Atlanta Journal-Constitution Profiles Ethiopia's Antiretroviral Drug Program, With Focus on Women

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday profiled Ethiopia's antiretroviral drug program, which focuses on women. Ethiopian women are more vulnerable to HIV than men in the country because of poverty and gender inequalities, and HIV-positive women also can pass the virus to their children through childbirth or breastfeeding, according to the Journal-Constitution. The program screens all pregnant women for HIV and offers single-dose nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women to prevent vertical HIV transmission. The program -- which is funded in part by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a five-year, $15 billion program to provide HIV/AIDS relief to 15 focus countries -- plans to provide antiretroviral drugs at no cost to 30,000 people by the end of 2005 and to more than 200,000 people over the next three years (Thibodeaux [1], Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3/6). The complete article is available online. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday also examined the challenges African countries face in their efforts to provide antiretroviral treatment to HIV-positive residents (Thibodeaux [2], Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3/6). The complete article is available online.

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