Ethiopia Strives to Control HIV

In an unusual relationship that may soon be duplicated across Africa, the Ethiopian military is teaming up with an American nonprofit organization to transform the sexual lives of its quarter-million soldiers.

The army has for years offered AIDS-awareness training, coupled with a policy of supplying condoms with every paycheck and frisking soldiers who leave base to confirm they are carrying condoms. These strategies are paying off in a low HIV infection rate. Now, with the Eritrean war ended, the Ethiopian government is demobilizing tens of thousand of HIV-free soldiers as messengers of hope in a nation that contains 10 percent of the world's HIV-infected people.

"Armies in Africa have traditionally been terrible breeding grounds for AIDS," said Emilia Timpo, a representative for the United National AIDS Program (UNAIDS) in Ethiopia. "Soldiers turn to prostitutes, then carry the virus to every corner of the country after their service. But in Ethiopia, the opposite is happening: Soldiers have become safe-sex practitioners and peer educators."

Capt. Germachew Mamu, head of the Ethiopian army's HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Team, agreed. "We learned from experience of armies in Uganda and Zimbabwe and other African nations that the time to combat AIDS is before the infection rate gets high." "There's no question that a key to keeping HIV under control across a nation is to keep it under control in the military," he said.

The infection rate in Ethiopia's army is only 5 percent; two percentage points lower than the rate of the country's civilian population. The seeds of this success were sown when the army began to buy condoms from DKT International in 1997. DKT is an American organization that uses social marketing to fight HIV and promote family planning.

DKT's condoms are greatly subsidized in poor countries, and sold at inexpensive commercial outlets throughout the country. All revenues are invested back into the operation. "When we began working in Ethiopia in 1990, it was nearly impossible to find a condom anywhere in the country," said Sandra Gass, an American director of DKT operations in Ethiopia. "Now we sell 50 million a year, not just to the military, but all across Ethiopia."

Back to other CDC news for March 8, 2002

Previous Updates