AFRICA – African leaders and partners have joined together to commit to a set of actions to boost progress towards ending AIDS.
This has happened at a high-level event on the side-lines of the 36th Session of the African Union.
The event, Health Financing and Sustaining Action to End AIDS and Related Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases, was co-hosted by the African Union, NEPAD, UNAIDS and PEPFAR.
During the event, heads of state and government adopted a declaration which includes commitments to take personal responsibility and provide active leadership in the AIDS response, champion science and mobilize domestic political and financial support.
African Union Development Agency – (AUDA-NEPAD) Chief Executive Officer Nardos Bekele-Thomas stated that it was the right time to reflect on previous commitments, implementations, and what has worked and what has not.
“The COVID-19 pandemic presented essential lessons that we should use to shape the future of our health systems, the African Continent spearheaded collective actions to respond better,” Bekele-Thomas said.
“Furthermore, we saw the private sector coming together to work with the Governments to provide services to the people that needed them.”
The commitments come at a critical time because despite unprecedented progress, AIDS in Africa is far from over.
The massive impacts of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and HIV have exposed huge weaknesses in health systems across Africa and the continent is not on track to achieve an AIDS-free Africa by 2030.
“The coming into force of the African Medicines Agency (AMA) Treaty is an important milestone for the Continent,” said Nardos Bekele-Thomas.
“Aligned and coordinated regulatory systems will open up the continental market for pharmaceuticals and enable our manufacturers to leverage the advantages of the ACFTA.
“The AUDA-NEPAD will continue taking technical leadership in the operationalisation of the AMA which will bring us a step closer in our fight against AIDS.”
Africa has been disproportionately affected by the AIDS pandemic with 67% of people living with HIV living on the African continent. The spread of the disease has affected every dimension of African society.
United in efforts to end AIDS, Africa, supported by partners including UNAIDS, PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, has achieved remarkable results.
New HIV infections have been reduced by 60% since the peak in 1996 and in some countries by as much as 95%, AIDS-related deaths have been reduced by 72% since the peak in 2004, and in 2021, 88% of people living with HIV in Africa knew their HIV status of whom 89% were accessing antiretroviral treatment.
However, for the first time in more than two decades, global progress against AIDS is faltering. In Africa, six out of seven new HIV infections among adolescents aged 15-19 years were among girls. Women and girls accounted 62% of all new HIV infections in 2021 and only 50% of children living with HIV received the lifesaving treatment they need.
There was also a deep concern that a significant share of HIV-related programmes were primarily managed, implemented, and financed by external donors rather than governments, and that less than 10% of the 55 African Union member states have met their pledge under the Abuja declaration to allocate 15% of the annual budget to the improvement of the health sector.
In the new declaration, leaders committed to implement the Abuja 15% target on domestic financing for health, while transitioning away from dependence on partners’ funding.
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