WHO: Integrating nutrition into the overall response to HIV/AIDS

The World Health Assembly adopted a resolution requesting countries to include nutrition an integral part of the overall response to HIV/AIDS by identifying nutrition interventions for immediate integration intoHIV/AIDS programmes. Food and good nutrition are immediate and criticalneeds of people living with HIV/AIDS. The Health Assembly also supportedWHO to develop a five-year-plan to help acheive universal access toHIV/AIDS treatment by 2010.

Please see below the resolution adopted by the World Health Assembly on 27 May 2006.

The Fifty-ninth World Health Assembly,

Having considered the report on nutrition and HIV/AIDS;

Recalling resolution WHA 57.14 which urged Member States, inter alia, to pursue policies and practices that promote integration of nutrition into a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS;

Bearing in mind WHO’s efforts to support access to antiretroviral treatment as part of the“3 by 5” initiative and to ensure a comprehensive package of care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS;

Recalling the recommendations of WHO’s technical consultation on nutrition and HIV/AIDS in Africa (Durban, South Africa, 10-13 April 2005), which were based on the main findings of a detailed review of the latest scientific evidence on the macronutrient and micronutrient needs of HIV-infected people, including pregnant and lactating women and patients on antiretroviral therapy;

Noting that food and adequate nutrition are often identified as the most immediate and critical needs by people living with, or affected by, the HIV/AIDS pandemic;

Bearing in mind that nutrition and food security require systematic and simultaneous action to meet the challenges of the pandemic;

Mindful of the complex interactions between nutrition and HIV/AIDS, and the increased risk of opportunistic infections and malnutrition;

Noting that some Member States already have policies and programmes related to nutrition and
HIV/AIDS that can be used as a basis for developing priorities and workplans;

Underlining the importance of ensuring cooperation on this question with other bodies of the United Nations system, in particular, FAO, UNICEF and WFP,


1. URGES Member States:

(1) to make nutrition an integral part of their response to HIV/AIDS by identifying nutrition interventions for immediate integration into HIV/AIDS programming, including:

(a) strengthening political commitment to nutrition and HIV/AIDS as part of their health agenda;

(b) reinforcing nutrition components in HIV/AIDS policies and programmes and incorporating HIV/AIDS issues in national nutrition policies and programmes;

(c) developing specific advocacy tools to raise decision-makers’ awareness of the urgency and steps needed to incorporate nutrition into HIV treatment and care programmes;

(d) assessing existing policies and programmes related to nutrition and HIV/AIDS and identifying gaps to be filled and further opportunities for integrating nutrition interventions;

(e) ensuring close multisectoral collaboration and coordination between agricultural, health, socioeconomic, education, financial and nutrition sectors;

(2) to strengthen, revise or establish new guidelines and assessment tools for nutrition care and support of people living with HIV and AIDS at different stages of the disease, and for sex- and age-specific approaches to providing antiretroviral therapy, including nutrition counselling and special nutritional needs of vulnerable and marginalized populations;

(3) to provide support for and expand existing interventions for improving nutrition and managing severe malnutrition in infants and young children in the context of HIV by:

(a) implementing fully the global strategy for infant and young child feeding with its approach to feeding in exceptionally difficult circumstances and the United Nations framework for priority action in HIV and infant feeding;1

(b) building the capability of hospital- and community-based health workers, mothers, family members and other caregivers in order to improve the care of severely malnourished children exposed to, or infected by, HIV/AIDS;

(c) encouraging revitalization of the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative in the light of HIV/AIDS;

(d) accelerating training in, and expanding use of, guidelines and tools for infantfeeding programmes that provide counselling on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV;

(e) ensuring that institutions training health workers review their curricula and bring them in line with current recommendations;


2. REQUESTS the Director-General:

(1) to strengthen technical guidance to Member States for incorporating HIV and AIDS issues in national nutrition policies and programmes;

(2) to provide support for the development of advocacy tools to raise decision-makers’ awareness of the urgency and the need to include nutrition and HIV/AIDS as a priority on the health agenda;

(3) to provide support, as a matter of priority, to development and dissemination of sciencebased recommendations, guidelines and tools on nutritional care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS;

(4) to contribute to incorporation of nutrition in training, including pre-service training, of health workers, in technical advice, and in training materials for community and home-based settings, and during emergencies;

(5) to continue to promote research relative to nutrition and HIV/AIDS, addressing gaps in knowledge and operational issues;

(6) to provide support for development of appropriate indicators for measuring progress towards integration of nutrition into HIV programmes and the impact of nutrition interventions;

(7) to ensure collaboration between all concerned parties in this area so that progress may be made by building on each other’s achievements;

(8) to foster establishment of guidelines for including appropriate food and nutrition interventions in funding proposals.

