SADC must harmonise HIV treatment


Lazarus Sauti

Is an HIV/AIDS free generation possible in countries within and across the Southern African Development Community?

The SADC region has the highest levels of HIV prevalence globally. According to the joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) 2010 Global Report, out of the total number of people living with HIV worldwide in 2009, 34 per cent of them were resident in 10 SADC countries.

“Globally, 34 per cent of people living with HIV in 2009 resided in the 10 countries in southern Africa; 31 per cent of new HIV infections in the same year occurred in these 10 countries, as did 34 per cent of all AIDS-related deaths. About 40 per cent of all adult women with HIV live in southern Africa,” notes the report.

This means one of the greatest challenges facing the region is HIV and AIDS, which has affected almost every facet of the region. Without doubt, most countries in the region are grappling with the severe impact of HIV/AIDS related diseases such as tuberculosis and cancer, which are also threatening to reverse the hard won developmental gains of the past few years.

Challenges posed by HIV and AIDS in the region therefore trigger this question, “Is an HIV and AIDS free generation possible in the Southern African Development Community?”

Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS Executive Director, believes that there will be no ending AIDS without putting people first, and putting people first takes in good investments in harmonising HIV treatment and creating cross-border patient databases and referral systems to deal with the burden of HIV.

“Increasing evidence definitively demonstrates that investments in harmonising HIV treatment and response can lead to clear reductions in discrimination and stigma, help people in accessing information and services to reduce their risk of HIV infection, and deliver the treatment, care, and support that will extend and improve the lives of people living with HIV,” notes UNAIDS, the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Supporting the notion of harmonising HIV treatment, Article 10 of the SADC Protocol on Health specifically deals with HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and it provides that “in order to deal effectively with the HIV/AIDS and STDs epidemic in the region and the interaction of HIV/AIDS and STDs with other diseases, states parties shall harmonise policies aimed at disease prevention and control, including co-operation and identification of mechanisms to reduce the transmission of STDs and HIV infection.”

This means governments and development partners in the SADC region must develop approaches for the prevention and management of HIV and AIDS, and these approaches must be implemented in a coherent, comparable, harmonised and standardised manner in order to facilitate collation of information.

Lois Chingandu of the Southern Africa AIDS Dissemination Service (SAFAIDS), a regional non-profit organisation responsible for producing and disseminating HIV information, believes that to effectively harmonise HIV treatment, SADC member states need to adopt regional patient tracking and referral systems to ensure patients get care no matter where they are.

Political leaders and stakeholders in the HIV/AIDS management sector must therefore work together with private and public entities to establish regional reference laboratories in order reduce, eliminate, and where possible eradicate HIV and other communicable diseases.

Professor of Medicine and an HIV/AIDS expert, John Idoko, advocates for concerted efforts to be made to ensure HIV is no longer a threat to public health as well as to attain zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths through universal access to effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support

“We cannot relent in our efforts… we must ensure that the HIV/AIDS programme is still on the agenda, and it must be part of the sustainable development goals,” he says.

The SADC region must therefore break the trajectory of the HIV/AIDS epidemic by redoubling its efforts to ensure member states meet their goals towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, and it must also leverage the growing integration of AIDS with maternal and child health and sustainable development goals.

This requires financial resources, and financing the response should be a shared responsibility between all players as improving financing for the regional response requires ongoing efforts to mobilise domestic resources among SADC countries that appear to be under-investing in the HIV response.

However, as women and girls in the region are still marginalised and need support, it is also of paramount importance for political leaders to harmonise HIV/AIDS instruments with other Protocols that protect women and girls especially against gender based violence to liberate them from problems that are halting their social progress as well as stalling social and economic transformation in the region. Otherwise a free HIV/AIDS generation will not be possible.

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