AFRICAN MEETING ON TREATMENT, CARE FOR PERSONS LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS OPENS IN ADDIS ABABA

AFRICAN MEETING ON TREATMENT, CARE FOR PERSONS LIVING

WITH HIV/AIDS OPENS IN ADDIS ABABA

(Reissued as received.)

Addis Ababa, 27 July (ECA) -- The second Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA) Interactive in Gaborone, Botswana, opened yesterday with a statement by Joy Phumaphi, Commissioner of the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance, former Minister of Health of the Republic of Botswana in which she stressed that "HIV/AIDS is a personal challenge, a challenge affecting individuals, families and communities".

The objective of CHGA Interactive is to promote civil society organization reflection on the issues of AIDS and governance, informing civil society of the work of CHGA, and obtaining civil society inputs into CHGA's own deliberations and recommendations. This engagement will ensure that the commission's final recommendations are not only reflective of critical analytical insight, but crucially, sensitive to the needs of those agencies and actors at the sharp-end of responding to the multiple challenges posed by HIV/AIDS.

Participants at CHGA Interactive Botswana will engage in a focused dialogue and make key recommendations on the two pressing HIV/AIDS issues:  (i) Access of Treatment and Care for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA); and (ii) Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS (PMTCT).

In the welcome address, Dr. Patson Mazonde, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Republic of Botswana, representing the Minister of Health, Rt. Hon. Lesego Motsumi, stated:  "HIV/AIDS remains the most important social and public health problem in Botswana and in Sub-Saharan Africa."

Commissioners Alan Whiteside, Milly Katana and Awa Coll-Seck are also attending the two-day meeting. The meeting is attended by about sixty participants representing various sectors of Botswana's civil society, including NGO, UN partner agencies and senior government officials.

An estimated 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live with HIV/AIDS. While increasing resources, coupled with the decreasing costs of treatment and the emergence of simpler treatment regimes provide an opportunity to scale up national AIDS treatment and care responses in resource-limited settings, African governments still face many challenges, including: (i) limited capacity of health systems; (ii) issues related to equitable access to treatment and care; (iii) fostering stakeholder buy-in.

The Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa is a UN system-wide initiative, involving partnerships with a number of UN agencies, as well as leading institutions, in Africa and internationally, on aspects of research, policy engagement and implementation.  Under the Chairmanship of the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), K.Y. Amoako, CHGA represents the first occasion on which the continent most affected by HIV/AIDS will lead an effort to examine the epidemic in all its aspects and likely future implications.

For more information on the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, please contact Fabian Assegid, tel: +251-1 44-50-66, E-Mail: fassegid@uneca.org.

CHGA Interactive meeting documents are available on our website: www.uneca.org/chga

Issued by the ECA Communication Team, P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Tel: +251-1-44-58-26; Fax: +251-1-51-03-65; E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org; Web: www.uneca.org.

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