A lot needs to be done on HIV prevention – Mataka

A lot needs to be done on HIV prevention – Mataka
By Masuzyo Chakwe
Tue 01 Dec. 2009, 04:01 CAT

UNITED Nations Secretary General’s special envoy on AIDS in Africa Elizabeth Mataka has said a lot more needs to be done to ensure that women and girls across sub-Saharan Africa access comprehensive HIV prevention, care and support services.

And Mataka said there is need to partner with men in addressing factors that fuel the epidemic in Africa such as multiple concurrent relationships, sexual violence, inter-generational and survival sex.

In a message to mark the world AIDS Day which falls today under the theme ëUniversal access and human rights,í Mataka said in 2008, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 91 per cent of the 1.4 million pregnant women living with HIV worldwide and a further 61 per cent of people living with HIV on the continent.
“Yet, only 44 per cent of the people living with HIV in Africa are able to access antiretroviral treatment and less than half of HIV positive pregnant women in Africa are receiving medicines to prevent their children from becoming HIV infected,” she said.

She said globally, only 38 per cent of females aged 15 and 24 years could demonstrate accurate and sufficient knowledge on ways to protect themselves from acquiring HIV against the United National General Assembly (UNGASS) target of 95 per cent by 2010.

Mataka said given such a disproportionate impact and gap in progress, intensified strategic focus on women and girls would have a dramatic impact on reaching universal access commitments.

She, however, said beyond knowledge, there was an urgent need to ensure womenís fundamental rights to health services were attained.

“Globally, programmes to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child reach 33 per cent of those in need: the UNGASS target is 80 per cent by 2010. As Michel Sidebe, the UNAIDS executive director notes, ‘the world cannot accept that every year over 300,000 newborn children are infected with HIV through vertical transmission in Africa, while vertical transmission from mother to child has been reduced to nearly zero in Europe and North America.’ Michel Sibede urges us all, to come together around an all out effort, to virtually eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV by the year 2015; and to make this a concrete outcome of the AIDS+MDG initiative,” she said.

“Clearly, this will have multiplier-beneficial effects on the attainment of MDGs 4, 5 and 6; which target reducing by two thirds the mortality rate of children younger than five years, reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio and halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS by 2015.”

Mataka said women cannot work alone in fighting HIV but need to support men and boys in developing positive and transformative masculinities which did not condone gender inequality and which supported women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights.

She said there was need for long-term sustainable programmes that addressed why women and girls were more vulnerable to infection.

Mataka said these should be based in quality evidence and adapted to the particular contexts, with due consideration of the economic, social, legal and cultural dimensions that exacerbated gender inequality.

She said these programmes needed to be grounded in human rights principles, which empower men, women and girls to claim their rights and for governments to protect and realise these rights in the context of the response to HIV.

“Indeed, how can we ever reach universal access, when there is a debasement of others, infringement of rights, when people are not even aware that by simply being born, being human, they too should have access to these fundamental rights: including the right the health?

The UNAIDS Action Framework on women, girls, gender equality and HIV is an important tool in providing strategic and normative guidance on translating national commitments around gender and HIV into budgeted programming,” said Mataka. “As you reflect on this World AIDS Day, I challenge you to re-affirm your commitment in supporting women and girls across the continent in living lives of dignity.”