GLOBAL HEALTH | Addressing the world’s health challenges
08 April 2008
Best Practices to Fight HIV/AIDS Is Focus of Uganda Meeting
Some 1,700 attendees will help rapid expansion of global HIV/AIDS programs
Washington -- Those who deliver HIV/AIDS programs to the growing number of people who need prevention, treatment and care in 15 nations hit hardest by the disease will gather in Kampala, Uganda, June 3-7 to share what they have learned and influence future AIDS programs.
The theme of this second annual HIV/AIDS Implementer’s Meeting is “Scaling Up Through Partnerships: Overcoming Obstacles to Implementation.” It will build on the successful implementers’ meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2007.
“The implementers will take lessons learned back home and disseminate them to others,” Dr. Thomas Kenyon, principal deputy coordinator and chief medical officer in the State Department’s Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, told America.gov. “That is the important emphasis here. This is for people who are doing the work with their hands and feet and who often don’t get a voice on the global stage.”
At least 1,700 attendees are expected, representing governments, nongovernmental organizations -- including faith- and community-based groups -- multilateral organizations, the private sector and groups of people living with HIV/AIDS.
The meeting, hosted by the government of Uganda, is sponsored by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS; UNICEF; the World Bank; the World Health Organization; and the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
PEPFAR’s 15 focus countries are Botswana, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.
LESSONS, BARRIERS
Through presentations, dialogue and networking, participants in Uganda will identify critical barriers and share information that directly will affect how HIV/AIDS programs are implemented in coming years.
“We’re seeing progress,” Kenyon said. “Botswana, for example, has now scaled up and is reaching more than 90 percent of the people in need of anti-retroviral treatment. They’ve begun to reverse the decline in life expectancy that they saw throughout the 1990s and most of this decade.”
Obstacles to HIV/AIDS program implementation include a lack of health care workers in Africa, a need to integrate health services to benefit HIV co-infections like tuberculosis and malaria and country-led coordination among development partners.
“Africa accounts for more than 80 percent of global AIDS mortality and they have 3 percent of the global health work force, so they’re overwhelmed,” Kenyon said. “At the same time, there is great capacity, ingenuity and brilliance in Africa.”
Programs in African nations must capitalize on existing human resources, especially lower-level health workers and people in local communities, he added, who can be taught to perform needed services.
AIDS RELIEF
In 2003, President Bush launched the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), committing $15 billion over five years to fight global HIV/AIDS. It was the largest international health initiative ever to fight a single disease.
In 2007, Bush asked Congress to double the original funding commitment for the program to $30 billion over five years; the House of Representatives and the Senate must approve this request.
On April 2, the House of Representatives approved the U.S. Global Leadership against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act by a vote of 308 to 116. This vote is an important step toward PEPFAR's reauthorization. The Senate also is working on legislation.
Kenyon said the House vote was a positive sign “for the people who are in need of continued services.”
PEPFAR already has helped bring life-saving treatments to more than 1.4 million people around the world. At of the end of fiscal year 2007 (September 30), PEPFAR was supporting life-saving anti-retroviral treatment for 1.36 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the 15 focus countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
PEPFAR is partnering with local communities and indigenous organizations, including faith- and community-based organizations, to support treatment, care and prevention activities.
The program has supported more than 33 million counseling and testing sessions for men, women and children; supported care for nearly 6.6 million people, including 2.7 million orphans and vulnerable children; supported the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission during more than 10 million pregnancies since October 2004; and supported the prevention of 157,000 infant infections.
“We still have 5,700 deaths a day from HIV around the world,” Kenyon said. “The more people we reach with care and treatment services, the more impact we can make on that figure.”
More information about PEPFAR is available on the program’s Web site.
Additional information about the HIV/AIDS Implementer’s Meeting is available at the meeting’s Web site.
