Red Cross fights own Aids problem

The crisis is worst in Africa, where the Red Cross has millions of workers

The Red Cross has launched a programme to help its own staff and volunteers with Aids or the virus that causes it.

The Masambo Fund - honouring a Zambian Red Cross volunteer who died of Aids in 2001 - marks the first time the body has raised money for its own staff.

The organisation said it had at least 200,000 workers with HIV/Aids, out of some 97 million helpers and staff.

"We can't do our work without keeping these people alive," Red Cross official Bernard Gardiner said on Thursday.

Most of the affected relief workers are in Africa, where 29 million of the world's 40 million people infected with HIV/Aids live.

Staff donations

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies - an umbrella for national agencies - aims to raise funds from donations by its own staff.

Money raised for the programme is to be kept separate from other Red Cross funds.

Mr Gardiner, the head of Red Cross HIV/Aids programmes, said the Masambo Fund would at first aim to provide anti-retroviral drugs for 300 people for five years.

That number would eventually rise to 500, he said.

A month's drugs for one person costs about $50.