nitiatives

nitiatives

UNAIDS is now picking up the pieces, nearly seven years later, and is planning to investigate ongoing initiatives that link AIDS and disability, and what kind of engagement there has been with persons living with disabilities.

It is a start that will eventually lead to in-depth analysis of these connections, said Emilio Timpo, senior adviser to UNAIDS, and on programming specific to disabled persons.

Other UN agencies, like UNICEF, have also begun to focus more on the connections between HIV/AIDS and disability at the country level, said Ken Legins, HIV/AIDS chief at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF's Burkina Faso office recently conducted a study on HIV among people with disabilities aged 15-64, which revealed they were much more likely to be illiterate and out of school, and with limited access to information about HIV. They tended to have low incomes and their subjection to sexual abuse made them more likely to be forced into risky sex behaviours.

''When discussing HIV, disability gets left out because the group of people who work on these issues are often not a part of the discussion and we need to make sure that they are''
"The challenge is that the HIV community itself is not well connected with people who are advocates for disability at the country level," Legins told IRIN/PlusNews. "When discussing HIV, disability gets left out because the group of people who work on these issues are often not a part of the discussion and we need to make sure that they are."

Disability and HIV/AIDS were prominently featured in the main programme for the first time in an International AIDS Conference this past July, in Vienna, marking a sharp turn from the previous conference in Mexico City in 2008, said Donovan of AIDS Free World. The conference venue was not accommodating to disabled people and disability was sidelined to a satellite event, she said.