The 16th the International Conference on AIDS and Sexuality Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA 2011) opened on Sunday (4 December 2011) with a call from the former US President George W Bush to review the budget allocation on HIV/AIDS for African developing countries.
Bush said that in 2003 the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) initiative was launched to combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic by responding to HIV and AIDS worldwide.
“In the first five years of the program, PEPFAR focused on establishing and scaling up prevention, care and treatment programs. It achieved success in expanding access to HIV prevention, care and treatment in low-resource settings,” he said.
Bush said the US government and its citizens have been committed in the fight against the epidemic since 2001 when Africans were dying due to a lack of antiretroviral drugs. He urged Americans not to relax the fight.
“There is no greater priority than ending HIV in the world and this is something American citizens and government must understand. I believe we are required to support effective programs that save lives,” Bush added.
The former president said he has not given up his dream of seeing an HIV free generation and called upon African leaders to join him to eliminate HIV in the world.
Echoing ICASA’s theme Own, scale up and sustain, Bush said: “The HIV/AIDS epidemic represents a shared global burden among nations. African leaders must take responsibility in response to their epidemics.”
He called on Africa’s private sector to team up with governments in the fight of HIV and urged African leaders to take responsibility of stopping new HIV infections.
Bush also highlighted the need to reduce cervical and breast cancer deaths by extending cervical cancer treatment and breast cancer education to women in Latin America sub-Saharan Africa. He said PREPAR will support this through its newly launched Pink Ribbon campaign.
“Many women who seek AIDS services also face the challenge of cancer. It’s not enough to save a woman from AIDS, if she is then left to die of cervical cancer,” he said.
The UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said that there is need for the African continent to take stock 30 years of the HIV epidemic.
He said that, 30 years after the first case of HIV was discovered, it’s the time to remember the 24m people in African who died of HIV and demonstrate compassion to 30m people living with the virus around the world.
Mr Sidibe said prevention programs have worked in Uganda and Senegal, and lessons have been drawn from both countries to scale up new infections from other countries.
“Uganda and Senegal haves HIV success stories and we copied from their prevention programs and, 32 countries have stabilized the epidemic and reduced new infections by 25 percent,” he said.
Sidibe said funds to fight, treat and care for HIV are declining for the first time in Africa, as demonstrated by the Global Fund’s decision to suspend Round 11 due to lack of available funding.
He said this means people who need treatment will not be able to access it, a situation which he described as “not only wrong but unacceptable”.
“Global Fund’s decision will have a devastating effect on people and communities affected by HIV/AIDS as well as TB and Malaria. 9m people are in need of treatment and it is our collective failure as leaders to mobilize domestic resources to help our people,” he said.
He said that it’s high time African leaders own, scale up and share the burden of HIV and called a crisis meeting to mitigate the challenge of funding HIV activities.
“People on ARVs will not be waiting for 2014 when Global Fund promised to release the money, because when they stop taking ARVs they have only six months to die. Africa must act now and find immediate solution to the problem before it gets out of hands,” he said.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called for renewal commitment to winning the HIV battle and community involvement to halt the epidemic.
- The former US presedent Bush opening ICASA 2011 ON Sunday in Ethiopia
