Africa 
Soldiers Africa's highest AIDS risk group

afrol News, 10 July - Governments committed to fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS need to specifically target soldiers says a new report. Like other sexually transmitted infections, HIV rates are often higher in the armed forces than in the general population. This is especially true in Africa.

The new report, 'Combat AIDS: HIV and the World's Armed Forces,' concludes that, in many African countries, HIV prevalence averages 20-40 percent among soldiers. The rate however reaches as high as 50-60% in countries where HIV/AIDS has been present for more than a decade. 

- Widespread illness in the ranks threatens the ability of the military to respond to external threats or fulfil its other functions says the joint report from development think tank, Panos London, and health information NGO, Healthlink Worldwide. There is a loss of skills in all ranks and loss of institutional memory among long-serving soldiers and officers, which may contribute to a decline in military performance and breakdown in discipline.

Martin Foreman, author of the report, says; "22 million people serving in the armed forces across the world are men in their twenties and thirties and sex is a preoccupation of many. They live in an enclosed society where masculine values predominate and where stress, boredom and alcohol use may be high. Accustomed to taking risks, they may be reluctant to use condoms."

Costs are incurred by treatment for those who fall ill and recruitment to replace them. In the worst affected countries, which tend to be poor and have relatively few adults in higher education, the epidemic reduces the pool of potential replacements, particularly for officers. 

According to the report, "senior commanders in some African countries privately admit that HIV/AIDS is so widespread that complete well-trained companies are not immediately available for mobilisation."

Statistics were however hard to come by, the study admits. This was partly because some militaries cannot afford or do not want to test serving soldiers and partly because many soldiers do not want to be tested. 

Late 1990s estimates for Africa include 40 - 60 percent of Angolan soldiers (2.8 percent in Angola's adult population at large), 10 - 25 percent in Congo Brazzaville (6.4 percent), 4.6 percent in Eritrea (2.8 percent), 15 - 30 percent in Tanzania (8.1 percent) and 50 percent in Zimbabwe (25 percent). 

Also outside Africa, HIV/AIDS is a big problem in the armed troops. The study mentions Cambodia, where in 1999, 12 - 17 percent of the armed forces were estimated to be HIV-positive, compared with 3.7 percent in the general population.

The report further highlights several obstacles to tackling HIV among soldiers. These include inadequate funding, a fear of breaches of confidentiality, a risk-taking culture and restricted access to information among others: "I'd never heard about the virus before. I spent most of the last three years fighting in the jungle. I only went into towns a few times," says one Cambodian soldier after testing positive for HIV.

Some countries were however already tackling the problem. Morocco had an HIV infection rate of three in 10,000 in the adult population and only two in 100,000 in the army. Following a prevention campaign aimed at military personnel, the incidence of other sexually transmitted infections in its armed forces fell from a peak of over 5,000 cases a year in 1987 to 3,000 by 1996. 

Also Ethiopia had taken action. In the country, an infection rate of five percent in the armed forces, two percent lower than in the general population, is attributed to aggressive condom marketing techniques.

The report goes on to outline what is currently happening at the international level where the importance of HIV prevention programmes for the military is now high on the agenda. It also pulls together current thinking on the best prevention and care programmes.

Sources: Based on Panos and afrol archives

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