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By Thomas Scalway, Health Communication Consultant. Billions of dollars are now being spent fighting AIDS each year. HIV treatment using complex antri-retroviral therapies are being distributed, even to the remotest of those in need. Yet HIV prevention is faultering. It is almost out of fashion, unless its linked to a clinical commodity such as microbicides, or to a clinical proceedure, such as male circumscision (which reduces the risk of infection). The proportion of money being spent on HIV prevention is falling. According to UNAIDS, the UN body charged with coordinating the AIDS response, for every one person being placed on HIV treatment, six more are being infected with the virus. |
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The most basic form of HIV prevention, and the most effective and proven, revolves around communication. Encouraging local dialogue and debate on HIV and enabling affected groups to speak out about HIV is known to help prevent the virus spreading, but it is not popular with donors and national governments. Even more fundamental is letting people have the facts about HIV. It is almost unbelievable, that over 25 years into the epidemic, and with so much money spent, fewer than half of young people in the world's most affected region, Southern Africa, know how to prevent HIV, and in some countries only a small percentage of them know how to. Not only young people lack this knowledge. In the same region, sex workers and men who have sex with men are more likely than not, ignorant of the basics relating to HIV. How can the most vulnerable groups, in the world's most affected region, still not know the basics about HIV? As a health communication consultant who has worked for over 10 years, with most of the UN agencies involved in fighting AIDS, and some of the leading donor organisations and campaigns, this situation is beyond frustrating. It is ridiculous. Im hoping by painting a huge red ribbon on the sails of my boat, and sailing it to the arctic, I can make a statement that will catch the imagination of the media and other colleagues. If a small boat can get the AIDS message all the way up to the Arctic,
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