[pronut-hiv] What about HIV AIDS and nutrition in Urban areas?

["Kingori, Peter (CIP-Nairobi)" <p.kingori@cgiar.org>]

It is now evident that nutrition plays a critical role in the life of a
PLWHA-either by positive interaction with drugs or keeping at bay
opportunistic infection among other things. In Kenya, and I am sure in
many other parts of the world, prevalence rates continue to be
consistently higher in urban areas compared to rural areas. The
challenge here is that, most urban dwellers almost exclusively rely on
cash to obtain food, as opposed to majority of rural dwellers who
sometimes can obtain food as gifts through social networks. I addition,
the urban dwellers who try to produce food within the urban areas are
faced with policy barriers that has been treating urban farming as an
illegal practice. It appears to me that the urban PLWHA may be at a
bigger risk of earlier death owing to malnutrition in their condition.


The point I want to make here is that, to address malnutrition induced
by HIV/AIDS in urban areas, a multi sectoral approach is urgent. This
will begin by pushing for the mainstreaming HIV/AIDS food and nutrition
agenda in the local government/municipal policy making process. Secondly
other stakeholders who provide care, counselling, food aids and micro
technologies for food production will need to approach the issue on a
common platform.

On that note, borrowing from IFPRI's Regional Network on HIV/AIDS, Rural
Livelihoods and Food Security (RENEWAL)what would prevent this forum
from starting a Regional Network on HIV/AIDS, Urban Livelihoods and Food
Security-unless there is one.  

I think that way we would be make a major contribution in this battle by
trying to pull together common knowledge and influence policy.
 

What do others think? 


Peter King'ori

Research Officer, Urban Harvest

Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Office

International Potato Centre (CIP)

P.O. Box 25171, Nairobi 00603, Kenya

 

Tel: +254  020 4223607 (Direct)  Fax +254  020 4223600/ 4223001

Mob: +254 721 448369

>From USA direct +1 (650) 833-6660 ext.3607, fax +1 (650) 833-6661

Email: p.kingori@cgiar.org web: www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest

 

-----ProNut-HIV wrote:

 

HORN OF AFRICA: Children hardest hit by drought, says UNICEF

NAIROBI, 25 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - The severe drought affecting the Horn of

Africa has taken a heavy toll on an estimated 1.2 million children under

the age of five, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on

Wednesday.

 

The children were especially vulnerable to threats posed by

malnutrition and disease.

 

"This drought ominously compounds an already dismal humanitarian

situation," said Per Engebak, UNICEF regional director for eastern and

southern Africa. 

 

"Many factors have chipped away at the people's survival capacities,

and this drought is further contributing to the erosion of those

capacities as a growing number of people are becoming destitute," he

added.

 

More than 56,000 children under the age of five were facing

malnutrition in the Somali and Oromiya regions of southern Ethiopia, and

the number was expected to rise sharply as the drought worsens.

 

In Kenya, between 40,000 and 60,000 children and women in the 27

affected districts are malnourished. According to UNICEF, as many as

three out of 10 children in the drought-affected areas of Somalia will

be malnourished.

 

Children weakened by malnutrition are at gravely higher risk of any

infection, and measles is one of the most virulent illnesses, spreading

quickly among those who are not immunised, UNICEF said.

 

In southern Somalia, years of inter-clan fighting and lack of basic

social amenities meant that about 90 percent of children under the age

of five were not immunised against measles. The scenario was similar in

the affected regions in Ethiopia.

 

Schools in parts of northern Kenya were reporting increased absenteeism

and drop-out rates, as children joined in the search and struggle for

pasture for weakened livestock and food and water for themselves and

their families, UNICEF said.

 

The agency, which launched an urgent appeal for US $14.7 million to

help an estimated six million people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia,

said the current drought was the worst to hit the region in a decade.

 

Working with the three governments, UNICEF said it planned to expand

therapeutic and supplementary feeding programmes, step up vaccination

and vitamin A campaigns and provide water and sanitation services.

 

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned of a possible

humanitarian disaster in Kenya's drought-stricken northern and eastern

areas unless donations for emergency food aid are received immediately.

 

 

It said food stocks for its Kenyan operation would run out in weeks.

 

"Since our last appeal in December, we have received very little

against the growing needs," said James Morris, WFP executive director.

"We don't have enough for the 1.2 million people we are currently

feeding, let alone the expected increase to 2.5 million or more in

February." 

 

Two successive years of failed rains have precipitated the crisis in

the ecologically fragile area that converges in northern Kenya, southern

Ethiopia and central and southern Somalia. 

 

Agricultural productivity in the region was already in decline due to

local insecurity and conflicts.

 

Pastoral communities have been hit particularly hard by the drought,

which has led to the death of large numbers of livestock and left

herders with nothing to exchange for survival.

 

"We have warned and appealed for months for contributions to save lives

in drought-hit Kenya," said Tesema Negash, WFP Kenya country director. 

 

"We are in the midst of an emergency. If we receive no new donations

now, it is extremely likely that Kenya will be hit by a humanitarian

disaster in the months to come," he added. 

 

WFP requires some 350,000 tonnes of food valued at $238 million to feed

the anticipated 2.5 million people in Kenya this year, but the agency is

already short of $43 million to feed 1.2 million.