By Abdou Faye

DAKAR, Dec 11 (IPS) - Recognised for its effective HIV/AIDS programme, Senegal's accomplishments may suffer defeat due to the growing number of women coming down with the disease.

Women have found themselves at the heart of the pandemic's risk pool. In 14 years, the number of women living with HIV/AIDS has quadrupled, while the proportion of men having the disease has not even doubled.

Recent UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports show that Senegal, which had succeeded in lowering the incidence of AIDS from 1.7 to 1.4 percent in 2002, is facing a rapid infection rate among women.

Estimated at only 9,108 in 1988, the number of Senegalese women living with HIV/AIDS has reached 35,945 in 2002. During the same period, the number of men living with the virus has risen from 24,048 to only 41,326. Today 77,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS, and, in 2001, some 4,700 AIDS-related deaths were recorded, in Senegal.

Dr. Ibra Ndoye, the Executive Secretary of the National Council Against AIDS, has acknowledged the gravity of the situation.

''Women are more vulnerable to the virus than men because the risks of transmission through unprotected sexual contact are higher for women than for men,'' explains Ndoye. ''In marital homes, women generally don't have much say in their sexuality.''

Aminata Toure, who is in-charge of Gender and Human Development Programme for the West African regional office of the UN Fund for Women's Development (UNIFEM), says ''women affected by HIV/AIDS are often not responsible for their illness. They do not have the right to refuse risky sexual relations and are often the victims of irresponsible acts committed by others''.

''Some husbands continue to have sex with their wives even when they know they're infected,'' says Toure, calling for a revision of certain provisions of Senegalese family law, which makes men head of household. She also calls for lifting of confidentiality of the HIV/AIDS test because it ''too, often favours the law of silence''.

In the past few years, health authorities have targeted pregnant women during their prenatal visits for AIDS testing in an attempt to make it more widespread and to allow women, as well as men, to know their HIV status. In 2001, out of a total of 22,646 women who came for prenatal consultations, 89.3 percent were informed about the test, and 76 percent agreed to have it done, voluntarily.

The economic dependence of women on men increases the burden of the epidemic, according to Marieme Soumare, the coordinator of the Association for Women at Risk of AIDS (AWA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

AWA is a synonym for Eve, the symbolic name of the first woman on earth.

''Poverty is the root of the problem and women constitute the poorest segment of the Senegalese population,'' says Soumare.

Soumare, whose mission it is to assist women at risk, such as sex workers and women whose marriages have broken, also points a finger at ''the social and religious conditions in Senegal'', which compel ''women to accept risky sexual relations''.

Formed in Dakar in 1996, AWA works to prevent the spread of the disease by conducting awareness-training sessions in bars, clubs and among women groups. The association also started revenue-generating projects for women at-risk.

A strategic plan against the pandemic, covering the 2000-2006 period, was created, with the objective of holding the line on AIDS or lowering the present rate of incidence.

The plan, says Ndoye, supports anti-retroviral treatment since the West African country was one of the first to set up, in 1998, the Senegalese Initiative for Access to Anti-retrovirals, which permitted 800 people living with HIV/AIDS to get the drugs free or for very low cost.

Anti-retroviral drug costs 700,000 CFA (about 1,077 U.S. dollars) a year. In its strategic plan, the Senegalese government foresees treating more than 7,000 people living with HIV by 2006 if the present rate of incidence keeps up. This would correspond to an annual budget of some four billion CFA (around 6.153 million U.S. dollars). (END/IPS/AF/HE/TRA-FRE/AF/SZ/MN/02)