Aids threatens Moz education
2004-02-11 10:36
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Maputo - Aids is threatening Mozambique's education system by killing teachers and orphaning pupils who have to leave school to survive, a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi said about 17% of the country's teachers are HIV positive - 4% higher than the national prevalence rate among people aged 15 to 49.
Speaking at a regional seminar on education and Aids in the capital, Mocumbi said this will lead to the death of 1.6% of teachers each year. According to Unicef, Africa's fourth poorest country will be home to 926 000 Aids orphans by 2010.
"Many children in Mozambique have already begun to act as heads of households," Mocumbi said. "They begin to work at a tender age, to attend to the needs of their relatives, or to spend all their time supporting them. And so they are obliged to leave school."
Last year, Mozambique's agriculture ministry said that one million children had already left school.
Mocumbi said it is vital to develop new information and prevention strategies and to educate the youth to halt the spread of the Aids.
"If we are not capable through education to ensure that young people know how to avoid the disease, then all other efforts we make will be meaningless."
- AP