Seventy people die every day from HIV/AIDS

Statistics reveal that in Lesotho about 70 people a day die from HIV/AIDS with young girls the most vulnerable to infection and almost 70,000 children survive as orphans, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) consultant, Mr. Joe Feeney, told a Ministry of Industry, Trade and Marketing HIV/AIDS sensitisation and training workshop on January 8.

This called for Basotho to apply a high level of focus and a higher level of energy to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic because Lesotho is said to rank at number four in the world in HIV/AIDS prevalence.

The Assistant Minister, Mr. Mothetjoa Metsing speaking at the workshop, appealed for increased efforts in fighting the escalating rate of infection of HIV/AIDS.  He said the time has come to shift from merely holding
discussions about the pandemic, holding awareness campaigns and organising fun walks to something more positive, such as voluntary testing, because the infection rate continues to escalate.

Government was so concerned about this that it decided each Ministry should contribute two percent of its budget to the fight against the pandemic. The Prime Minister had last month launched a new programme encouraging every Mosotho to go for voluntary testing and counseling.

Individual employees should think hard about the importance of knowing one's status because this does not only help keep people who are negative as thus, but also help those who are positive to live healthy, long lives.

The purpose behind the training workshop, held in collaboration with the UNDP, was  to identify some of the Ministry's employees who will undergo training as counselors, in preparation to establish a ministerial testing and counseling centre, Mr. Metsing said.

Employees will be able to come to the testing centre with their spouses, he said, adding that the sooner people understood the rationale behind voluntary testing, the sooner the stigma and discrimination associated with the pandemic will be done away with.

08 January 2004