UN warns HIV/AIDS could become major problem in Somalia without fast action

The United Nations today reported that HIV/AIDS will soon become a major health problem in war-wracked Somalia without concerted efforts to contain the factors fuelling the epidemic such as low rates of education, transfusion of unsafe blood, and prostitution.

A UN inter-agency report on the overall humanitarian situation in Somalia, which has had no functioning government for 14 years following the collapse in 1991 of the government of Muhammad Siad Barre, highlights among its findings the sobering results of the country’s first-ever nationwide HIV/AIDS Sero-prevalence study.

The survey covered multiple groups, including pregnant women attending antenatal clinics, and tuberculosis patients with sexually transmitted diseases, among others. Along with factors such as poor education and commercial sex, the report notes that high mobility, long distance truckers and transporters and negative cultural practices, such as female genital mutilation, also contribute to the spread of the disease.

But the agencies report that political commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS is growing. An antiretroviral treatment programme was recently launched in the northern town of Hargeisa, and plans are already under way to bolster it with nutritional, “Voluntary Counseling and Testing,” and “Prevention of Mother to Children Transmission” components – with the help of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Health Organization (WHO).