GAC and partners initiate HIV/AIDS prevention plan
The Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) has signed an Aide Memoire with its development partners to help fuel the implementation of the HIV and AIDS preventive strategic plan dubbed: “90-90-90.”
The five-year strategic plan seeks to ensure that, by 2020, about 90 per cent of HIV infected persons would know their HIV status and receive sustained antiretroviral therapy to help them achieve viral suppression.
The signing of the memoire, which took place in Accra, was also to reinforce the Commission’s efforts in fast-tracking the achievement of the priorities identified in the plan.
Dr Angela El-Adas, the Director General of the GAC said the organisation would continue to mobilise funds from international and internal sources to accelerate the effectiveness of the plan to help safeguard the lives of people.
She said the memoire would serve as a guide towards the attainment of results of the strategic plan as it outlined prudent recommendations for its implementation.
“We believe the recommendations need to be urgently implemented in 2017 in the country’s quest towards the implementation of the plan’s targets,” Dr El-Adas said.
She expressed confidence in the memoire, saying the Commission and its development partners could make progress under the direction of a streamlined Board, which emanated from the passage of the Ghana AIDS Commission Bill (2015).
The Bill also seeks to spearhead the establishment of an HIV and AIDS national fund geared to finance all HIV and AIDS preventive projects.
The Aide Memoir was developed from the Commission’s 2016 Partnership Forum and Business Meeting held in Accra on the October 18 and October 19.
The event which was on the theme: “NSP 2016-2020: Sustainable Partnership and Resource Mobilisation towards achieving 90-90-90,” was aimed at tabling prudent interventions from stakeholders towards the implementation of the strategic plan.
Mr Haile Girmay, the Country Director UNAIDS and JUTA Coordinator, collaborators of the programme, expressed gratitude to the Commission for coming up with initiatives and interventions especially for the key population.
He said it would be much better if Ghana did its best when it came to low-hanging fruit of elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV by closing the gap of new infections among children to zero from its current 150,000 in 2015.
Mr Girmay together with the other development partners pledged to continue to support Ghana to ensure that there were more resources to fight against HIV and AIDS.
The 2016 Aide Memoire which primarily seeks to harness the financial abilities of the commission to combat HIV and AIDS received signatures from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, UNAIDS and JUTA, Country Coordinating Mechanism of Global Fund, and the United States Government.
Source: GNA