Former President of the United States George W Bush has called for the American people to continue supporting the AIDS response in Africa.
The call comes despite the disengagement of funding currently being experienced in the global HIV/AIDS response. President Bush made the comments during the opening ceremony of the 16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday (3 December 2011).
“There is no greater priority than saving lives,” President Bush said and urged the American people not to “look inwards” due to the harsh economic climate. He described America as being ready to expand initiatives such as PEPFAR, which has seen 450,000 children in Africa born free of HIV, through the implementation of prevention of mother to child transmission programs (PMTCT).
The former head of state praised the 22 African countries for the contribution they have made in arresting the HIV epidemic, which has seen the reduction in new HIV infections.
President Bush further called for greater response to cervical cancer disease, which has led to the death of more women in Africa. He praised efforts being made by PEPFAR and UNAIDS to tackle this issue.
Bush said the Pink Ribbon Campaign has bgeen launched in Zambia to kick start the response to cervical and breast cancer. He added that Africa should devise a model that will bring together the private sector and African leaders in fighting cervical cancer, which is easy to prevent and difficult to treat.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, also addressed the opening ceremony. He thanked international partners for making resources available to treat HIV. He said a lot has been done to reverse the epidemic but that further investment should be made in PMTCT, so that children are born free of HIV. He also said providing young people with information about HIV prevention remains a challenge.
The Ethiopian prime minister emphasized the need to come up with innovative African approach in addressing HIV. He said scaling up and sustaining the response in Africa will be faced with challenges. Despite these challenges, the prime minister said Ethiopia has made progress in enrolling 34,000 trained health personnel’s in HIV education at community level.
He said the 2010 UN High Level Meeting on Universal Access must be re-enforced at all intervention levels in the AIDS response.
Also speaking during the official opening of ICASA 2011s was the UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe, who emphasised the importance of the social sustainability of the AIDS response. He called for the promotion of gender equality, and for an end to violence against women and discrimination among key populations such as injection drug users, prisoners, sex workers and men who have sex with men.
Mr Sidibe urged African leaders to build a “paradigm of change”, which does not depend on external donors to fund HIV and AIDS if the continent has to sustain the response. He described the epidemic as being “at a make it or break it point” where more people are in need of HIV treatment. If these needs are not met she said Africa will see an increase of orphaned children.
“If we don’t pay now, we will pay forever,” said the UNAIDS Director.
Recent research released by UNAIDS show that putting people on HIV treatment early can reduce the transmission of HIV infection by 96%. Mr Sidibe emphasized the need to focus efforts on areas that produce positive results in the AIDS response. “We don’t have the right to disappoint people,” Mr Sidibe said.
He added that there is need for “global solidarity and Africa should own, scale-up and sustain the response and focus on innovation” and called for a crisis meeting to access the impact of the Global Fund’s decision to cancel Round 11 funding due to donor shortfalls.
The UNAIDS Director pointed out positive strides that have been made, 32 African countries have managed to stabilize the AIDS epidemic and reduce HIV infection by 32%. He praised South Africa for investing 1 billion US Dollars in AIDS response. She also highlighted Botswana for managing to achieve universal access. He urged other African leaders to emulate countries that have made progress in increasing local resources to fund the response.
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