Howrah News Service -  Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World: Price rise adds to AIDS scare

Price rise adds to AIDS scare
================================================================================
ASIANAGE on 05 August, 2008 02:52:45
 
By Mica Rosenberg
Mexico City
Aug. 5: Rising food prices around the world are likely to drive poor women to
trade sex for basic goods like fish and cooking oil, raising the risk of new
AIDS infections, UN officials said on Monday.
Delegates at a major AIDS conference in Mexico cited the cases of fisherwomen
in the Pacific and women in Kenya desperate for food being forced to sell their
bodies, adding to concerns of a new twist in the spread of the deadly pandemic.
"Food is such a basic need that you can see people really going to great
lengths," said Fadzai Mukonoweshuro of the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organisation in southern Africa.
Climbing food prices, due to increased use of biofuels, the growing demand for
grains to feed a booming Asia, droughts and market speculation, caused 50
million more people to go hungry in 2007 compared to the year before, the United
Nations said.
"That might lead to various distress responses, one of which on the part of
women is having transactional sex to feed their kids," Stuart Gillespie of the
International Food Policy Research Institute said.
"Recent studies in Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania have shown
associations between acute food insecurity and unprotected transactional sex
among poor women," he said.
Overfishing of tuna in the Pacific has forced Papua New Guinea fisherwomen to
abandon their smaller craft and join the crew of larger boats, where they trade
sex for food scraps, the officials and delegates said.
Such "fish for sex" deals are also common in Kenya on the shores of Lake
Victoria, where women fish traders meet incoming boats and sleep with fishermen
for a favourable price.
Experts at the conference, a biennial gathering of global medical experts, also
said malnutrition increased the risks for people already infected with AIDS,
experts added. HIV drugs can upset the stomach if taken without food and AIDS
patients, many also infected with tuberculosis. -Reuters