Shaky start to AIDS fight in Chad

AIDS awareness message on a wall in N'Djamena, the capital.

Photo: Dany Danzoumbé/IRIN

N'DJAMENA, 26 March 2008 (PlusNews) - Wracked by decades of political insecurity, HIV/AIDS simply wasn't a priority in Chad for many years. A chronic lack of health workers and uncertain funding delayed efforts further, but the government of Chad is finally starting to take action.

Chad covers around 1.3 million square kilometres and has a population of less than 10 million. In 2005, its average HIV prevalence rate was 3.3 percent, according to the authorities, with highs of 8.3 percent in N'Djamena, the capital, and 9.8 percent in Eastern Logone Region in the south, bordering the Central African Republic (CAR).

The Eastern and Western Logone regions have received most of the roughly 50,000 refugees who have fled across the border from the CAR, which has the highest HIV infection rate in central Africa.

Eastern and northern Chad, which border Sudan, have the lowest HIV prevalence rates, according to official statistics. However, they also have the least access to HIV awareness campaigns, are most exposed to insecurity, and have the highest number of refugees: more than 240,000 people from Sudan's Darfur province, as well as 180,000 internally displaced Chadians, are thought to be living there.

Officially, the fight against AIDS in Chad started at the end of the 1980s, but in reality the country has been preoccupied with the insecurity spanning the four decades since its independence. Large-scale programmes were not launched until international donors arrived: the World Bank in 2002, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2004.

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