Sudan to observe AIDS day in Juba seven weeks late

KHARTOUM, Dec 1 (AFP) — Sudan will officially mark World Aids Day next month, seven weeks behind everyone else, in the main southern city of Juba, which is hit by the country’s highest rate of infection, its chief Aids fighter said on Monday.

The director of the National Anti-Aids Programme (NAAP), Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Hafiz, told reporters that Aids Day would be held January 18 in Juba, where the infection rate is 10 percent.

Doctor Abdel Hafiz feared this rate would increase with an expected return of displaced people following a widely expected settlement of Sudan’s 20-year civil war.

A similar commemoration programme will be launched in Khartoum state on January 14, with emphasis on the refugee camps outside the capital, under the motto “Yes to protection from Aids, no to discrimination against Aids patients”.

Abdel Hafiz said a total of 600 000 people suffer from the disease in Sudan, or 1.6 percent of the population.

“Our target is to prevent infections from exceeding two percent,” said Hafiz, citing an internationally-backed Aids control plan for 2004-2005 in addition to public education campaigns in parts of the country hit hardest.

Those areas are Khartoum, Gezira, Red Sea, Kassala and Kordofan.

Abdel Hafiz did not say why Sudan was not marking World Aids day on Monday, like the rest of the world.