News

AS PART of a trade union response to the scourge of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, UNI conducted an HIV/AIDS awareness training workshop for the National Union of Retail and Allied workers in Lesotho from 14 – 16 November.

The workshop is part of a five-year HIV/AIDS project being funded by the Belgian government with the support of UNI affiliate BBTK/ABVV in Belgium. Five countries in Southern Africa are participating in the project which is expected to be concluded in 2011.

Lesotho is among the countries in Southern Africa with the highest infection rates. In 2006, UNAIDS reported that more than 28 per cent of persons between 15 – 29 years of age were living with the HIV virus in Lesotho, a country of just 1.8 million people.

The 12 participants at the workshop singled out poverty, lack of knowledge, cultural behaviour, peer pressure, alcohol and migration as some of the factors influencing HIV/AIDS in Lesotho.

The participants recommended that there should be ongoing HIV/AIDS education, care and support programmes, especially for young workers. Trade unions were also urged to train HIV counselors, provide centres for voluntary counselling and confidentiality testing, promote HIV workplace policies and extend to treatment to former employees as the ARV treatment is for life.

And the 2007 AIDS Epidemic Update by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that global HIV prevalence - the percentage of people living with HIV - has levelled off and that the number of new infections has fallen, in part as a result of the impact of HIV programmes.

The significant reduction from almost 40 million people infected at the end of 2006 is only, to a small extent, due to the impact of HIV programmes. The new report reflects improved and expanded epidemiological data and analyses that present a better understanding of the global epidemic. These new data and advances in methodology have resulted in substantial revisions from previous estimates.