U.N.: AIDS program in Zambia is on upswing

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- The U.N. Special Envoy to Zambia said Monday the southerly country's program to fight HIV/AIDS has greatly improved over the past two years, due in part to laudable government efforts and more reliable funding.

"The collective, cumulative sense I had was of a country on the move against the pandemic. The shift in the response was palpable," said the Stephen Lewis on his fourth trip to the country in two years.

Most poignantly, the government recently announced that it will provide free anti-retroviral treatment to all Zambian citizens. Previously, free treatment was available only in parts of the capital, Lusaka. Treatment in rural areas cost $8 monthly for the medicine, and upwards of $30 when transportation and lab costs were included.

"The cost in the rural areas in particular has prejudiced people from seeking treatment," said Lewis.

The extension of free treatment was possible thanks to $253 million in fresh funds from The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

"The government had initially imposed a user fee -- cost sharing -- for treatment because they didn't know whether the funds could be sustained. Now they know the funds can be sustained," he said.

The Lusaka government aims to have 100,000 people in the program by year end, with nearly 18,000 signed up as of Monday, and Lewis said he believes the goal will be met.

"At every level of the government you get this unusual political grasp of what is happening and what is required. And that then permeates the country as a whole and the people as a whole," he said.

Lewis commended foreign government-aid contributors that have helped the effort, most notably the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the United Nations' own work.

"I love way the United Kingdom does it. It is a straight budgetary contribution, so that there the ability to dispense the money remains in the country's hands -- there is no neo-colonial impulse evident."

"I want to hand it to my colleagues. ... They recognize -- and not everyone does -- that we're in the midst of an emergency in Southern Africa which threatens the very survival of nation states," he said.

Other factors, including more rainfall and the meeting of debt-reduction goals signed with the International Monetary Fund, have helped contribute to the nation's financial well-being, which, in turn, has supported the HIV/AIDS effort, said Lewis.

Increased rainfall has swollen farmers' revenue as well as reduce starvation. Last year, the United Nations' World Food Program bought $17 million of locally produced food.

"When I visited Zambia in January two years ago, with James Morris of the World Food Program, we found a country that was starving. Lo and behold two years later Zambia is becoming the breadbasket of the southern region. And that is because the rains returned," he said.

Notwithstanding the dramatic improvement in agricultural production, actual levels are two to three times lower than the country's potential, because of the high number of farmers dead or ill from the HIV/AIDS virus.

Despite the progress in the fight to reduce the virus' stranglehold on the country, however, serious issues still abound, said Lewis.

Among those is the disproportionate infection rate among women, who remain more vulnerable to contraction of the disease as compared to men. Other problems include a lack of formal legislation regarding the virus, scant availability of testing centers and counseling services, and the government's need to still appoint a permanent director of its National AIDS Council.

Also pressing is the untenable situation of homeless orphans, result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. According to Lewis, 23 percent of the country's children do not live with their parents, and that figure is expected to rise to 30 percent by 2010.

Lewis also said the world's priorities are in dramatic need of reshifting. Arms spending reached $1 trillion, according to a report released by the United Nations last week, and yet the Global Fund has not been able to scratch together less than three-tenths of 1 percent of that figure, said Lewis.

"I wonder if anything would change if the G8 Summit were held in Lusaka?" he asked.