Regional Consultation on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS: evidence, lessons and recommendations for action in South-East Asia

Overview

An estimated 39.5 million people were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2006, of which 4 million were in the South-East Asia Region. The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to have a devastating impact on health, nutrition, food security and overall socioeconomic development of the population affected by the disease. HIV and nutrition are strongly related to each other. Immune deficiency as a result of HIV infection leads to malnutrition which in turn, leads to immune deficiency, worsens the effect of HIV and contributes to more rapid progression to AIDS. Malnutrition rates are also high in the South-East Asia Region. Good nutrition for people living with HIV increases resistance to infection, maintains weight, improves the quality of life as well as drug compliance and efficacy. 

This joint regional consultation was proposed as a direct response to the 2006 World Health Assembly resolution WHA 59.11 on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS whereby the Member States requested the Director-General to strengthen technical guidance to Member States for incorporating HIV/AIDS issues in national nutrition policies and programmes; and to support the development and dissemination of science-based recommendations, guidelines and tools on nutritional care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. This consultation was jointly sponsored by WHO, the US National Institutes of Health, FAO, UNICEF and WFP.

The consultation also aimed to build on the successful experience of the Durban consultation in 2005 on nutrition and HIV/AIDS which mobilized most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to include nutrition within their HIV/AIDS policies and response.