 As in other parts of Africa, the AIDS epidemic has led the government in Chad to reassess its national health priorities, and in particular focus on the difficulties facing Chadian women who have long suffered from a lack of access to education and proper health care.
Roughly three quarters of women in Chad aged 15 to 49 have no schooling, 80 percent marry while in their teens, and more than half have had their first child before turning 18. The use of modern contraception is virtually non existent. Only one in four Chadian women have access to trained assistance while giving birth, so that maternal mortality in Chad, estimated at 827 per 100,000 live births, ranks among the highest in the world.
In response to these challenges, the Chadian government with outside donors developed a National Health Strategy, and a National AIDS Control Strategic Plan. To support these plans, the World Bank is providing the government $41.5 under a Health Sector Support Project and a $24.6 million for a population and AIDS control project.
An initial population and AIDS project, which became effective in 1995, helped the government to put in place a multi-sector AIDS prevention plan and trained more than 40 local non-governmental organizations in project development and management. The second project, building on the results of the first, is currently carrying out population control and HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives at the community level.
Knowledge about modern contraception methods, the existence of AIDS, and how the HIV virus spreads, is steadily growing. More than 300,000 condoms are now sold every month, about 15 percent more than expected at the start of the project.
Related Links:
 Chad
Population and AIDS Control Project
Updated: July 2002
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