India
$5.9 million for AIDS project (Corridors Project) in India
By IANS
Mar 6, 2006, 17:16

The University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, will receive $5.9 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for a project aimed at reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS in India.

The new "Corridors Project" will provide HIV prevention programmes and services for migrant women sex workers and high-risk men along the corridors between rural areas of northern Karnataka and the urban centres of southern Maharashtra.

The grant is part of "Avahan", the foundation's HIV prevention initiative in India.

"The urban areas of southern Maharashtra are a primary destination for migrant sex workers from rural Karnataka. So a major focus of this project will be the commercial sexual networks that facilitate HIV transmission along migration corridors between these regions," said James Blanchard, project leader of the university.

Blanchard is an associate professor of community health sciences and medical microbiology, and Canada Research Chair in epidemiology and global public health at the university.

"Until now, most of the HIV prevention programmes in India have been urban-focused and geographically static, and there are important prevention gaps in high-risk rural areas," he said.

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