Release Type: Speech

HIV programmes in the Region faced numerous challenges. These include social issues confronting the disease and the lack of human resources. The ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic surely did add to these challenges by causing funding to be directed from disease areas such as HIV to the Pandemic response, disrupting care and treatment services and exacerbating stigma and discrimination, especially against Key Populations and other vulnerable groups.

Despite these challenges, National AIDS Programmes and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) recognized very early that the Pandemic could derail progress and undo the gains that we have made over the years.

Through collaboration with PANCAP and other Key Partners, National Programmes implemented a strategic approach to ensure that any disruptions from the Pandemic would be minimized and HIV remained relevant during this period.

This strategic approach aims to ensure the continuity of services during the Pandemic. This included supporting National Programmes with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other protective measures to safeguard both providers and users of the system to continue delivering services.

The strategy included placing Key Populations and vulnerable groups at the centre of the response. Many services offered during the Pandemic ensured that these services met the needs of key populations and most at-risk groups.

The strategy also ensured that the Region embraced new and innovative approaches to respond to the HIV epidemic. For example, HIV self-testing was piloted as an approach to fill testing gaps created because of the Pandemic. The Region has also experienced a scale-up of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in some countries.

Despite all of the challenges, National Programmes and CSOs have demonstrated resilience and will continue moving forward, keeping an eye on the goal of ending AIDS in the Region by 2030.

At the end of 2020, significant gaps remained in the HIV testing and treatment cascade for the Caribbean Region to achieve the UNAIDS 90-90-90 Targets. With the new 95-95-95 Targets, these gaps can become wider if the rate of filling them is not quickly realized.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has damaged the Region’s economies, placing health systems under additional strain and driving many people into financial peril, significant challenges lie ahead of us on the road to filling these gaps and ending AIDS in the Region.

The pandemic has not only disrupted services in terms of access but has also reduced national funds available for testing, treatment, and care. Moreover, the widening inequality gap in the Region, brought on by the pandemic, disproportionately prevents vulnerable groups from accessing HIV and other essential services.

To protect the gains made over the last decade and for us to fill these gaps, quick and creative responses must be implemented immediately. These responses must be based on evidence and must be effective in ensuring that at-risk groups are protected. New HIV infections must be reduced, and those who are diagnosed must be linked and retained in care and become virally suppressed.

Countries must implement social protection strategies and policies that benefit vulnerable groups, especially People Living with HIV and key populations. Strategies to improve testing such as HIV self-testing must be scaled up, and other interventions to improve treatment and care and retention must also be quickly implemented and scaled up.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic threatens to reverse years of progress across many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the virus has impacted everyone, it affects the world’s poorest and the most vulnerable people the most. The SDGs related to HIV and AIDS speak to ending AIDS and other communicable diseases by 2030. This is further reflected in the Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework on HIV (CRSF) 2019 – 2025 that serves as the guiding strategy for the Caribbean Region. However, actions to accelerate the CRSF have been significantly impacted by the disruptive nature of the pandemic. Health systems are struggling to mitigate the disruptions, which takes away the focus from the elimination agenda.

At the end of 2020, 82% of People Living with HIV in the region were diagnosed. Two thirds (67%) of all People living with HIV were on treatment, and 59% were virally suppressed. This highlights that there are still significant gaps to get to the 2030 agenda of ending AIDS in the Caribbean.

For us to get on track to end AIDS by 2030, Caribbean countries must step up the pace around prevention, testing, treatment, care and ending stigma and discrimination. This is going to necessitate a doubling up of efforts requiring us to ensure the continuity of services in a significantly disrupted environment while at the same time accelerating progress around the elimination goals.

Key Populations must be at the centre of the response to ensure that we strategize correctly to meet service delivery during the pandemic and respond to the elimination agenda. Key populations and their sexual partners accounted for more than 60% of new infections in 2020 and continue to be disproportionately affected by both the pandemic and the HIV epidemic.

Some strategies that must be adapted are decentralizing services to access points preferred by Key Populations to ensure uninterrupted access to HIV services and reducing contact with clinics. We would also need to scale up Multi-month Dispensing (MMD) and community refills of ART, PrEP and other medications. We will also need to maximize online service delivery options. However, while doing so, we must ensure that these services are assessable, affordable and Key Populations have the necessary infrastructure to access these services.

