In at least five African countries, scarce resources are being spent on national HIV prevention campaigns that do not reach the people most at risk of infection, new research has found.
Between 2007 and 2008, UNAIDS and the World Bank partnered with the national AIDS authorities of Kenya, Lesotho, Swaziland, Uganda and Mozambique to find out how and where most HIV infections were occurring in each country, and whether existing prevention efforts and expenditure matched these findings.
The recently released reports reveal that few prevention programmes are based on existing evidence of what drives HIV/AIDS epidemics in the five countries surveyed.
LINK: Aidsmap | Africa: Prevention efforts and infection patterns mismatched.
Meanwhile, Botswana continues to gain publicity because that country has adopted a sensationalized effort to circumcise a half million men and boys. The effort is unlikely to make any difference because it hasn't addressed the multiple concurrent partnerships endemic to the region and responsible for the wildfire-like spread of HIV. A full 43% of pregnant Botswana women are said to be infected with HIV.
