Veep: Government to provide funds for HIV war

Accra, June 6, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama says governmen= t is committed to the provision of additional funds to support the country'= s national response to HIV.

This will involve the sourcing of funds to support inflows from the donor community and the establishment of an AIDS Fund, an official statemen= t form the Ghana AIDS Commission said on Monday. This, he says, is because of the need to attain the objectives of the National Strategic Plan, which aims at reducing by half HIV infections in the next four years.

Speaking during a business meeting of the Ghana AIDS Commission in Accra, the Vice President, who chairs the Commission on behalf of the President, said the strategic plan also targeted the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV as well as sustaining and scaling up the proportion of people living with HIV (PLHIV) who are on treatment. Vice Mahama, who is expected to lead Ghana's delegation to the Unite= d Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York this week, described as significant and worthy of commendation, Ghana AIDS Commission's efforts a= t raising awareness to over 90% and reducing the adult national prevalence from 1.9% in 2009 to 1.5% in 2010. "We have been successful and must commend donors and other partners of the Commission for the efforts made to reduce the national adult prevalence and to create an enabling environment for People Living with HIV. The successes we have achieved should motivate us to put more efforts in the struggle and I must mention here that government fully committed to the success of National Strategic Plan 2011-2015", he said.

He said 93development partners have been very generous since the Ghan= a AIDS Commission was started, but there is a tendency to be afflicted with donor fatigue. We must remember that response to HIV is a common cause for humankind; until we are able to fight the disease globally, no one is safe". The Director-General of the Commission, Dr. Angela El-Adas, said work had started on creating the 93AIDS Fund" to mobilize funds locally to su= pport the national response. She said the National Strategic Plan had been re-prioritized to focus on provision of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) and prevention, prevention of mother-to child transmission.