural practices received no coverage during the study's monitoring period.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
Botswana: HIV/AIDS, gender issues get low media coverage
Mmegi/The Reporter, 12 March 2007
Botswana’s adult HIV mortality rate falls since the free ART rollout
Smart T: AIDSmap, 22 August 2006
Since the launch of Botswana’s national antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme, there was a decline in the country’s adult mortality rate between 2003 and 2005 according to a report presented on Thursday 17 August 2006 at the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto. The declining mortality rate was most pronounced in the districts of the country where ART first became available and where ART coverage is the most extensive.
Boundaries of care: the role of the school in supporting vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS
Hoadley U: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 251–259
This paper is a response to a growing vision of schools as sites of care and support for vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS. The paper is based on a desk review of projects working in schools on HIV and AIDS and document review of a project in a province of South Africa. The authors outline education policies in South Africa related to the care and support of vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS. The misalignment between the policies around schools and vulnerable children, the resourcing of these policies, and their contexts of implementation is brought into relief, as well as the implications for thinking about expanded roles for schools and teachers. The paper offers possible ways forward in considering the role of schools in the context of HIV and AIDS. These include new ways of thinking about resourcing, proper monitoring and evaluation of projects, and a focus on quality teaching and learning.
Breaking the ties that bind us: A call for action against women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS
People\'s Health Movement, 20 May 2006
There are 17.5 million women living with HIV in the world, a majority of them in developing countries. Over 13 million women are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and almost two million in South and South East Asia. This article explains the people's health movement's positions on why action needs to be taken now.
Breast has finally topped bottle-feeding – even for babies born to HIV positive mothers
Cullinan K: Health-e, 2 April 2007
For years, there has been a battle over the best way to protect babies born to HIV positive mothers living in poor areas from getting the virus which has essentially boiled down to a battle between those who advocate breast feeding and those who advocate bottle-feeding with milk formula. As breastmilk can transmit HIV, global policy was weighted in favour of bottle feeding and HIV positive mothers were discouraged from breastfeeding. But a big study from KwaZulu-Natal led by Professors Jerry Coovadia and Nigel Rollins and published on Friday (30 March) seems to have finally settled the debate in favour of the breast. They found that babies who were exclusively breastfed by their HIV positive mothers were at substantially less risk of becoming infected than babies given both breastmilk and formula milk or solids.
Breast is always best, even for HIV-positive mothers
Langa L: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:9–10, January 2010
Despite emerging evidence that HIV-positive mothers should breastfeed to maximise their babies’ health prospects, South African health workers face a battle to change attitudes and habits. The 2003 South African Demographic Health Survey found that fewer than 12% of infants are exclusively breastfed during their first three months and this drops to 1.5% for infants aged between three and six months. Some health workers themselves have yet to be convinced of the benefits of breastfeeding, even for mothers who aren’t HIV positive. 'There exists the general idea that it is not important, that there is no critical reason to breastfeed, especially when you can formula feed,' says Linda Glynn, breastfeeding consultant at Mowbray Maternity Hospital in Cape Town. 'Some [health workers] think breastfeeding is a waste of time and an inconvenience.' Yet, the risks of not breastfeeding often go unrecognised. Most children born to HIV-positive mothers and raised on formula do not die of AIDS but of under-nourishment, diarrhoea, pneumonia and other causes not related to HIV. The World Health Organization recommends that all new mothers, regardless of their HIV status, practise exclusive breastfeeding for a minimum of six months.
Breast milk as the 'water that supports and preserves life'—Socio-cultural constructions of breastfeeding and their implications for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa
Hofmann J, De Allegri M, Sarker M, Sanon M and Böhler T: Health Policy 89(3), March 2009
Complementary breastfeeding represents an important source of risk of HIV infection for infants born to HIV positive mothers. The World Health Organisation recommends that infants born to HIV positive mothers receive either replacement feeding or exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) followed by early weaning. Beyond the clinical and epidemiological debate, it remains unclear how acceptable and feasible the two options are for rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa. This qualitative study aims to fill this gap in knowledge by exploring both the socio-cultural construction and the practice of breastfeeding in the Nouna Health District, rural Burkina Faso. Information was collected through 32 individual interviews and 3 focus group discussions with women of all ages, and 6 interviews with local guérisseurs. The findings highlight that breastfeeding is perceived as central to motherhood, but that women practice complementary, rather than exclusive, breastfeeding. Women are reported to recognise both the nutritional value of breast milk and its potential to act as a source of disease transmission. Given the socio-cultural importance attributed to breastfeeding and the prevailing poverty, the authors suggest that it may be more acceptable and more feasible to promote EBF followed by early weaning than replacement feeding. A set of operational strategies are proposed to favour the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in the respect of the local socio-cultural setting.
Breastfeeding, mother-to-child HIV transmission, and mortality among infants born to HIV-infected women on highly active antiretroviral therapy in rural Uganda
Homsy J, Moore D, Barasa A, Were W, Likicho C, Waiswa B, Downing R, Malamba S, Tappero J and Mermin J: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 53(1): 28-35, January 2010
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) drastically reduces mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but where breastfeeding is the only safe infant feeding option, HAART for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission needs to be evaluated in relation to both HIV transmission and infant mortality. One hundred-and-two >=18-year old women on HAART in rural Uganda who delivered one or more live infants between 1 March 2003 and 1 January 2007 were enrolled in a prospective study to assess HIV transmission and infant survival. Of 118 infants born during follow-up, 109 were breastfed. In total, 23 infants died during follow-up at a median age of 3.7 months; 15 of whom with severe diarrhoea and/or vomiting in the week preceding their death. The study concludes that, in resource-constrained settings, HIV-infected pregnant women should be assessed for HAART eligibility and treated as needed without delay, and should be encouraged to breastfeed their infants for at least six months.
Buckling: A challenging new analysis of the impact of AIDS in South Africa
Centre for the Study of AIDS, University of Pretoria: Marais H
An AIDS epidemic as severe as the one plowing through South Africa will change society, with currently predicted scenarios tending to be roughly hewn and formulaic; fixating on the impact on productive and governance capacities. But exactly how and along what lines? Buckling: The impact of AIDS in South Africa, a new publication by South African writer and journalist Hein Marais, tackles the question in distinctive and critical-minded fashion-and arrives at disquieting conclusions.
Contact: csa@up.ac.za
Buckling: A challenging new analysis of the impact of AIDS in South Africa
Hein Marais, Centre for the Study of AIDS, South Africa
An AIDS epidemic as severe as the one plowing through South Africa will change society. But how and along what lines? "Buckling: The impact of AIDS in South Africa", a new publication by South African writer and journalist Hein Marais, tackles the question in distinctive and critical-minded fashion-and arrives at disquieting conclusions and proposes a minimum package of social adjustments that could reduce the damage.
Further details: /newsletter/id/31257