Achieving an end to the AIDS epidemic: Laying the groundwork
An abridged version of the lecture delivered at the Induction Ceremony of the Nigerian Academy of Sciences By Prof. John Idoko FMCP, FAS. Idoko is also the Director-General National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA). CONTINUED FROM TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2015
ENDING the AIDS epidemic and extreme poverty is within our power says Michele Sidibe, the Executive Director of UNAIDS. “Our efforts will contribute to a global movement working to ensure that every person realize their right to quality health care and be free from poverty and discrimination.
“Just as money alone is insufficient to end poverty, science is powerless to defeat AIDS unless we tackle the underlying social and structural factors,” said Jim Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank Group.
To end both AIDS and poverty, we need sustained political will, social activism and unwavering commitment to equity and social justice. “Stigma and discrimination and marginalization stand in the way of fully realizing the promise of HIV prevention and treatment technologies,” said Helen Clark, the UNDP Administrator.
We know that where laws and policies allow people affected by HIV to participate with dignity in daily life without fearing discrimination, they are more likely to seek prevention, treatment and care services. Improving health services and outcomes is critical to ending poverty and AIDS and boosting prosperity.
The recent Lancet Commission on investing in health estimates that up to 24% of economic growth in Low and Middle Income Countries was due to better health outcomes. The pay offs are immense.
The commission concluded that investing in health yield a 9-20 fold return in investment. Investing in health also means investing in equity. Essential elements of a human right-based response to HIV includes enabling laws, policies and initiatives that protect and promote access to effective and social services.
Such measures can help protect people affected by HIV from stigma, discrimination, violence and economic vulnerability. HIV sensitive social protection is already a key component of the UNAIDS zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths.
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER Produce generic antiretroviral drugs in Africa With roughly 7 of every 10 people living with HIV residing in Africa, achievement of universal access to treatment will demand concerted efforts to ensure a long-term supply of affordable, high-quality antiretroviral drugs in the region.
While external sources of generic medicines have served as a critical lifeline for the region, achieving and sustaining universal access to treatment in the region over the long term would be advanced by increasing Africa’s local production capacity for pharmaceutical products.
Promote technology transfer through South–South cooperation. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa) should be pursued. Implement the African Union strategy on local production.
Shared procurement policies should be explored, and countries should take steps to remove tax and tariff barriers to lower prices and enable health goods to flow easily from country to country.
Countries should create incentives for investment in local research and development, continue and strengthen relationships with major research and development funders and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and strengthen and harmonize regulatory systems to expedite the availability of medical innovations.
DOMESTIC HIV SPENDING: MAJOR STRIDES, CONSIDERABLE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT In 2011, for the first time ever, domestic resources accounted for more than half of all expenditures on HIV activities in low- and middle-income countries. Driven in large measure by the increased resource mobilization by developing countries, total HIV expenditures rose by 10% in 2012, reaching $18.9 billion. In 2011, domestic HIV spending for the first time accounted for a majority of HIV expenditure in low- and middle-incomes worldwide.
Domestic public and private spending on HIV activities more than doubled from 2005 to 2011. However, substantial work remains to maximize domestic contributions to the response.
In Africa, only six countries in the region have met the Abuja Declaration target of allocating 15% of national public sector spending on health.
Among 33 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 26 receive more than half of HIV funding from international sources, including 19 that depend on external sources for at least 75% of HIV-related spending.
Domestic support for HIV programmes focusing on key populations is especially low, with international sources accounting for at least 90% of such spending in 2010–2011 in many countries including Nigeria.
CONCLUSION Ending AIDS is possible and desirable and is imperative to the post-2015 agenda. Reaching the End of AIDS will depend on building on successes, learning from failures and implementing to scale. This applies to behavioural, biomedical and social/ structural interventions. We need to also continue development of new diagnostics, including for early post-exposure infection, vaccines, prevention approaches for young women; long-acting/ slow release antiretroviral drugs, and a cure.
The end of AIDS will not be reached without continuing many of the current major efforts, continued strong leadership of world leaders, continued international support and continued responsibility and engagement of local governments There are challenges but they should not deter us. We have reached a juncture in the AIDS epidemic that enables us to paint a different vision for our future.
This is an opportunity that was not available to us 10 years ago when the global HIV epidemic was increasing on annual bases in most countries.
The progress made in recent years in scaling up treatment and prevention provides hope that we can begin to tread the path to the end of AIDS. This coupled with the increased political commitment and increased resource allocation in low and middle income countries presents an unprecedented opportunity to harness this momentum.
Hence, we need to act now and indeed accelerate our efforts to combat this disease. Now is not the time for complacency – the scientific world will remember the complacency with the treatment of HIV and TB in South Africa that led to the situation we have today of a virtually untreatable TB epidemic (XDR-TB) in some parts of the world.
Although the incidence of new HIV infections is declining in most regions of the world, the incidence among MSM is rising in several places including in Asia. There are signs that risky behavior is increasing in several African countries. Recent evidence shows an increase in the number of sexual partners in some countries.
“Pills on a shelf do not save lives,” said Sveta Moroz of the Union of Women in Ukraine affected by HIV. “To end the AIDS epidemic for everyone, we will require people-centred approaches driven by the community and based on social justice.
It demands an approach that ensures basic human rights to safe housing, access to health care, food security and economic opportunity. These are rights that remove barriers to real people’s engagement in effective HIV prevention and care.
The global community needs to work to ensure that these efforts feature prominently in the post 2015 agenda and are integral elements in ending AIDS, achieving universal health coverage, ending extreme poverty and inequity and building shared prosperity. Won’t end AIDS tomorrow but it has to be part of our long-term vision for the post-2015 development agenda. •CONCLUDED
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1 Comments
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doctor who help me in my life. I was infected with HIV virus in the year of
2015,i went to many hospitals, churches for cure but there was no solution
out, so I was thinking how can I get a solution out so that i cannot loose my
life, I lost everything I have my husband run away from me and also took my
children along because of my sickness. One day I was in the river side
thinking the next step to take if it is to jump into the river so that I can
loose my life totally or just think where I can go to get solution. so a lady
walk to me telling me why am I so sad and i open up all to him telling her my
stories, she told me that she can help me out that’s the reason she normally
come here to help people so that they can be cured because she was into this
problem before, she introduce me to a doctor how cast spells for people and
gave me he number and email so i called him and also email him.so i gather
all my faiths and put in all interest to contact him through his Email
address at okororspell@outlook. com , so after i have mailed him of helping
get my disease cured, i respond to me fast as possible that i should not be
afraid, that he is a truthful and powerful doctor which i firstly claimed him
to be. So after all set has been done, he promise me that i will be healed
but on a condition that i provide him some items and obeyed all his oracle
said. I did all by accepting his oracle fact and only to see that the
following week DR.okoror mail me on my mail box that my work is successfully
done with his powers, i was first shocked and later arise to be the happiest
woman on earth after i have concluded my final test on the hospital by my
doctor that i am now HIV- Negative. My papers for check are with me and now i
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everyone who might seek for any help, either for HIV cure or much more to
contact him now at these following email now,Email: okororspell@outlook. com
” sir thank you so much for your immediate cure of my disease, i must say for
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