06/12/2003

HIV-Positive Prisoners Receive Treatment

Maputo

78 prisoners incarcerated in the Maputo Central Prison and the adjoining top security prison, and who have been diagnosed as HIV-positive, are benefitting from treatment, including with anti-retroviral drugs, provided free of charge by the Italian catholic organisation, the Santo Egidio Community.

According to data made available to AIM on Friday during a seminar in the southern city of Matola on overcrowding in the country's jails, 70 of the HIV-positive inmates are held in the central prison, and the remaining eight in the top security jail.

The state of health of at least 24 of these prisoners is said to have markedly improved after they were treated with anti- retrovirals. These drugs do not cure HIV/AIDS, but they prolong the lives of sufferers, and may eventually make it possible to regard HIV not as an inevitably lethal infection, but as a chronic ailment. The data provided in Matola also showed that a further 19 inmates in the two prisons have volunteered to take an HIV test.

The Justice Ministry's Technical Unit on Unifying the Prison System (UTUSP) wants to make anti-retroviral treatment available in other prisons throughout the country, and is negotiating to sign an agreement with the Health Ministry to this effect.