Lesotho struggling in HIV fight

2008-11-19 14:12

Johannesburg - The southern African country of Lesotho has failed to test enough people for HIV to make substantial progress in the fight against the virus, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

While the US-based group noted that Lesotho was one of the first countries to implement a mass HIV testing drive, it said the drive was ineffective.

A report compiled with the Aids and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), an alliance of non-governmental organisations, said the campaign launched in 2005 which aimed to test 1.3 million people was underfunded and had tested only 25 000 by August 2007.

It also said the Know Your Status (KYS) programme failed to take enough rights-related steps to ensure confidentiality.

"The administrative failures also meant that the program was unable to adequately safeguard people's rights," said ARASA's Michaela Clayton.

Lesotho is struggling with a raging HIV/Aids crisis that is thought to have infected about one third of adults in the country of 1.8 million people. Life expectancy is 35 years for men and 38 for women.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest HIV rates in the world. More than two-thirds of people with HIV live in this region, even though it is home to only 13% of the world's population, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS). Most of them are not aware of their status.

"Community-based HIV testing programmes have real potential for reaching people who are otherwise unlikely to test," said Joseph Amon, director of the HIV/Aids and human rights programme at Human Rights Watch.

"It sounds like a simple approach, but for these programmes to be truly successful, they must provide counselling, ensure confidentiality, and link people to HIV prevention and treatment services ..."

- Reuters