African Governments Urged to Provide Anti-retroviral Therapy to HIV-infected

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, July 08, 2003

African Governments Urged to Provide Anti-retroviral Therapy to HIV-infected

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

A four-day workshop of experts on HIV/AIDS from 17 Eastern and Southern African countries began in Harare on Monday with a call for African governments to provide anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy to people living with HIV/AIDS.

The call was made by World Health Organization representative for Eastern and Southern Africa Dan Makuto who said 90 percent of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world by the endof last year were in developing countries.

Makuto said presently there were nearly 30 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS on the continent, with 3.5 million people having been infected last year.

Makuto said there was an urgent need to make ARV drugs available to people who needed them to prolong their lives and so they could continue to contribute to the economic development of their countries.

"There is simply no more time to lose if we are to conquer the HIV epidemic," he said.

There was need for a concerted effort to close the gap between access and need for ARV drugs in Africa as compared to the developed world, he said.

He said more than 85 percent of people in the developed world who benefited from ARV treatment got it while the percentage dropsdramatically to around 5 percent in developing world.

"In Africa, 1 percent of those who need AIDS treatment and careget it," he said.

Addressing the same workshop, Commonwealth Regional Health Community Secretariat for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (CRHCS-ECSA) executive secretary, Steven Shongwe, said there was growing recognition by governments in the sub-region on the need to make ARV therapy accessible to as many people as possible.

Shongwe said several countries in the region had implemented small pilot projects on providing ARV therapy.

He said these had demonstrated that people could live longer and continue to support their families and contribute to the development of their communities and countries.

"We need to build on the experiences and successes of the smallpilots and expand the services so that as many people living with HIV/AIDS as possible can benefit," he said.

He added that scaling up access to ARV therapy required visionary political and professional leadership, political will, careful planning and mobilization of resources.

"Let us remember that we are dealing with an emergency," he said. "We cannot afford any more delay in providing ARV therapy for our people."

Shongwe said countries in the three sub regions continued to experience high HIV infection rates and had the highest HIV/AIDS burden in the world.

"Improving the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS has become a priority for most countries in ECSA," he said.

He said there was wide consensus that comprehensive HIV/AIDS responses must include access to treatment and care in addition toprevention, education and mitigation of the impact of the infection.

"Treatment and care must include the provision of a continuum of care and treatment which includes voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), nutritional care and support, treatment of opportunistic infections and anti-retroviral therapy," he said.

Shongwe said increased access to ARV therapy would help remove stigmatization and discrimination as more people would share theirexperience and motivate others to declare their HIV status.

Participants to the four-day workshop are expected to come up with frameworks for scaling up HIV/AIDS responses in their different countries, which would be presented to permanent secretaries of ministries of health from the 17 countries on Thursday.

Countries participating include Botswana, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Seychelles, Mauritius,Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Questions?Comments? Click here

Fighting AIDS, Hard Job for Africa

International Seminar on HIV/AIDS Opens in Maputo

Tripod Set Up in Deng's Hometown to Commemorate Anniversary of His Birth ( 3 Messages)

Chinese Regard Haphazard Spitting as most Disgusting Habit ( 3 Messages)

Chinese Mainland, HK Vows to Forge Closer Economic Ties ( 3 Messages)

Hu Jintao Addresses Symposium on "Three Represents" ( 3 Messages)

BBC, Downing Street Dispute over Weapon Dossier ( 3 Messages)