New initiative to provide nutritional assistance to people in Ethiopia living with HIV/AIDS

About 54,000 people in Ethiopia living with or affected by HIV/AIDS will receive nutritional assistance from the U.N. World Food Programme under a new agreement announced Tuesday, the Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com reports.

The $9 million agreement involves WFP, the Addis Ababa HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office and 60 nongovernmental organizations and health service providers working in 10 subcities in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The program will benefit HIV-positive people who receive antiretroviral drugs and home-based care services; children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS-related illnesses and other vulnerable children; mothers and infants enrolled in vertical HIV transmission prevention programs; and HIV/AIDS home care volunteers.

The program is part of WFP's broadening of its urban HIV/AIDS program in Ethiopia, which began in 2003. It will target 14 towns and 110,000 people nationwide through December 2007.

"The scaling up and expansion of our HIV/AIDS urban program will allow WFP to continue working toward improving the nutritional status and quality of life of many thousands of people in Ethiopia, who are either infected or affected by HIV/AIDS," WFP Acting Country Director to Ethiopia Abnezer Ngowi said.

In addition, USAID and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief have donated $15.2 million, which will help keep AIDS orphans in school, Ngowi said.

More than two million people in Ethiopia are estimated to be HIV-positive, the Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com reports (Teklu, Daily Monitor/AllAfrica.com, 8/24).