March 4, 2002
The United Nations World Food Programme will seek to spearhead the world's first major campaign using food aid to counter the HIV/AIDS pandemic, WFP officials said here today.
WFP, in collaboration with three other UN agencies, has identified a strategic need for food aid among poor families whose major bread-winner is suffering from HIV/AIDS, the officials said at a day-long consultation on anti-AIDS strategies.
These families all too often do not receive any institutional care from their cash-strapped governments and therefore are in urgent need of material support to cope with the virus' devastating effects, the consultation was told. Poor families caring for someone with AIDS usually become further impoverished because of the high cost of treatment.
"For the poorest of the poor, who are the people WFP assists, the onset of HIV/AIDS for the chief income-earner can shatter the entire family unit," said John Powell, Director of the WFP Regional Bureau for Asia. "But now we have a profile of the family that would most benefit from food aid," Powell continued. "Properly targeted, food aid for them would be a life-saving tool. Food aid would guarantee good-quality nourishment for the AIDS patient and it would reduce malnutrition among the family members.
"Food aid would also serve as the financial glue to keep the family intact while fall-back mechanisms for them are put in place. Otherwise, the children, for example, could be forced to prostitute themselves or to go and live on the streets," Powell said.
The HIV/AIDS consultation follows a WFP-led inter-agency mission in February to Cambodia, China, Laos and Myanmar. The team comprised representatives from WFP, UNAIDS, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Development Programme.
With a mandate to find the most strategic use of food aid in the pandemic, the mission interviewed AIDS-affected families in the four countries, government officials, health-care providers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The consequent WFP proposal to support home-based care with food aid would be implemented both in Southeast Asia and in a number of countries in East Africa, the consultation was told. "HIV/AIDS is perhaps the single biggest threat to the development of Sub-Saharan Africa," said Judith Lewis, Director of the WFP Regional Bureau for Eastern, Southern and the Horn of Africa, who participated in the consultation. "WFP is committed to using its resources and its global reach to fight this epidemic."
In carrying out the four-country Asia mission, the inter-agency team concentrated on communities that have been particularly affected by the pandemic and whose food security is as a result seriously undermined. "There is a window of opportunity for Asia to act to forestall the momentum of the HIV/AIDS epidemic," said Tony Lisle, UNAIDS team leader for Asia. "The WFP initiative is a timely and innovative strategy to slow the disastrous effects of the virus in the region."
A recent report published on the UNAIDS website notes that in the Asia-Pacific region, while rates of infection vary from country to country, several states "are experiencing explosive epidemics in certain population groups."
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