Taking a Stand Against AIDS

In a poor neighbourhood of Lilongwe, Malawi, about 30 children are staying after school. Their club, Edzi Toto, is meeting today. Plays, skits, poems, singing, and dancing are on the agenda. In Bantu, edzi totomeans "Say no to AIDS."

AIDS school clubs are one of many activities that CIDA's Southern Africa AIDS Training Program funds in five countries: Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In this part of the world, an appalling number of people are living with HIV/AIDS. Apart from causing physical and emotional suffering, HIV/AIDS affects the economy, society, and development.

Public education is yielding results. More and more Africans can name the disease that is killing their family, friends, and co-workers. They know how the disease is transmitted. They know how to keep it from spreading. The Canadian Public Health Association is responsible for this CIDA program. It provides local community organizations with the means to fight this terrible scourge. In 2003, the program created an independent regional organization that will ultimately take its place: the Southern Africa AIDS Trust Fund. Thanks to the dynamic community organizations it supports, the Trust Fund and the community it serves will be well equipped to take a stand agains AIDS.

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CIDA

• In 2006, 120,000 girls and boys were members of AIDS school clubs in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• The Southern Africa AIDS Trust Fund has helped to treat 340,000 children and 43,000 adults affected by HIV/AIDS and provided home care services to 42,000 persons living with HIV/AIDS.
• In December 2006, CIDA's Minister announced $120 million to support global HIV/AIDS efforts. This is in addition to a contribution of $250 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over 2006 and 2007, of which 60 percent goes directly to combating HIV/AIDS.
• CIDA's approach focuses on partnerships and the promotion and protection of human rights. It stresses prevention, strengthening of health care systems, empowerment of women, and the promotion of children's rights.

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General

• In 2006, the proportion of persons living with HIV/AIDS was estimated at 14.1 percent in Malawi, 16.1 in Mozambique, 6.5 percent in Tanzania, 17 percent in Zambia, and 20.1 percent in Zimbabwe. The proportion in Canada is 0.3 percent.
• Worldwide, some 39.5 million people were living with HIV in 2006. Of this number, more than 90 percent live in developing countries.
• Young women are 1.6 times more likely to be living with HIV/AIDS than young men. Children under 15 account for one in six global AIDS-related deaths and one in seven new global HIV infections.
• There has been a four-fold increase in the number of people accessing antiretroviral therapy in low and middle-income countries between December 2003 and June 2006: from 400,000 to 1.6 million people.