NEWS DIARY Governance response to HIV and AIDS

Welcome to the January 2012 edition of The Governance Response to HIV and AIDS News Diaries from Southern Africa. You are receiving these story ideas for community journalists because you have shown an interest in Idasas Governance and AIDS Programme or have participated in one of our training courses. Join our HIV/AIDS and media in Africa facebook group http://on.fb.me/ABWOiA we welcome discussions. Please post reports or videos of your work, blog your thoughts and join conversations. Until next time! Your GAP e-news diary team

HUMAN FACE IS CRUCIAL

To reduce stigma and discrimination, it is crucial to include a human face in the presentation of HIV and AIDS research findings, according to Idasa-GAPs Jacqueline Nzisabira, who said that what mostly induces stigma is lack of knowledge. Nzisabira spoke at a conference in Mali that was held to validate research findings on a study conducted by CEDREF and Idasa, Understanding political, social, and economic exclusion induced by HIV and AIDS in Mali: An exploratory study. This study has been conducted in Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana and Uganda. CEDREFs Djibril Diallo highlighted the exclusion of children with HIV and those orphaned by AIDS from the education system. He also spoke of the consequences of marginalisation from health services of people living with AIDS through discriminatory practices by health personnel and impediments in accessing insurance. http://on.fb.me/zfeCuO

Story ideas:

Instead of only reporting HIV and AIDS research findings as a news snippet, you could look for people in the communities you work in who are affected by the findings and give the story a human interest angle. Make it clear that its about people us, our neighbours, friends, colleagues and that statistics are secondary. Visit schools in your area and find out if children who are HIV-positive and those orphaned by AIDS are excluded from enrolment. If they are excluded you could run a media campaign highlighting issues of stigma that lead to exclusion in an effort to reverse this practice.
MAKING LEGAL DOCUMENTS ACCESSIBLE
In discussing legislation on Prevention, Care and Control of HIV/AIDS that is being reviewed in Mali, delegates at the Idasa-CEDFEF conference in December agreed that laws and sensitisation activities need to be translated from French into local languages so that people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS can be better informed. Delegates, including magistrates, ombudsmen, parliamentarians, the private sector, religious leaders, traditional authorities, the electoral commission, associations of people living with HIV, UNAIDS and civil society, argued that with more than 400 community radio stations Mali is well positioned

to disseminate the content of legal and other documents in local languages. http://on.fb.me/zfeCuO

Story ideas:

You could investigate how widely laws regarding HIV and AIDS are known among ordinary citizens. A survey of whatever kind your media outlet is able to conduct could reveal interesting findings. If local awareness of rights and other legal issues is alarmingly low you could interview local government representatives to find out what efforts are being made toward translating these documents into local languages and making them accessible.
MEDICAL XENOPHOBIA
After conducting research in six different communities in two of South Africas major cities, the Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP) found a pattern of medical xenophobia that included migrants and refugees experiencing great difficulty accessing anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in public institutions. This contravenes clinical guidelines from the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, which state that the role of health workers is to act, within a legal framework, as advocates for access to health care, and not to restrict or ration care and to treat patients in a manner that serves the patients best interests. Consistent with these principles, the guidelines assert that anyone in need of ART should have the right to access it without hindrance or interference from the health profession. SAMPs policy paper on these findings also reveals that, while 95% of South Africans interviewed said that citizens should always enjoy the right to ART, only 50% felt that legal migrants should enjoy the same right. The figures for refugees and undocumented migrants were even lower. And 61% of South Africans interviewed said they supported a policy of deporting foreigners with HIV and AIDS. http://bit.ly/zbWcq6

Story ideas:

You could do a human interest story on migrants in your community trying to access ART. What difficulties and discrimination do they face? Their stories could help in putting a face to an issue that may help in reducing stigma. And then follow up by visiting local clinics and hospitals and interviewing health personnel there. How widely are the Southern African HIV Clinicians Societys guidelines known and adhered to?
MAKING HIV PROGRAMMES SUSTAINABLE
The Lutheran Church in Liberia HIV&AIDS Programme has developed a strategy known as Congregational Response, aimed at empowering parishes to step up their HIV and AIDS work through the provision of generators, megaphones and video equipment. As the Danish Evangelical Mission-funded programme prepares to reduce its activities mid-2013, this new strategy is an effort to enable parishes to implement and sustain their own initiatives, programme officer Philip Nushann said. He said the programme has been training health workers, religious leaders, community representatives, media practitioners, civil society and youth leaders in HIV-related issues since 2001. Issues of stigma and discrimination have been recommended to the parishes for key consideration, he said. http://allafrica.com/stories/201201120837.html

Story ideas:

Look for local examples of initiatives aimed at sustaining and growing programmes that are threatened by diminishing donor funding. Home-grown solutions would be particularly interesting. Ask people in the communities you work in what ideas they have for sustaining programmes they are involved in or benefit from if external funding dries up.

