Ananilea Nkya
THE 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in Africa (ICASA) opened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday evening with a theme “Own, Scale-up and Sustain”.
Speakers in the opening ceremony included the former US President, George W. Bush, the Prime Minter of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi and the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Michael Sidibe.
Others were President of the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA), Robert Soudre and the representative of women, youths and People Living with HIV (PLHIV) in Africa, Ms Melao Plillipus from Namibia.
Bush commended the African countries including Tanzania for the effort made to reduce new infection by 25% and assured 10,000 participants attending the meeting the continued US partnership with Africa in battling the epidemic as the world cannot be free of HIV if Africa is not free from the virus which was diagnosed 30 years ago.
He specifically said that the government of the United States will continue to support African countries with life saving drugs because “there is no any other priority than saving human lives”.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said new HIV infections in African has been reduced because millions of people have access to live saving drugs sourced from outside support saying the African countries need to develop its own home grown prevention mechanism to sustain prevention of HIV infection.
TAMWA reporter attending the conference quoted Zenawi as saying African countries could embark on social mobilization through extension workers to educate communities on prevention measures based on communities local contests which the communities can own, scale-up and sustain with their own locally generated human and financial resources.
The UNAIDS Executive Director, Michael Sidibe said with committed leadership and creativity African prevention programmes are working. He cited an example of Botswana which has been able to bring to zero HIV infection from mother to child.
The SAA President Robert Soudre all African countries need to copy the best practices on HIV/AIDS that have provided lessons that it was possible to have zero infection, zero discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths.
Melao Phillipus who spoke on behalf of youths, women and PLHIV said the African continent could bring to zero new HIV infection if each country in the continent will invest more in comprehensive education programme meant to prevent HIV infection from mother to child and empowering youths-girls and boys to protect themselves from contracting the virus.
“Compressive education can reduce, stigma and give hope and confidence to youths to discuss openly on critical matters of sexuality “, she noted.