Ethiopian Government, PEPFAR to Run 5-Year HIV Prevention Program Aimed at High-Risk Groups

"More than 100 million condoms will be distributed annually to sex workers, men who have sex with men, and other groups vulnerable to HIV as part of a new five-year program to be run by the Ethiopian government and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)," PlusNews reports. "Dubbed MULU, the Amharic word for comprehensive, the $70 million program -- implemented by the NGOs Population Services International and World Learning -- will also target day laborers in the booming construction industry, migrant workers and their partners," the news service notes.

"'This program is going to focus on ... getting services for people who practice high-risk behaviors such as having multiple sex partners concurrently,' Renee DeMarco, a senior technical adviser to HIV/AIDS Prevention and Social Services at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-Ethiopia, told IRIN/PlusNews," the news service writes. "The Ethiopian government says the new program will contribute to its goal to halve the number of new HIV infections and quadruple the distribution of condoms by 2015," it adds (6/12).