CONGO: US supports HIV/AIDS education in military

NAIROBI, 3 April (PLUSNEWS) - The US government has lent its support to an
initiative to educate the Congolese military on preventing the spread of
HIV/AIDS.

US ambassador to the Republic of Congo (ROC), David Kaeuper, made a
contribution of US $65,000 to the Forces Armees Congolaises (FAC) health
services director on 28 March. The Congolese government announced the
donation in the capital, Brazzaville, on Monday.

The initiative is being implemented by a local NGO called PRESIEC (Projet
pour la prevention du SIDA dans les ecoles du Congo), which has developed
similar behavioural-change programmes for schools in cooperation with the
Congolese government's national programme to combat AIDS (Programme national
de lutte contre le SIDA).

The Congolese military had been selected for support because it had been
"particularly hard-hit as both a victim of, and vector for, the spread of
the disease", Ruth Parent, first secretary of the US embassy in neighbouring
Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told IRIN on Wednesday.

More than 20 percent of hospital beds in the ROC were occupied by military
AIDS patients, indicating a very worrying level of HIV prevalence among
members of the FAC, Parent said.
[ENDS]

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