In Case You Missed It: 2/15/16 — 2/21/16

The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up.

This week, Ethiopia con­tin­ues their suc­cess­ful fight against HIV/AIDS, Zam­bian Pres­i­dent promis­es to have a female run­ning mate in upcom­ing elec­tion,  and Nige­ri­a’s army takes on Human Rights violations.

HIV/AIDS aware­ness ribbon

Ethiopia Plans to Elim­i­nate AIDS by 2030

Ethiopi­a’s Fed­er­al HIV/AIDS Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol Office (HAPCO) believes that the dis­ease could be erad­i­cat­ed in the coun­try by 2030.

Since 2010, Ethiopia has focused on reduc­ing the num­ber of new HIV/AIDS cas­es that occur each year. They have done this by focus­ing on three core areas: dis­ease pre­ven­tion, bet­ter care and sup­port for those infect­ed, and gath­er­ing strate­gic data.

Pre­ven­tion and care are obvi­ous solu­tions, but data is some­times over­looked. Gath­er­ing data about infec­tion rates has allowed HAPCO to iden­ti­fy areas and indi­vid­u­als most at risk, and focus their efforts on these areas. Pre­ven­tion has been done pre­dom­i­nant­ly through edu­ca­tion in schools and youth cen­ters. Health facil­i­ties offer coun­sel­ing, test­ing, and anti-retro­vi­ral treatments.

Their efforts have been extreme­ly suc­cess­ful. In 2010, 70,000 peo­ple died of the virus, but by 2015 that num­ber had dropped by 70%, thanks to access to anti-retro­vi­rals. The num­ber of new cas­es also also dropped dra­mat­i­cal­ly, from 0.28% to 0.03%.

HAPCO plans to con­tin­ue its efforts, plan­ning to pre­vent more than 500,000 deaths and 80,000 new infec­tions by 2020. They will also focus on mak­ing anti-retro­vi­rals avail­able to more chil­dren and those in remote loca­tions, and con­tin­u­ing to edu­cate peo­ple about sex­u­al health. They believe it is entire­ly pos­si­ble that the dis­ease will be erad­i­cat­ed by 2030.

Pres­i­dent Lun­gu Vows to Pick Female Run­ning Mate

Zam­bian Pres­i­dent Edgar Lun­gu is run­ning for re-elec­tion this year, and has promised to choose a woman as his Vice Pres­i­den­tial run­ning mate. Lun­gu is known for select­ing women to be in his cab­i­net, includ­ing cur­rent Vice Pres­i­dent Inonge Wina. It is not clear if Wina will remain Lun­gu’s run­ning mate in the upcom­ing election.

Politi­cians from the Patri­ot­ic Front Par­ty are vying to be Lun­gu’s run­ning mate, but he has urged the women of his coun­try to be active in pol­i­tics, encour­ag­ing them to vote and run for office. Lun­gu is not the first Zam­bian Pres­i­dent to include women in his gov­ern­ment. His pre­de­ces­sor, Michael Sata, also appoint­ed women to high posi­tions of power.

Niger­ian Army Opens Human Rights Office

The Niger­ian Army has opened an office to pre­vent the abuse of human rights.

The deci­sion to open the office was made after Niger­ian sol­diers were accused of human rights offens­es against cit­i­zens dur­ing the fight against Boko Haram. The Niger­ian mil­i­tary has denied the accu­sa­tions of abuse. Despite their denial, high rank­ing offi­cials in the Niger­ian army met with mem­bers of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al to dis­cuss the concerns.

The office will focus on train­ing sol­diers to respect cit­i­zens and their rights, as well as pro­vid­ing a place for cit­i­zens to make offi­cial com­plaints. Sol­diers are being encour­aged to report fel­low sol­diers, with­out fear of being pun­ished by their supe­ri­or offi­cers. The mil­i­tary is work­ing with the Niger­ian Human Rights Com­mis­sion, and the Niger­ian Bar Asso­ci­a­tion in an attempt to make sure that there is no cor­rup­tion and that claims are investigated.