Leadership fight against HIV/AIDS hailed

The Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibe, was received in audience by Prime Minister Philemon Yang yesterday in Yaounde.

The Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), Malian-born Michel Sidibe, has hailed the peace and stability prevailing in Cameroon as a major contributing factor to the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

At the end of a close-to-an-hour audience with the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang, yesterday, June 1, 2015 in Yaounde, Michel Sidibe also saluted government’s commitment and leadership in recording progress in the fight against the dreadful disease.

Drawing the link between insecurity and HIV prevalence, Michel Sidibe, who is also Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, told pressmen at the Star building that Cameroon is a key country with which UNAIDS has been able to demonstrate that stability is important.

“When there is instability and violence caused by insecurity with families displaced and children needing protection, there is a problem,” he said. The high-profile UN official at the end of a four-day visit to Cameroon also hailed the country for ensuring leadership and commitment, beginning with efforts by the Head of State, Paul Biya, and First Lady, Mrs Chantal Biya.

Using facts and figures, he demonstrated that political commitment in the fight against HIV/AIDS had led to an increase of budgetary allocations from two per cent in 2009 to 25 per cent today.

Similarly, there has been a significant reduction in HIV prevalence in the country. Some 64 per cent of HIV-infected mothers now receive medical services, up from 14 per cent in 2005.

He urged government to continue advocating for equity so that underprivileged and vulnerable persons as well as children could also have access to medical services in order to meet the Post-2015 Agenda which includes eliminating HIV/AIDS from the continent.