World AIDS Day 2010: Universal Access and Human Rights
December 1, 2010 marks the 22nd Anniversary of World AIDS Day, a time to help raise awareness, reduce stigma and fight the global pandemic.
This year’s World AIDS Day theme is "Universal Access and Human Rights".
Please read a recent interview about HIV issues in Africa with AMREF’s Director General, Dr. Teguest Guerma who is also the former Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS Department.
Watch the 2010 World AIDS Day Video: Universal Access below.
Although progress has been made in increasing access to HIV/AIDS services, more than half of all people in need of antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) in poor countries still aren’t receiving them.
Africa continues to be the epicenter of the pandemic.
AMREF has a long history of working to prevent HIV and ensuring people living with the disease have access to adequate health care. AMREF also works to fight the stigma and discrimination people face. For example, in Tanzania AMREF is helping to empower the most vulnerable people that are living with HIV to gain access to their basic human rights.
Accessing Human Rights in Tanzania: Haki Za Wananchi
AMREF’s Haki Za Wananchi project (meaning “Equal Rights for All” in Swahili) works to empower vulnerable people (commercial sex workers, women and the disabled) living with HIV in three urban slum communities in Tanzania’s capital city Dar es Salaam.
Tanzania’s national HIV rate is 7 percent, but in these slum communities the rate is 11 percent.
Many people living with HIV don’t have access to treatment and face physical and psychological harassment. They often become isolated from their communities.
To combat this, AMREF is working to end the stigma and discrimination that hinders people from accessing basic health services and their human rights.
Through Haki Za Wananchi AMREF is:
- Creating support groups for people living with HIV that encourage members to access treatment, report discrimination and support each other
- Providing home-based care to vulnerable people living with HIV/AIDS
- Strengthening HIV/AIDS knowledge among community leaders
- Supporting and linking people living with HIV to clinics and other health care facilities when needed
- Working closely with the government to influence policy decisions, including helping to draft the Regulations for Tanzania AIDS Law and the National Disability Law
Inside Perspective
Intern Lindsay Miles-Pickup is currently working with AMREF in Tanzania. Learn more about the Haki Za Wananchi program and how public HIV tests are helping to reduce stigma and improve people's health in her most recent field diary.
Don’t forget to wear your red ribbon to recognize World AIDS Day!
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