Adopted on Ninth plenary meeting, 27 May 2006

For copy of this document, go to http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA59/A59_R11-en.pdf


Source://pronut-hiv@healthnet.org

Ethiopia: WFP Scheme Sustaining Thousands Affected By HIV

A UN World Food Programme (WFP) initiative is providing nutritional support to thousands of poor, HIV-affected families in Ethiopia, where hunger is still a major problem more than twenty years after famine killed an estimated one million people.

"The scaling-up and expansion of our HIV/AIDS urban programme will allow WFP to continue working towards improving the nutritional status and quality of life of many thousands of people in Ethiopia, who are either infected or affected by HIV/AIDS," said WFP acting country director Abnezer Ngowi. The scheme will run.

In terms of a US$9 million agreement, signed in August by WFP, the Addis Ababa HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, and other local agencies and implementing partners, WFP will provide nutritional assistance to 110,000 people in 14 towns across the country, including 54,000 beneficiaries in the capital, Addis Ababa, until December 2007.

Two million people are living with the virus and an estimated 2.6 million children have been orphaned by the pandemic in the last decade.Urban households have been more affected than rural ones.

Dinku Shitaw, 85, who lost her daughter and son-in-law two years ago, is one of the beneficiaries. "I am taking care of these two AIDS-orphaned children with the support of an organisation that gives me wheat, edible oil and schooling materials to the children." The children help their grandmother sell firewood and charcoal to pay the $5 monthly rent for their tiny, one-roomed home.

The organisation assisting Shitaw is the Participatory Community Support Association. "We have given nutritional support worth $200,000 to over 1,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Our association has been re-elected by WFP to continue this programme [and we] plan to increase the number of benefciaries in the coming months," said the manager, Solomon Tesfaye.

People taking antiretroviral (ARV) medication must have adequate nutrition, and households are given 45kg of wheat, three litres of oil and 9kg of a locally produced fortified blended food supplement every month, allowing caregivers, usually family members, also to benefit.

Ayalnesh Melaku, 33, lost her husband to an AIDS-related illness five years ago and has been on ARVs at Addis Ababa's government-run Black Lion Hospital for the past year. "Without the nutritional support, it would be difficult to start such a heavy medicine," she said. Since she started the ARVs, her CD-4 cell count (which measures the strength of the immune system) has increased from 100 to 408 and her weight has gone up from 40kg to 50kg.


Source: ProNut-HIV, September 08, 2006

Tanzania: Babati HIV/AIDS Victims in Dire Need of Nutritional Food Arusha Times (Arusha)

Members of a group of people living with HIV/AIDS in Babati have expressed concern over their lives which they say is in danger due to poverty and lack of basic nutritional foods.

The chairperson of the Babati People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA+) Group, Ms. Sofia Ismail said the group with 103 member was facing the problem of getting nutritional food which is vital for people who are in poor health.

Ms Ismail was addressing a delegation of thirteen persons from Amhara Region, Ethiopia who were in an eight-day study tour of Babati District in Manyara Region.

She said that although they were getting free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, it was also necessary that the drugs be augmented with nutritional foods.

Since their association was formed in December 2005, they have lost eleven members due to inadequate nutrition, she said. "Even getting basic food is a problem", she added.

Although some of them are skilled and are capable of doing some income generating activities they cannot be employed by neither individuals nor institutions because of what she termed "stigmatization."

Out of the 103 members, 30 are orphans and ten are children living with HIV/ADS and now on a course of ARV. She said that both victims and orphaned children do not have any assistance of basic food and school requirements.

"We have orphans in our association who need some assistance on their school fees, clothes, books and stationery. They need to be helped so as to be able to continue attending school," she said.

Narating the catalogue of problems affecting them the chairperson said that they are given ARVs free of charge but cannot afford treating opportunistic disease that are associated with the HIV/AIDs pandemic.


Source: Thomas Ratsin, ProNut-HIV September 2, 2006