RED CROSS INTENSIFIES FIGHT AGAINST HIV IN AFRICA

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched a major new AIDS initiative in Southern Africa, the world's worst affected region where more than 11 million people have HIV, reports the UN International News Service (IRIN).

"The international community has not made the strategic shift that is needed in order to tackle this problem on the scale that is needed," the federation's special representative for HIV and AIDS, Mukesh Kapila, told IRIN.

The new $300 million initiative aims to strengthen treatment, prevention and support programs built up over the last decade.

"With adult prevalence rates now exceeding 20 percent in most countries in the region, and reaching more than 38 percent in some areas, there is an urgent need to take the Red Cross work to a new level, both in terms of preventing further infection and greater support for those already infected," said Françoise Le Goff, head of a regional delegation in Zimbabwe.

Over the next five years, the new Red Cross and Red Crescent HIV/AIDS Global Alliance will focus on Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.