Bridging the Gap: Conference Record [Abstract book, International Conference on AIDS (12th: 1998: Geneva, Switzerland)]

654 Abstracts 33307-33313

12th World AIDS Conference

33307 Education for homosexuals is of great urgency
Bocheng Zheng. National Health Education Institute, Bulding 12 Block 1, Anhua
Xili, Beijing, China
Issue: There is a homosexual population in China. They are vulnerable to
HIV/AIDS. They need education and behavior intervention.
Project: An AIDS Hotline was established in the National Health Education
Institute in Beijing in 1992. It serves the people with different sex orientations. All
the counselors are volunteers, some of which are gay men. It is welcomed by gay
people very much. Useful data are recorded and analyzed.
Results: It was learned from the Hotline data that there is a homosexual
population throughout the country, in the countryside as well in cities, among
different social strata. Most of the homosexual callers were male. Most of them
have multiple sex partners, including those just met by chance. Sex behavior is
usual practice. Many of them have little access to knowledge about HIV/AIDS and
STDs. They need places to meet people with the same sex orientation, Condom
is seldom used even by those who have some relevant knowledge, which shows
that they still lack the awareness of self-protection and protecting others. They
often feel solitary. Misunderstanding, even discrimination, sometimes in a hidden
form, is existing. It is impossible for them to organize their own organizations,
which, however, would play an important role in, say, peer education.
Lessons Learned: The homosexual population in China lacks place for social
intercourse among themselves and hope to get access to necessary knowledge.
For them, risk of infection of STDs, including AIDS exists actually. Peer education
in appropriate forms should be encouraged.
33308 1 Counselling services for mothers attending a
mother-child research clinic at Mulago hospital
Jessica Kisa Lukandwa, E. Kibuuka, G. Sempa, J. Matovu, J. Nsereko. Makerere
University and Johns Hopkins University Collaboration, Box 23491 K'la, Uganda
Issue: Women aged 15 to 28 years are the most vulnerable to HIV infection in
Uganda and need to be made aware of HIV infection and its management.
Project: A research clinic serving HIV infected Ugandan women and their
children was established in 1988 by a collaboration between the Ugandan Ministry of Health, Makerere University Kampala, Case Western Reserve University
(CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio USA. The clinic offers: pre and post test counselling
to women attending antenatal clinic at Mulago Hospital from where study mothers
are recruited; supportive counselling to those recruited to the research clinic;
skills in designing and implementing Income Generating Projects (IGPs) in order
to enable them to be empowered financially; nutrition education to mothers with
malnourished children.
Result: Since 1988, 2,000 women have been screened and enrolled in the
research clinic. Over 130 families have established successful IGPs which help
to meet their families' economic needs. Women with successful businesses are
more free to tell their spouses about their HIV status. More than 400 children
received nutrition rehabilitation and recovered from their malnutrition.
Conclusion: HIV/AIDS counselling has greatly raised the women's awareness
of the problems related to HIV/AIDS and has enabled many families to live
positively with HIV/AIDS.
33309 Extent of AIDS awareness among female undergraduates
in Jos City, Nigeria: Implications for counselling
Mercy R.E.V.S.R. Ani. 3 Ikwuato Box 302 Enugu, Nigeia
Issue: Concerted efforts towards AIDS Conscientization go on. Women are very
vulnerable to the AIDS virus. The number of young literate women who engage
in highrisk life style is on the increase. Respondents' HIV/AIDS awareness was
assessed and appropriate intervention strategies advanced.
Project: Randomly selected 726 female respondents from the five co-educational tertiary institutions in Jos City were studied. By categorising, ordering
and summerizing the data collated on their feelings, perceptions, awareness
and attitudinal disposition towards AIDS apt intervention strategies that promote
AIDS related behavioural changes through counselling services were identified
for implimentation.
Result: There is a significant relationship between the mean degree of knowledge as a unit (25.71%) and their assessment of the degree of danger posed by
the AIDS scourge (23.36%). The variables studied were found to have a significant
association with the respondents life-style and willingness for a healthier handling
of their sexuality. Only 23.36% of them judged HIV/AIDS as constituting some
great threat to the school community. 99.6% had heard about AIDS. Knowledge of
the symptomatology and the physiopathology of AIDS was very limited (43.29%).
Awareness of modes of contamination (86.44%) and what constitutes high risk
behaviours (95.59%) was satisfactory.
Conclusion: Prevention through education, information and communication
remain the key to eradicating the AIDS pandemic. Since the majority of the
respondents (90.89%) were unmarried young adults and 82% engaged in high
risk behaviours, the behavioural changes envisaged need. Some kind of mental

restructuring and the formation of healthy sex habits. Their willingness to get
more AIDS education, and to change (73.97%) shows that AIDS Risk Reduction
Model (ARRM) as a counseling strategy is apt for this sample group.

