Mutual Aid for AIDS is all about education

As International Aids Day looms large on the horizon I am pleased to find that some of the new Welsh Assembly Government fund of £ 50,000 which is going towards the Wales for Africa Framework project will be used to foster links between health services in Wales and health services in sub-Saharan Africa. Applicants for this funding will have to demonstrate how their particular project will support one or more of the Millennium Development Goals, one of the most important of which is to combat HIV/AIDS. Applications from existing and new hospital twinning projects aimed at exchanging good practice and developing understanding of other healthcare systems will be considered.

According to the Terence Higgins Trust, by 2008, a staggering 75,000 people will be living with AIDS in the UK. I hope that the NHS in Wales will benefit from link and partnership projects with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in so far as education and overcoming ignorance and prejudice about this disease (which does not discriminate) is concerned.