HIV/Aids epidemic in southern Sudan

Sept 5, 2005 — Southern Sudan is in the midst of an HIV/Aids epidemic and most of its people are without clean water, sanitation or education services, a United Nations body said in a report released yesterday.

The statistics are among the first to be published on poverty, health and education in the south of Sudan, where former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement fought the north in a 21-year-long civil war. “The HIV/Aids epidemic in south Sudan is believed to have moved in the generalised phase . . . where infection has gone beyond high-risk groups into the general population,” the report said.

About 90 per cent of people in the south live on less than $1 a day. Some 75 per cent of children have no access to education, the report said, adding the situation worsened during the war. –

Reuters/ST