TANZANIA: AIDS Kills Some 2,880 Tanzania Teachers Annually
Helen Nyambura
Reuters (03.31.05) - Thursday, March 31, 2005
Tanzania is losing some 2,880 teachers to HIV/AIDS every year,
Education Minister Joseph Mungai told reporters today in Dar es
Salaam. The majority of the country's 155,000 teachers - who comprise
nearly 50 percent of all government employees - live in rural areas
where access to condoms and antiretroviral drugs is limited.
Mungai said he has given the Tanzania AIDS Commission proposals to
distribute condoms to isolated towns and islands and provide teachers
who have AIDS with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. "I have appealed for
special measures which can lead to the supply of condoms as well as to
the supply of life sustaining drugs to the affected teachers, so that
their lives can be elongated and they can continue to teach," said
Mungai.
Tanzania's Health Ministry has said it will significantly increase the
number of HIV-infected Tanzanians receiving ARV drugs to over 40,000
by the end of 2005. An estimated 12-15 percent of Tanzanian adults
have HIV/AIDS, and UN statistics indicate about 200,000 people in the
country are in acute need of ARV treatment.
