Campaign Aimed at Improving Nutrition Among HIV-Positive People

The World Health Organization soon will launch a campaign in South and Southeast Asia aimed at making nutrition programs a central part of HIV/AIDS treatment in the region, Randa Saadeh, a scientist in WHO's Nutrition for Health and Development Department, said recently, Inter Press Service reports. Saadeh was speaking at the end of a weeklong meeting in Bangkok aimed at increasing support for the campaign and ensuring that governments in the region have measures to implement program in place by 2009.

According to Saadeh, this is the first time the region has been targeted to improve nutrition as part of its effort to fight HIV/AIDS. "We want governments to adopt strong positions on this link" between HIV/AIDS and nutrition "as a solution," she said. The campaign follows a similar WHO initiative in sub-Saharan Africa that was launched after the approval of a resolution that formally recognized the link between nutrition and HIV/AIDS at the 2006 World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, Inter Press Service reports. The resolution called on governments to "make nutrition an integral part of their response to HIV/AIDS."


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