While the pandemic can be disruptive, it presents us with an opportunity to implement new strategies to mitigate its impact and ensure continuity of services. If these solutions are sustained beyond the pandemic, they may also modernize HIV and key population programming and position us towards the elimination agenda.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing inequalities within countries and across the globe. Gender-based Violence (GBV), an expression of gender inequality and toxic masculinity, is another pandemic that exists in all societies at varying degrees of prevalence and severity.

GBV has been a significant problem before the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to occur, impacting the lives of many. Unfortunately, this situation has not received the type of attention that it should get, and, in some places, it goes on quietly.

GBV requires the same effort and attention that governments globally have given to COVID-19. With many countries under lockdown due to governments’ response to COVID-19, GBV has increased significantly. This increase is a reminder of the need to have a contingent mitigating mechanism to protect the marginalized, women and girls, against a co-existing pandemic.

In the Caribbean, nearly half of Caribbean women surveyed in five Caribbean countries face at least one form of violence; physical, sexual, economic, or emotional. This is way above the global average of one in three women who suffered physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. This is unacceptable and should motivate all of us working and living in the Caribbean into action to end this violence.

Gender inequality links GBV and HIV as one of two indirect pathways that have a more significant impact on HIV transmission than the direct pathways. In societies where patriarchy and unequal gender norms are deeply entrenched, men are more likely to perpetrate sexual violence, pay for sex, and are less likely to use condoms.

Intimate partner violence is also an indirect risk factor for HIV acquisition. Women who experience intimate partner violence have more mental health issues, including depression and anxiety, higher use of alcohol and less control over their sexual decisions. Experiences of intimate partner violence increase the likelihood that a woman will acquire HIV by up to 55%.

If we are to end AIDS in the Caribbean Region, we must tackle this silent pandemic immediately. GBV is a significant contributor to the HIV epidemic. There is growing evidence that GBV is not only a human rights violation but also a barrier to HIV prevention, treatment, and care.

“This International Women’s Day challenges us to reflect on women who have taken up extraordinary leadership roles during the
COVID-19 Pandemic. From the outstanding leadership of Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, who has been a pillar of the Region’s response to the Pandemic, to the single mother who has lost her job because of COVID-19. Women have persevered in the face of the Pandemic’s challenges.

Women living with and affected by HIV have experienced particular hardships with the loss of income and reduced access to HIV prevention, treatment and care due to COVID-19 restrictions. The Region’s National AIDS programmes and Civil Society Organisations are to be applauded as they stepped up to ensure continuity of care. The Region has also noted an increase in gender-based violence due to lockdowns. I challenge our members and partners to support creating an enabling environment in which ALL women and girls are protected, valued and respected”. – Dr Rosmond Adams,  Director, Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP)

#IWD2021 theme: “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”

Women of the world want and deserve an equal future free from stigma, stereotypes and violence; a future that’s sustainable, peaceful, with equal rights and opportunities for all. To get us there, the world needs women at every table where decisions are being made.

This year, the theme for International Women’s Day (8 March), “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world,” celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the gaps that remain.

Women’s full and effective participation and leadership in of all areas of life drives progress for everyone. Yet, women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making, as revealed in the UN Secretary-General’s recent report. Women are Heads of State or Government in 22 countries, and only 24.9 per cent of national parliamentarians are women. At the current rate of progress, gender equality among Heads of Government will take another 130 years.

Women are also at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19, as front-line and health sector workers, as scientists, doctors and caregivers, yet they get paid 11 per cent less globally than their male counterparts. An analysis of COVID-19 task teams from 87 countries found only 3.5 per cent of them had gender parity.

When women lead, we see positive results. Some of the most efficient and exemplary responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were led by women. And women, especially young women, are at the forefront of diverse and inclusive movements online and on the streets for social justice, climate change and equality in all parts of the world. Yet, women under 30 are less than 1 per cent of parliamentarians worldwide.

This is why, this year’s International Women’s Day is a rallying cry for Generation Equality, to act for an equal future for all. The Generation Equality Forum, the most important convening for gender equality investment and actions, kicks off in Mexico City from 29 – 31 March and culminates in Paris in June 2021. It will draw leaders, visionaries, and activists from around the world, safely on a virtual platform, to push for transformative and lasting change for generations to come. – UN Women