Do more efforts to curb new HIV/AIDS infection stakeholders' urged

By Nasser Kigwangallah, Bagamoyo

STAKEHOLDERS in the war against HIV/AIDS in the country have been urged to put more efforts in the war against the pandemic so that a great success in the elimin ation of the disease could be achieved.

The remarks to that end were made by Dr. Anath A. Rwebembera, the National Aids Control Programme (NACP) Acting Programme Manager when she was delivering her key note address at a two day National Information, Education and Communication (IEC)/Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) Stakeholders’ Coordination meeting that was held from 29^th to 30^th August, 2013 at Kiromo View Resort in Bagamoyo.

She said although efforts to provide women with safe, effective and affordable products they can use to protect themselves against HIV infection have improved to a greater extent, more efforts were needed to reach the desirable end.

She added that the government was doing what it could to make these products available as quickly as possible where the need is most urgent.

“Kindly encourage the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs already being used successfully to treat HIV/AIDS and to prevent mother-to-child transmission, and that have shown great promise in various studies to prevent HIV,” she said.

According to her, the UNAIDS 2012 report shows that a more than 50% reduction in the rate of new HIV infections has been achieved across 25 low- and middle-income countries––more than half in Africa, the region most affected by HIV.

“In some of the countries which have the highest HIV prevalence in the world, rates of new HIV infections have been cut dramatically since 2001; by 73% in Malawi, 71% in Botswana, 68% in Namibia, 58% in Zambia, 50% in Zimbabwe and 41% in South Africa and Swaziland,” she said.

In addition to welcome results in HIV prevention, sub-Saharan Africa has reduced AIDS-related deaths by one third in the last six years and increased the number of people on antiretroviral treatment by 59% in the last two years alone.

“The pace of progress is quickening—what used to take a decade is now being achieved in 24 months,” she said adding that : “We are scaling up faster and smarter than ever before. It is the proof that with political will and follow through we can reach our shared goals by 2015.”

For example, South Africa increased its scale up of HIV treatment by 75% in the last two years—ensuring 1.7 million people had access to the lifesaving treatment—and new HIV infections have fallen by more than 50 000 in just two years.

During this period, South Africa also increased its domestic investments on AIDS to US$ 1.6 billion, the highest by any low- and middle-income country.

The report also shows that countries are assuming shared responsibility by increasing domestic investments.

More than 81 countries increased domestic investments by 50% between 2001 and 2011.

The new results come as the AIDS response is in a 1000 day push to reach the Millennium Development Goals and the 2015 targets of the UN Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.

The area where perhaps most progress is being made is in reducing new HIV infections in children.

Half of the global reductions in new HIV infections in the last two years have been among newborn children.

 “It is becoming evident that achieving zero new HIV infections in children is possible,” said Mr Sidibé.

“I am excited that far fewer babies are being born with HIV. We are moving from despair to hope.” 

More than two-thirds of the estimated 34 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide are in developing countries, and nearly three-fourths of the 2.5 million new HIV infections in 2011 occurred in these countries.

As a science-based public health and disease prevention agency, CDC provides support to more than 70 countries to strengthen their national HIV/AIDS programs and build sustainable public health systems through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief(PEPFAR).

CDC works side by side with Ministries of Health in these countries and with other partners to implement sustainable HIV/AIDS interventions and to measure their effectiveness in reducing infections and deaths from HIV/AIDS.

Recent scientific advances offer a historic opportunity to dramatically drive down the rate of new HIV infections and virtually eliminate infections in babies.

CDC is focusing its global HIV/AIDS efforts on reducing new HIV infections using a combination of proven prevention tools: preventing mother-to-child transmission, voluntary medical male circumcision, and scaling up treatment of HIV-positive people (“treatment as prevention”).

When used along with HIV testing and counseling, condoms, and other prevention tools, these interventions put us on a plausible path for eliminating new infections.

Participants were of the view that male circumcision is a one-time intervention with a lifelong benefit.

This low-cost procedure reduces the risk that women with HIV will transmit the virus to HIV-negative men by more than 60%. HIV-negative women also benefit from the lower rate of infections.

CDC, through PEPFAR, helped support more than 400,000 male circumcisions in the first half of fiscal year 2012 (October 2011-March 2012.

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