By Yinka Adeyemi, 12 April 2006
Stating that HIV/AIDS was a "critical emergency" for Africa, UN-Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ECA, Abdoulie Janneh, yesterday called on African countries to scale up the collective efforts to stop the spread of HIV, which, he said, had already claimed the lives 22 million Africans.
"Our collective roofs are on fire, and we dare not go to sleep,” said Janneh, as African leaders gathered in Addis Ababa to launch 2006 as the Year of Accelerated HIV Prevention. The event, which was under the auspices of the Africa Union Commission (AUC), brought together eminent Africans, including Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, AUC Chairperson, Alpha Konare, UNAIDS' Director of Regional and Country Support, Michel Sidibe and the Regional Director of WHO, Gomes Sambo.
But Mr. Janneh said prevention alone would not work. "As we scale up our efforts to prevent HIV this year, let us also, in the spirit of the Brazzaville Commitments, make the courageous move to align our budgets to national AIDS plans, and balance allocation between prevention, treatment; care and support," he said.
He said such an allocation would be in the true spirit of the Universal Access initiative, for which he pledged support at the African Union Summit in Khartoum last January.
Mr. Janneh said ECA was currently engaged in pilot research on a treatment acceleration program in collaboration with the World Bank and the World Health Organization in Mozambique, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
“At the center of our work is a key question: What does it take to offer lifetime treatment support for those who need it in Africa?”
He said the three pilot studies would offer many lessons which would have wider impact across Africa. “We will be hoping to understand the implications of moving from short term treatment financing with an exit strategy to a long term financing with a continuation strategy”, he said.