Australia helps Burma in fighting HIV/AIDS

by Mungpi
Tuesday, 01 December 2009 23:11

New Delhi (Mizzima) - Australia will provide $ 3 million to Burma, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea as part of its effort to help reduce the spread of HIV in Asia-Pacific region.

The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) in a statement on World Aids Day on Tuesday said, the assistance will be provided over three years for HIV prevention programmes.

AusAID said, recent studies have found the lack HIV/AIDS education for men having sex with men is one of the main causes of HIV infection in the region, and that its new funding would be channelled to programmes educating men having sex with men.

While Indonesia will receive $ 1.5 million, Burma and Papua New Guinea will receive $ 750,000 each. The aid will be used to fund programmes on educating men who have sex with men.

“$750,000 will be provided through the Three Diseases Fund in Burma to rollout HIV prevention programmes for men who have sex with men, and other vulnerable groups,” the statement said.

According to the UNAIDS ‘2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic’, Burma has an estimated 240,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. But out of this total number, aid volunteers in Rangoon said, about 75,000 people are in urgent need of Antiretroviral (ARV) drug.

Phyu Phyu Thinn, a volunteer in Rangoon helping people living with HIV/AIDS by providing support, told Mizzima in an earlier interview that due to shortage of funds, people living with HIV/AIDS are unable to get ARV drug consistently.

The AusAID’s announcement on ‘World AIDS Day’ came after the ‘Global Fund’, an international Non-Governmental Organisation committed to fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, in November said it will provide funds to Burma after it pulled out of the country in 2005.

Nalin Mehta, Senior Communications Officer of the Global Fund, told Mizzima that following the proposal by Burma, the group’s Board of Directors in its latest round of funding in November approved the funds.

Mehta said the Global Fund has approved US $51,716,207 for the fight against HIV/AIDS, US $37,578,282 for Malaria and US $34,024,424 for Tuberculosis (TB).

The Global Fund terminated its grants to Burma in 2005 because of new restrictions that would have inhibited the management of grants in a way that ensures effective programme management.

But Mehta said, with reference to the newly approved grants in Burma, the Global Fund will seek required guarantees as per the group’s management procedures and the grants will also be governed by additional safeguard policy to ensure the money reaches to those who need it.

But she did not mention the kind of safeguard policy that the group has decided on to monitor the flow of funds.

While a few international organizations including the ‘Three Diseases Fund’ and Global Fund along with countries like Australia have been trying to help Burmese people in their fight against the deadly diseases, volunteer health workers said the Burmese government has made little or no effort.

“There is practically nothing that the government does for people living with HIV/AIDS. They even chase out some from hospitals, saying there are insufficient rooms for them, instead of providing ARV,” a health volunteer in Rangoon told Mizzima on condition of anonymity.