Lessons From Int'l AIDS Meet

[Guest guest]

HEALTH-SRI LANKA: Lessons From Int'l AIDS Meet

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

COLOMBO, Aug 23 (IPS/TerraViva) - For Padma, a sociology graduate

from a Sri Lankan university, the three-day International Congress on

AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) that ended Thursday was nothing

short of an enlightening experience in her life.

" When I arrived at the conference, I was filled with fear and

prejudice against people with HIV and AIDS. But now, I hold a totally

different view. Thanks to the large amount of information available

to me here, I no longer fear eating with or using toilets that have

already been visited by positive people, " she explained.

Padma, who declined to give her last name, says she leaves the Aug.

19-23 conference, where she worked as a volunteer with other Asian

activists and HIV-positive people for the first time in her life,

with a firm decision in her mind. `'I am now determined to do

something to spotlight HIV among young people here. The conference

has made me want to start my own organisation to change the narrow

perception among people in Sri Lanka, " she told TerraViva.

Padma is not the only one. Experts at the conference, the largest in

Sri Lanka, agree that the most significant achievement of the

congress has been its being a much-needed public platform to raise

awareness about the epidemic in this South Asian country where the

trend has been to shrug it off, given the officially reported low

rates of HIV prevalence.

Violet Maldeniya, an official at the Education Ministry in charge of

counselling in primary schools, said: " I attended as many sessions as

I could at ICAAP and I gained a great amount of knowledge that I need

to put to practice to protect people here. "

Sri Lanka has an HIV prevalence rate of 0.1 percent in a population

of 20 million. Up to June 2007, 886 persons had been diagnosed as HIV-

positive, official figures say, although estimates of the number of

people living with HIV was 4,500 at end-2005.

But experts cautioned that there exists a tinderbox situation, one

that points to the risks and challenges ahead.

A telling example lay in the closing comments by Prof. A. H.

Sheriffdeen, one of the three co-chairs of ICAAP who told the

audience of the difficulty he faced in asking companies to donate

10,000 condoms to congress participants. He attributed the companies'

unwillingness to the lack of public awareness of the pandemic.

Adding to what many participants found a letdown were the comments of

Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Sila who, in his

closing address to ICAAP, declared that the government policy on HIV

is to push family values -- having one sexual partner -- " as the best

form of protection " .

Other pressing issues for the country, according to experts, include

maintaining the state health budget given the expanding national

military budget.

The amount of resources put into the military is rationalised as

being necessary to face the long drawn-out ethnic conflict here and

to provide resources for a grassroots approach to HIV prevention --

programmes to boost almost non-existent sex education in schools,

psychological and economic support in the form of livelihoods for

people living with HIV, and increasing testing facilities for the

public.

Still, as Joe , a leading researcher on the pandemic, pointed

out, ICAAP has also jumpstarted Sri Lanka's efforts toward HIV

prevention. This is yet another sign of much-needed global progress,

the primary role of these large international gatherings.

" ICAAP is a golden opportunity for countries such as Sri Lanka and

for the rest of Asia, where the epidemic has reached a stage where it

needs to be molded to face the issues in this region and build a road

map where donors and Asian countries can cooperate based on the needs

on the ground, " he said.

According to UNAIDS, the joint UN programme, between 2.8 and 9.8

million people were living with HIV in the Asia-Pacific in 2006.

At the end of the closing ceremonies, the organisers of Sri Lanka's

ICAAP turned over an AIDS quilt to signify the start of preparations

for the next regional AIDS conference, to be held in September 2009

in Bali, Indonesia.

Dr Zubairi Djoerbane, chair of the Indonesian AIDS Society and head

of the steering committee of the 9th ICAAP in Bali, said " Indonesia

is ready " with the full support and commitment from the government,

political leadership and civil society. The Bali congress, he said,

will pick up on thematic issues discussed in Colombo, and make its

own contributions. " Of course, there will be no restriction for entry

for people living with HIV/AIDS. "

(*Terra Viva is an IPS Publication) (END/2007)

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