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Donors Urged to Continue Funding HIV/ADS Projects


FILE - Flowers are laid as tributes to those killed in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, at the base of a large sign for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, July 20, 2014.
FILE - Flowers are laid as tributes to those killed in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, at the base of a large sign for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, July 20, 2014.

Some Zimbabwean HIV/AIDS activists and non-profit organisations that were not able to attend the 20th edition of the 2014 AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, are calling on the donor community not to tire in supporting AIDS-related programmes.

The executive director of the Women and AIDS Support Network, Mary Sandasi, says most donors and governments are showing signs of donor fatigue in supporting aids programmes, a situation she hopes will come under the spotlight at the conference in Melbourne.

Sandasi says her organisation is working with urban and rural communities in promoting the use of female condoms as a way of protecting women from HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS activist and singer Sir Bob Geldof, told delegates Thursday that the “preposterous reluctance” of governments to fund HIV programs in developing countries is “disgraceful”, especially as the journey to the end of the HIV epidemic is “in the last mile”.

The renowned anti-poverty campaigner made the comments at the conference in Melbourne as he reflected on the impact of HIV on developing nations.

Geldof said the HIV epidemic in low-income countries is “inextricably linked” to poverty, and he strongly criticized wealthy nations for reneging on foreign aid commitments.

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