ABUJA, Feb 8 (IPS) - HIV/AIDS policies and programmes disregard the sexual needs of people living with the virus, claim a number of HIV-positive women who attended the third Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights – held this week in Nigeria.

They add that the initiatives focus on prevention and treatment, ignoring the fact that people living with HIV/AIDS who are conducting normal lives still want to experience sexual pleasure, and have children.

"The epidemic has evolved. HIV-infected people are not dying; we are living and we are having sex," noted Beatrice Were, an activist in Uganda for the Global AIDS Alliance, a non-profit body based in Washington.

She said that healthcare providers and others are shocked when they discover that a person living with HIV/AIDS is either interested in or having sex, viewing this as irresponsible – even though condoms have been shown to be highly effective in preventing transmission of the HI virus, and re-infection of a person who has already tested positive.

"We are looked upon as patients who need to be pitied, patients who must be told what to do – and this includes to abstain from sex and not to fall pregnant," added Were, who has been HIV positive for 16 years. "We are treated with bias, even though we are capable of enjoying sexual pleasure without passing on the disease."

Furthermore, noted Belinda Tima – board co-chair of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), a charity headquartered in London – sexual pleasure need not be limited to penetrative sex, but can take a variety of forms.