IPS news reports appear daily in English, German, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. To reduce the death toll, Kanga calls for an intensive campaign among teachers to curb the spread of the disease. It means we have to work harder to curb its spread,'' he says. The first case of AIDS in Cote d'Ivoire was diagnosed in 1985, the same year the National Anti-AIDS Committee was set up.
Some social workers attribute the spread of the disease to a lack of aggressive campaign.
Others blame it on the rigid traditional attitude, which discourages safe sex. Most Ivorians attribute the pandemic to an act of witchcraft. ''In such a situation it is very difficult to educate people about the dangers of having unprotected sex with multiple partners,'' says Coulibaly. Despite the high infection rate, the ratio between men and women living with the virus and dying from it is not known by Ivorian health authorities.