The Cost of Love: Older People in the Fight Against AIDS in Tanzania

This report presents the key issues facing older women and men affected by HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, including their role in providing care and support to their sons and daughters living with HIV/AIDS and to their grandchildren. It draws on participatory research with older people, community leaders, government officials, and young people in five regions of Tanzania.

The report explains how HIV/AIDS erodes families and communities, and exacerbates gender inequalities. According to the report, 90% of care for people living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is provided at home. Many older women are shouldering this burden of care, and caring for the ever-increasing numbers of orphaned children. Because of their responsibilities, older caregivers have less time to earn an income or produce food. They may have to abandon economic activity altogether, especially when they are caring for very young children. Those left with orphaned children report spending 80% of their time looking after them. Necessities such as food, medicines, and health care for their affected adult children, and schooling for their grandchildren, amount to four or five times the meagre income older caregivers earn. Many have sold their assets or used savings in order to cover these costs.

According to the report, older people at all the research sites lacked access to adequate information about HIV/AIDS, its causes, methods of transmission, and treatment. The main sources of information for older people were found to be oral communication from health visitors, community meetings, and the radio, rather than written materials or posters. Low levels of literacy, especially among rural women, language constraints, and limited access to written materials were all found to contribute to lack of information. The document mentions the implications this has for design and implementation of HIV/AIDS education and prevention campaigns, which will need to work harder to address older people with appropriate messages and non-written forms of information, and to include them in prevention activities.

The report makes the following recommendations:

1. Disaggregate all data and information on HIV/AIDS and poverty by age.
2. Provide direct income support, including social protection measures, to older people and AIDS-affected families.
3. Review existing national policies on health, HIV/AIDS, and poverty reduction to include older people.
4. Provide older people with information on HIV/AIDS and home care support.
5. Empower and support older women and men to enable their active participation in local and national policy and programme processes on HIV/AIDS, poverty reduction, and local planning.