IOM Southern Africa - Home: Migration Health

HIV/AIDS and Population Mobility

The relationship between migration and HIV/AIDS is complex. Although some people think that migrants bring HIV when they enter countries, evidence usually shows the opposite, suggesting that migrants are more vulnerable than local populations. The links between mobility and HIV/AIDS are related to the conditions and structure of the migration process.

IOM develops projects and programmes on HIV/AIDS in the following three areas:

IOM's Position Paper on HIV/AIDS and Migration was adopted at the 84th session of IOM's Governing Council on 17 October 2002. It describes the scope of IOM's activities with regard to HIV/AIDS and spells out the direction and special areas of focus for the organisation.

In September 1999 IOM signed a Co-operation framework with UNAIDS which was renewed in 2002. The framework is aimed at ensuring that the needs of migrant and mobile populations are fully integrated into national and regional AIDS strategies and that mobile populations and migrants have access to adequate HIV/AIDS prevention as well as care and support. The framework promotes initiatives designed to effectively respond to the spread of HIV and at reducing the risk and vulnerability of migrant and mobile populations.

In June 2004, IOM and UNAIDS jointly produced a Statement on HIV-related travel restrictions. The statement reviews the nature, scope and impact of HIV-related travel restrictions, and the associated legal, human rights, humanitarian and ethical concerns.

Please click here for more information on IOM's Programmes on HIV/AIDS and Population Mobility in Southern Africa.

Please click here for information on the Partnership on HIV/AIDS and Mobile Populations in Southern Africa.

Counter-Trafficking and Health

One of the key concerns for IOM policy and programme development is the connection between the trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation and the exposure to sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. Programmes and policies should both look at the prevention of the phenomenon of trafficking and respond to it in terms of health care and service delivery. IOM’s main activities in this area are awareness raising, health promotion, health examination and diagnosis and direct health care.

Please click here for the latest IOM report on the link between human trafficking and health: "Breaking the Cycle of Vulnerability: Responding to the health needs of trafficked women in East and Southern Africa".

Migration Health and Travel Assessments

Migration and travel health assessment is one of the major activities of MHS. This is conducted according to IOM’s health guidelines and the specific national legislation of the resettlement countries. Related activities include:

MIDA (Migration for Development in Africa) Health

The endeavor to address the many urgent and future challenges posed in the health sector in Africa by growing mobility of populations, re-insurgence of communicable and endemic diseases, negative health trends associated with poverty and the effects of the structural adjustment, cannot be locally sustained and properly addressed in shortage of qualified national human resources. Thousands of trained health professionals are urgently needed to meet the challenges of the UNAIDS/WHO “Treat 3 Million HIV positive people by 2005" (3 by 5)” initiative and sustain the implementation of the Global Fund created to finance a dramatic turn-around in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

With health as a key area of concern, IOM developed MIDA Health to focus on the priority human resource needs of the African continent. This MIDA sectoral programme focuses on health care needs in African countries by collecting information on the available skills of the continent, as well as the skills of the African Diaspora in the health sectors. This specific programme aims at assisting the health sector to facilitate the transfer of relevant skills and resource of doctors, nurses and other health personal existing in the African Diaspora.

More data are necessary with regards to the trends and determinants of health staff mobility from rural to urban areas, from the public to the private sectors, and abroad so as to help designing programmes that attract and retain needed skills. MIDA Health is meant to create and maintain synergies with other IOM and non-IOM programs and address priority gaps in health services delivering in Africa through the mobilization of resources and skills existing in the Diaspora.

Post-Emergency Migration Health Assistance

Programmes in this category aim to help nations and populations, in the aftermath of emergency situations, by managing the safe mass movement of fleeing or returning populations, helping in the reconstruction of interrupted health structures, and training of health personnel. While initial assistance to affected regions may include short term solutions by providing the expertise needed to support basic health needs, the long term goal is to rebuild the capacity of the country through training of national personnel in order to reach sustainable solutions in line with national health plans.