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HIV/AIDS infections increase in Sudan, but data is lacking

Poverty and the movement of war-displaced populations have driven the number of HIV/AIDS infections higher in Sudan, though a lack of data is preventing health officials from getting a full picture of the virus’ spread, experts said on Sunday.

Sudanese and UN AIDS experts told reporters in the capital, Khartoum, that an estimated 1.6 percent of Sudan’s 37 million people were infected. But they cautioned that the real number was certainly higher and that better tracking would reveal that.

The increase in Sudan is contrary to a steady or declining trend among its African neighbors, such as Kenya.

In particular, the movement of large populations — those fleeing fighting in Darfur and those returning after the separate north-south conflict from areas with higher infection rates — were contributing to the spread. A peace deal in 2005 ended the 21-year conflict with rebels in the south but the war in the western region of Darfur continues and has claimed the lives of up to 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

The number of infections based on the available data is thought to be between 350,000 and 600,000, and fewer than 2,000 patients are receiving regular treatment, the experts said.

Doctors and Sudanese officials speaking at a news conference said the 1.6 percent prevalence rate was surely underestimated because the data is outdated and based on surveys in a limited number of clinics, rather than a nationwide survey.

Abdel Kareem Gibreel Algoni, a Sudanese public health consultant who works in South Africa, said the spread of HIV is affected by poverty and illiteracy, both prevalent in Sudan.

“For Sudan practically now we are like in South Africa in the 1990s,” he said. “The virus is not that clever. We can overcome but it works on our ignorance, both political ignorance, economic ignorance and personal ignorance.”

The latest UN survey showed that selected regions in Sudan had between 1 percent and 3 percent infection rates. But Algoni said in his hometown of Abyei, south of Khartoum, some 18 percent of the population was seeking treatment for sexually transmitted infections at mobile clinics he privately set up.

“Most probably, they will also have HIV,” he said.
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