Tanzania: AIDS Kills Some 2,880 Tanzania Teachers Annually

Tanzania is losing some 2,880 teachers to HIV/AIDS every year, Education Minister Joseph Mungai told reporters today in Dar es Salaam. The majority of the country's 155,000 teachers -- who comprise nearly 50 percent of all government employees -- live in rural areas where access to condoms and antiretroviral drugs is limited.

Mungai said he has given the Tanzania AIDS Commission proposals to distribute condoms to isolated towns and islands and provide teachers who have AIDS with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. "I have appealed for special measures which can lead to the supply of condoms as well as to the supply of life sustaining drugs to the affected teachers, so that their lives can be elongated and they can continue to teach," said Mungai.

Tanzania's Health Ministry has said it will significantly increase the number of HIV-infected Tanzanians receiving ARV drugs to over 40,000 by the end of 2005. An estimated 12-15 percent of Tanzanian adults have HIV/AIDS, and UN statistics indicate about 200,000 people in the country are in acute need of ARV treatment.

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