Dispatches - July
HIV Must be Addressed in Humanitarian Response, ECOSOC Panelists Say
GENEVA — The need to better coordinate and address HIV during humanitarian crises is greater than ever, according to speakers at a UN panel entitled ‘Addressing HIV in Humanitarian Action’.
“People don’t stop needing HIV prevention or care just because there’s a crisis,” said Sir John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, who took part in the panel discussion. “And a humanitarian crisis is just one additional shock for people already living with HIV.”
The panel was a side event held during the humanitarian affairs segment of this year’s meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council. It was designed to address how HIV needs should be addressed in the context of humanitarian response
Today, up to 200 million people around the world are affected by crises, Adding HIV to the mix exacerbates already desperate situations.
“In Mozambique we have more than 350,000 people affected by the double emergency of HIV and disasters,” said Joana Mangueira, Executive Chief of the National AIDS Council of Mozambique, who also took part in the discussion. “Even without disasters, we face difficult circumstances, with extreme poverty common among people [infected or affected] with HIV, such as sex workers and orphans. Disater just makes everyone even poorer.”
The IASC Task Force on HIV and Humanitarian Action, made up of UN agencies, international organizations, and NGOs, has developed a set of guidelines to address HIV in emergency contexts.
“These guidelines are very effective – they worked on the ground when we were faced with the tsunami,” said Jane Wilson, UNAIDS Country Coordinator (UCC) for Indonesia during the tsunami and now UCC in Uganda. “It is difficult to imagine the situation then – Aceh (the Indonesian province hardest hit by the tsunami) was closed down, the military didn’t even have shoes or gloves, yet they were vulnerable to infection. They needed help too – not just the people in the camps. And there were many internally displaced people, between 300,000 and 700,000.”
While the panel focused on the needs of people with HIV in humanitarian crises, they were reminded that similar needs also exist within the UN family.
“We need to adhere to the strictest standards of training on HIV, and we must start by taking the HIV in the workplace training sessions within the UN seriously,” said Bhatupe Mhango, Coordinator of UN-Plus, the group representing HIV-positive staff within the UN and its agencies. “The best basis for how UN staff will respect the rights of populations will be how well it treats its own staff during non-conflict situations. If we can report human rights violations pre-conflict, then we can better handle them in humanitarian situations.” While not a member of the panel, Mhango was speaking from the audience during the question period.
Other panelists included Tim Martineau, Director of the Executive Office, UNAIDS; Paul B. Spiegel, Chief of the Public Health and HIV Section at UNHCR; and Françoise Louis, TB/HIV Advisor of MSF Switzerland. The event was chaired by Mukesh Kapila, Special Representative of the Secretary General (HIV&AIDS) and Acting Director Policy and Planning, IFRC.
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