Neeson moved by African aids crisis

Irish actor Liam Neeson today pledged to highlight the plight of tens of thousands of children orphaned by AIDS and HIV after an inspiring trip to stricken Mozambique.

On his return from a visit to the African country as an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland, Neeson said he wanted to draw attention to the forgotten plight of children bearing the brunt of the AIDS pandemic.

“I have seen pictures and images of hungry and sick children before, nothing prepares you for the reality. In many cases, there were three children and their mothers to a bed, some of the children crying in pain and hunger, others too sick to move,” he said.

“We have to do more to ensure that the affects of the AIDS pandemic are minimised on children. I am determined with UNICEF to do this”

In the country where a child is born every 16 minutes with HIV/AIDS, Neeson visited the second largest city, Beira, which has the highest prevalence rate of the disease in the country.

“Young people were once considered relatively safe from HIV/AIDS,” the actor, who starred in Michael Collins and Kinsey, said. “Today, their lives and futures are at risk throughout the world because of this disease. I believe it is young people throughout the world who offer us the greatest hope for defeating this deadly pandemic.”

Neeson met with several HIV positive women at the the Munhava Health Centre in Beira – one of 34 UNICEF centre’s in Mozambique where the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission programme (PMTCT) is in place.

“They are doing this to ensure that their unborn babies have a chance of survival, a chance to be born free of the virus,” he said, commending them for their bravery in a society where there is still considerable stigma surrounding the disease.

The development organisation’s programme includes the administration of an anti-retro-viral drug to HIV positive women before delivery and to the baby, which reduces transmission of HIV to children by up to 60%.

Around 500 new HIV infections occur every day including 90 young children through mother-to-child transmission

The actor said his visit to Beira’s Central Hospital where children living with HIV/AIDS are treated was shocking.

School children in Mozambique are educated to be aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS through programmes sponsored by UNICEF.

The programmes run by a group of young people, ’Khulupira’ who are themselves living with HIV/AIDS, have reached almost 23,000 school children since 2002.

“It seems awful that 12-year-old children need to learn about HIV/AIDS, but this is a lesson that saves their lives. In a very interactive way, they learn about the misconceptions about how the virus is transmitted, and how to abstain from having sex,” he said.

“If we can keep young people free of the virus we have some hope for the future. UNICEF understands this and that is why prevention is a cornerstone of UNICEF’s programme on HIV/AIDS.”

During his trip, Neeson met with four different families dealing with the impact of HIV/AIDS.

The actor said one of the badly hit families he visited was headed by a 14-year-old girl, Gabriella, who had a one-year-old daughter, and was also caring for her three sisters and a brother.

“I have never seen anything so desperate as the look of total hopelessness and futility in Gabriella’s eyes. All hope has been extinguished in her. Each day a struggle to survive. She is no longer a statistic, but flesh and blood to me,” Neeson said, after a visit to the family’s home, where hunger is a constant problem.

Maura Quinn, executive director of UNICEF Ireland, who accompanied Neeson on the visit, said that although the problems associated with the AIDS pandemic were daunting the country was beginning to tackle the challenge.

“UNICEF is taking the lead and working with the government, communities, families and the media in Mozambique to mobilise resources,” she said. “Funding from Ireland is making an incredible difference to children whose lives have been devastated by HIV/AIDS in Swaziland and Zimbabwe as well as Mozambique.”

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