Mozambique Hosts Two AIDS Conferences to Combat Rampant Infections

Mozambique's Health Minister, Francisco Songane, said Monday that AIDS is ravaging the country's agricultural sector with disastrous consequences to the food supply. He addressed delegates at the start of a three-day regional conference on the pandemic, held in Maputo.

Although harvests in southern Africa have largely recovered from last year's drought, HIV is taking a higher than expected toll on agricultural production, according to the UN's World Food Program. In June, that body appealed for $308 million to feed 6.5 million people in the region next year. Adequate food supply is key to combating AIDS, since malnutrition accelerates its onset.

Stephen Kramer, AIDS strategist for the South African financial service company Metropolitan, which sponsored the conference, said businesses should be working with governments to bring healthy food, clean water and affordable medicine to the region's population. Some 150 delegates from governments, AIDS groups, and businesses are attending the Maputo conference.

Not far away, Deputy Agriculture Minister Joao Carrilho told a separate group that labor-saving agricultural methods are needed to mitigate the effects of HIV on food security, and that farmers need to be educated about the virus and its risks.

Carrilho outlined four priorities at the second gathering, organized by the European Union, the Australian Development Corporation, and the Mozambican government. He told 280 government and private sector representatives from 15 African countries that the first priority is to raise awareness, then educate food producers, followed by promoting labor-saving technology, and finally, fostering greater levels of community development.

Southern Africa has more than 70 percent of the world's HIV-infected people, which has led to an alarming increase in the number of households headed by children, the chronically ill, and grandparents.

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