THE KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION and CNN INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCE NEW AWARD FOR HIV/AIDS JOURNALISM IN AFRICA

Menlo Park, CA -- The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in collaboration with CNN International today announced a new award recognizing excellence in HIV/AIDS journalism in Africa. The Henry J. Kaiser Award for Excellence in HIV/AIDS Journalism will be presented as part of the prestigious CNN/MultiChoice African Journalist Awards to recognize reporting on HIV/AIDS in Africa that illuminates the broad impact of the epidemic on individuals, communities and nations, and the resilience of the African response to the epidemic.

In addition to the award, Kaiser will organize a special HIV/AIDS briefing for more than 50 top journalists expected to attend the award ceremony, scheduled this year for July in Maputo, Mozambique. The briefing will feature international and African experts on HIV/AIDS and prominent African leaders who will discuss the many ways that HIV/AIDS affects communities throughout Africa. The journalists will also take part in a site visit where they will observe firsthand how HIV/AIDS is affecting urban and rural populations, the efforts to combat the epidemic and community-level responses.

"Journalists are uniquely positioned to play a central role in informing the public and policymakers about critical public health issues such as HIV/AIDS," said Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman. "Through this award, it is our hope to recognize great work, but more importantly to motivate more in-depth reporting on HIV/AIDS and the many ways it affects people, businesses, and governments, and the response to the epidemic."

The Awards were established in 1995 and recognize excellence in a variety of reporting topics. A winner from each of the categories will be selected, and an overall winner will be chosen from the 15 category winners. The annual competition is overseen by a distinguished panel of judges. The competition is open to African journalists working on the continent for an African-owned media organization who broadcast or published their entry between January and December 2005. The deadline for receipt of entries is March 7th 2006. Entry forms can be found at http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/africanawards/entry.html.

Chris Cramer Managing Director of CNN International said: "We welcome the addition of a new category which addresses such an important issue for Africa and the world as a whole. The HIV/AIDS journalism award is in keeping with the ongoing evolution of the Competition to fully reflect the concerns of Africa and her journalists."

The new Kaiser award is part of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s global effort to increase and sustain media coverage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to improve the breadth and substantiveness of HIV/AIDS reporting, and to increase access by journalists worldwide to the most current information on HIV/AIDS.

The Kaiser Family Foundation is a U.S.-based, non-profit, private operating foundation dedicated to providing information and analysis to policymakers, the media, the healthcare community and the general public. Since 1993, Kaiser has operated the Kaiser Media Fellowships and Internship Program in which hundreds of journalists have participated in seminars, briefings, and site visits to gain in-depth, firsthand knowledge about major health issues in the U.S. and internationally. In recent years, Kaiser has taken this approach to Africa, India, and Russia working with journalists through briefings, in-country site visits, and trips to such events as the International AIDS Conference to facilitate reporting on HIV/AIDS. Kaiser also operates http://www.GlobalHealthReporting.org (with major support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and http:///www.GlobalHealthFacts.org to make the latest news and information about HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria easily accessible.

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