S33310 Information-education -ommunication (IEC) among
prostitutes registered with an sexually transmitted
diseases (STD) center
Marie Cisse Thioye1, Taray Michelle2, Ibra Ndoye3. 1Project MST/Sido
Polyclinique Dakar; 2Medicine-chief Dermato-Veurologie IHS Dakar, Dokai;
3Coordinator Programme MST/Sido, Senegal
Objectives: - Informing prostitutes about the STD and AIDS;
- How to use condoms correctly;
- Census of problem met by prostitutes in their work
Materials and Methods: - Site: STD Center Institut d'Hygiene, Dakar
- Population: Prostitutes registered with the sanitary and social index: - Beginning of IEC sessions: 1968; - Sessions led by staff;
- Sessions held three times a week; * group of senegalese prostitutes; * group
of foreign prostitutes (Ghaneans, Nigerians, Ivorians, Liberians, etc...); - the sessions are presented in the form of explications, slides and demonstrations of how
to use condoms.
Results: On monthly average, 1000 registered prostitutes have regularly taken
part in the sessions since 1968. These sessions have led to the following results:
- the rate of knowledge about the STD and AIDS has reached 85% in 1996 while
it was only 25% in 1968; - there has been a better demonstration of how to use
condoms followed by a letter identification of registered prostitute leaders and
relay agents willing to sensitize clandestine prostitutes in the bars, night club and
brothels.
Studies carried out in 1990-1996 showed that 75 to 80% of the refusals to use
condoms were due to regular partners and 16 to 18% to occasional ones.
Conclusion: The results of the studies in the field of the STD and AIDS permit
us to conclude that the IEC sessions as well as the interventions among the
prostitutes have got a real impact on the prevention of the STD and AIDS. Actions
towards the regular and occasional partners of the prostitutes should be made by
the prostitutes themselves through a permanent campaign of sensitization.
33311 1 Interference of traditional customs with HIV/AIDS
prevention in a Ugandan rural area
John Rwegiza. c/o D. Byaruhanga PO. Box 534, Fortportal, Uganda
Issue: Traditional customs interfere with HIV/AIDS prevention messages.
Project: The inhabitants of the remote village of Kyakatwire in western Uganda
stay rigidly to their traditional customs and cultural behaviours. The behaviours
include; Polygamy, inheritance of widows, sharing of wives among brothers, and
high dowery charges. With support of the German nongovernmental organisation
Kranich - AIDS in Afrika e.V. an AIDS counselling programme was started in
1995. A group of 15 people was trained as AIDS counsellors during two months.
Results: Counselling by oral interviews with individuals and discussions with
clan heads and elders were done to influence traditional customs and cultural
behaviours. Although the AIDS counselling programme has been well recieved in
the rural community, changes of traditional customs are difficult to achieve. One
reason for these obstacles to HIV/AIDS intervention is the fact that women in this
rural setting have no final word on sex to their partners. Slowly, men are educated
through counsellors to share ideas about sexual issues with their female spouses.
Traditional habits that favour the spread of HIV/AIDS can be changed only
slowly in a remote rural African community.
S33312 A community based approach on care and support in
Senegal: Enda Sante, Dakar, Senegal
Moustapha Gueye, Abdoulaye Diaw, Abdoulaye Sow, A.K. Bacha. Enda Sante
BP 3370 Dakar, Senegal
Objectives: The multidimensional AIDS Control programme of Enda sante has
set up a unit of care, counselling support and training (UACAF), a new approach
in our response towards HIV/AIDS combining prevention, care and support.
Activities: Many activities are carried out within UACAF: volunteers receive and
guide newcomers, sessions of invidual counselling, groups working in themes,
support to have access to essential medicines, to condoms and social support
depending on needs, home visits, visits in hospitals, in prisons, participation in
funerals to foster solidarity among presons affected by HIV/AIDS, family reunion,
social training. They are undertaken within the premisses of the centre named
UACAF
Argument The centre bridges a wide gap on care and support to PLWAS
in Senegal and fosters synergies between actors. Meanwhile there appears a
discrepancy between advocated expectations and the pressure of various existential needs of PLWAS on the one hand and the services care and support
organizations can offer on the other.
|33313 Counselling and the role of religion in HIV/AIDS care in
Nigeria

Olufunke lyabo Akinkunmi. 155 Brickfield Road Off Apapa Road, Ebute-Metta,
Lagos, Nigeria
The Word of God an enabling care factor helps to promote positive living whenever
all else fails. The time to introduce religion-in the care plans of the affected and
significant others in HIV/AIDS care is important. When the counselling process
gives due cognisance to man's belief it must address the method required to
approach and apply this concept in a way that would be of benefit to -those con