Leaders commit to stepping up HIV/AIDS prevention

An initiative by African governments to step up the pace of HIV prevention was launched on Tuesday at four simultaneous events across the continent. African health ministers designated 2006 as the 'Year for Accelerating Access to HIV Prevention' at a meeting in Maputo last August. At the Southern African launch, South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang described the purpose of the campaign as "to ensure that prevention reassumes its rightful position as the mainstay of the global response to HIV and AIDS", and noted that treatment efforts had tended to overshadow prevention, with the result that "prevention became the forgotten child of the HIV and AIDS response". Speakers representing government, civil society and the UN acknowledged that prevention efforts had failed to significantly lower the number of new HIV infections in the region. Singer and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo pointed out that women and girls, who now account for 60 percent of those infected with HIV in Africa, had borne the brunt of this failure. "To tackle the disease, we need to tackle severe gender inequalities," she commented. The regional director for UNAIDS, Mark Stirling, said current prevention strategies, like condom distribution, preventing mother-to-child transmission and influencing behaviour change, had proven effective but were not happening on a sufficient scale. Several speakers also mentioned the need to address fundamental factors driving the epidemic, such as gender inequity, poverty, migration and weak healthcare systems, in addition to scaling up current strategies. According to Stirling, "We need to more frankly address these fundamental drivers and translate them into policies and programmes." The initiative was launched ahead of two major conferences at which African leaders will report on progress in meeting international commitments to HIV prevention and treatment: in May, they will meet in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to review their achievements since the Abuja Declaration, adopted in 2001; and in June, they will meet in New York at the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV and AIDS to discuss the Declaration of Commitment, also adopted in 2001. Stirling emphasised that this prevention initiative was "driven by African ministers of health and taken forward by Africa's leadership", saying, "It's important because it's a signal that Africa is taking control of its epidemics."