Community radio journalists could invite local government representatives to discuss with listeners what local government is doing or can do to help boost community HIV initiatives.
POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND AIDS
People living with HIV and AIDS are more politically active than they were in the past, Thandi Nkambule, director of the Swaziland Network for People with HIV and AIDS (SWANEPHA), told PlusNews, noting that continued shortages of ARV treatment has led to street protests in Swaziland. The leaders of the HIV support groups are joining the marches because they know that (government) leadership lacks the political will to meet the needs of people living with HIV and AIDS, he said. http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94456

Story ideas:

Examining the link between political activism and HIV could make an interesting story. You could interview people who have been involved in organisations such as South Africas Treatment Action Campaign for their views as well as people who are participating in protests for the first time. Ask them what held them back in the past and what influenced their decision to get involved.
HEALTH SYSTEMS AND DEPRESSION
Africans infected with HIV frequently suffer shame and depression but the continents health systems are ill-equipped to handle the issue, which not only affects their quality of life, but can lead to poor adherence to HIV treatment regimens, PlusNews reports. While HIV programmes focus heavily on reducing externalised stigma, little is done to deal with patients self-perception and how that might deteriorate following an HIV diagnosis, speakers said at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Operational research carried out in Zambia has found a positive correlation between patients who self-stigmatised and failure to adhere to treatment, said Sikazwe Izukanyi from Zambias Ministry of Health. Self-stigma was often found in patients who did not disclose their status to partners or family members - making it difficult to maintain strict adherence to regimens while trying to hide the drugs. http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94410

Story ideas:

You could cover the issue of self-stigma by speaking to local HIV counsellors about the prevalence of self-stigma and what can be done to deal with it. Is the link between self-stigma and failure to adhere to treatment regimens acknowledged? Are health workers at clinics given guidance on what signs to look out for so that patients get the extra help they may need? Find out whether efforts to strengthen your countrys health systems incorporate mental-health issues.
MYTHS HAMPERING ACCESS TO TREATMENT
Local understanding of childrens immune systems may be delaying access to paediatric HIV treatment, according to a study at a rural clinic in northern Malawi, where just 15 percent of children in need of antiretrovirals (ARVs) are receiving the drugs, PlusNews reports. Research presented at a conference in South Africa last year showed that caregivers were reluctant to start sick, HIV-positive on ARVs because they believed the childrens bodies were too weak for pills and their blood was still raw, but that as it ripened with time, HIV-related opportunistic infections would leave them. About 60% of children in the clinics programme started treatment after at least a year of illness, even though around 13% were near death at the time, and about an equal number had lost a sibling to AIDS-related illnesses, said researcher Laura Sikstrom from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada. http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=92972

Story ideas:

You could do a story on local myths surrounding HIV and AIDS in your communities that looks at factors that led to the mistaken beliefs as well as sets out the facts. Interview ordinary citizens as well as experts about these myths and the harm they do in preventing people getting the treatment they need, or leading to new infections.
Possible sources for comment and more information:
Democracy institute Idasa: www.idasa.org Engender Health: www.engenderhealth.org Family Health International: www.fhi.org Foreign correspondents association of southern Africa: www.fcasa.co.za Health-e: www.health-e.org.za JournAIDS: www.journaids.org Kettering Foundation Readers Forum: http://bit.ly/yqU71c Medecins Sans Frontiers: www.msf.org Media Institute of Southern Africa: www.misa.org Red Cross Society: www.redcross.org SADC Secretariat: www.sadc.int SAfAIDS: www.safaids.net Sangonet: www.ngopulse.org/about SARPN: www.sarpn.org.za Your national AIDS council Southern African AIDS Trust (SAT): www.satregional.org Southern African HIV Clinicians Society: www.sahivsoc.org Treatment Action Campaign (TAC): www.tac.org.za UK Department of International Development: www.dfid.org.uk UNAIDS: www.unAIDS.org University of Washington: www.washington.edu World Bank: www.worldbank.org World Health Organisation (WHO): www.who.org Citizen journalism: http://on.fb.me/wODVmx