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Ward off unsafe sex, Dar workers counselled
2007-12-20 09:18:17
By Nasser Kigwangallah
Workers have been urged to ward off unsafe sexual relationship as one way of curbing prevalence and incidences of HIV/Aids at work places.
This was said in Dar es Salaam yesterday by Lilian Kalaghe, Manager of Performance Improvement Programmes (PIP) of the Tanzania Public Service College, Magogoni.
She challenged the workers in her paper on the Prevalence of HIV/Aids at work places adding that if everyone regarded as her/his responsibility to be extra careful in sexual behaviour, greater strides would be made in curbing the spread of the incurable disease.
She urged participants of a five-day training for Law Secretaries and Accounting Staff on Financial Accounting, Internal Auditing, Stores Management and HIV/Aids awareness in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs to play their part in fighting the war against HIV/Aids spread.
She said \"over the past two decades we have learnt that HIV/Aids can be prevented at work places if the staffs concerned keep themselves away from temptations that attract the infection of the disease.
``We now have evidence from work places that if concerted HIV prevention efforts at the national level are made, they result in the maintenance of low sero prevalence rates where they otherwise would have been expected to rise,`` she said.
According to her there is a declining rate of HIV prevalence in work places; this trend points to the long-term impact of prevention efforts in those communities.
She urged all stakeholders in the fight against the spread of the incurable disease restate principles, acknowledge advances, and identify challenges in the drive towards HIV/Aids prevention.
``Programmes aiming at promoting safer sexual practices and control of other STDs are urgently needed in this population,`` Kalaghe pointed out.
She added that such programmes should address underlying conditions that facilitate risk behaviours and create obstacles for the people who would wish to protect themselves against HIV/Aids.
``There is a need therefore to strengthen policy and programme linkages and coordination between HIV/Aids, sexual and reproductive health, national development plans and strategies, including poverty eradication strategies, and to address, where appropriate, the impact of HIV/Aids on national development plans and strategies,`` she observed.
It was portrayed that Tanzania, with 36,766,356: population has 1,400,000: estimated number of people living with HIV/Aids 6.5 per cent: adults (ages 15-49) living with HIV/Aids.
Further portrayal had it that there were 710,000: estimated number of women (ages 15-49) who lived with HIV/Aids, 110,000: estimated number of children (ages 0-14) lived with HIV/Aids and 140,000: estimated number of deaths due to AIDS 1,100,000: estimated number of children who had lost their mother or father or both parents to AIDS and who were alive and under the age of 17.
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