Media Releases – Page 50

New strategic shift for CRN+

Mr Winfield Tannis-Abbott, Chair, Board of Directors, Caribbean Regional Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (CRN+) spoke with the editor of PANCAP.org on new plans for the organisation.

‘Following our recently concluded Board Meeting – Strategic Planning, at which the new membership of an Interim Board was selected, it was evident that we need a strategic shift in how we manage our organisation. As well as how we operate on a day to day basis, how we communicate and associate with our affiliate networks; how we advocate for and on behalf of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) across the region and most importantly, how we mobilise necessary resources to continue our work and support ‘ending AIDS by 2030’. As the authentic voice for PLHIV in the Caribbean, we must ‘step up’ our leadership role, ensuring that all rights, health and dignity of PLHIV, as well as those of our partners and families, are respected during this social change of ending AIDS by 2030.

As we move forward, we recognise that ‘doing more of the same is not enough’. With the changes in the global, regional and national environments over the last 5 years, it has become necessary for CRN+ to revisit its strategic direction in order to maximise its potential, continue to grow and to achieve sustainability. This means that CRN+ will need to re-focus its energies and resources in the future as it continues to make a meaningful difference in the lives of PLHIV in the Caribbean and sustain a vibrant organisation.

As the Interim Board of Directors commences implementation over the next year, we will focus on four (4) strategic priorities:

Priority Area 1. Governance and Leadership: We need to be able to strengthen our governance and leadership in order to promote positive and sustainable growth, not only for the CRN+ Secretariat but also for our affiliates. Working closely with our Technical Advisory Group and our technical partners will be vital for our survival and success.

Priority Area 2. Empowerment of People Living with HIV: We have to do our best to empower not only our members but persons living with HIV in the Caribbean Region. Finding ways for them to live longer and with dignity and improve the quality of their lives.

Priority Area 3. Partnership and Resource Mobilisation: This speaks for itself. Partnership with national, regional and international organisations continues to be an integral role if we are to fulfil our mandate. CRN+ will continue to strengthen its partnerships at the national, regional and international levels. This will be essential in assisting the organisation to move forward. Working with the development and funding partners, CRN+ will refine its resource mobilisation strategy with a focus on cost-effectiveness and sustainability. Efforts will be made to look for new and non-traditional sources of funding.

Priority Area 4. Evidence and Lessons Learnt for Scaling Up Programmes: We must ensure that mechanisms exist to document the voices and experiences of PLHIV and that PLHIV advocacy messaging results in positive change at the international, regional and national levels. Implementation of relevant programmes will be scaled-up, based on evidence and lessons learnt. These will contribute to the sustainability of the HIV response in the Caribbean.

We look forward to your support as we commence a new chapter of CRN+’.

Beauty Queen Uses Her HIV Positive Status As A Platform For Change

If you are in need of a little inspiration, look no further than Horcelie Sinda Wa Mbongo, a 22-year-old activist, Fine Arts student, and recently crowned Miss Congo UK 2017.

She is more than just a pretty face. According to BBC Africa, she has found a way to use her platform to end the stigma around living life with HIV and AIDS.

“I was born in the Congo and I only discovered that I was HIV positive here in the UK,” Mbongo told BBC Africa of receiving her diagnosis at age 11-years-old. “I was one of many children born with HIV who did not have the medication, but somehow the virus is not fighting the body as fast as other people. What that means, is that I lived ten years without any medication at all”.

According to UNAIDS, there are approximately 370,000 people living with HIV in the Democratic Republic of Congo; with 11 percent being children under that age of 14-years-old. In contrast, there are an estimated 1.2 million people in the United States living with HIV, including 156,300 individuals who do not know they are infected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Prudence Mabele: The life of the South African HIV campaigner

Prudence Mabele’s decision to become one of the first black South African women to declare her HIV-positive status was the start of a lifetime’s campaigning.

It was 1992, and the stigma which came with such an announcement cannot be underestimated. But Mabele was determined to be brave, and to encourage others to live without shame. That bravery and determination would become the hallmark of Mabele’s next 25 years, and would, when she died earlier this month, see her hailed as “a global icon” and “a true South African hero”.

Stigma

Mabele was born in Benoni, just east of Johannesburg, in 1971, just one woman in a long line of activists, according to friends.
She was just 18 when she contracted HIV in 1990 but a search for a friend to share her fears and hopes with over this new diagnosis reportedly only led her to hospital wards filled with dying babies.

In 1992, South Africa’s HIV epidemic was in its infancy. The proportion of 15 to 49-year-olds infected was just 2.5%, according to the World Bank, and it was still largely seen as a disease which affected gay men.

And yet, here was a bright, young university student, revealing she too had been infected. It was just the start of a fight which would see her not only battle prejudice but her own government.

“When you think about how she had to confront this pandemic in 1992, how she had to go through the time when often times in South Africa, they didn’t acknowledge that HIV was the cause of the pandemic — yet she was that voice,” Deborah Birx, the US global Aids coordinator, told American news site PRI.

“And we should all be asking the question: ‘Would we be willing to make that same personal sacrifice?'”
Over the next few years, she threw herself into trying to break the silence around HIV status, founding organisations like the Positive Women’s Network in 1996.

At the same time, the numbers infected with HIV/Aids in South Africa continued to soar: by 1998, 2,900,000 were thought to be infected, equating to 15.1% of the adult population.

But there were also developments when it came to treatment: the first anti-retrovirals went on to the market in the latter half of the 1990s, and ensuring people had access to them became one of Mabele’s key causes. At the time, they cost 7,000 rand (£415/$541) a month, Mabele said later in interviews. It was too expensive, out of reach of many of those infected. As a result, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) was founded – and once again, Mabele was at its heart.

Aids denialism

But then, in 2000 when some 1,500 people were being infected every day, things took an unexpected turn: President Thabo Mbeki declared that while he could accept that HIV contributed to the collapse of the immune system, it was not the only cause. Other factors like poverty and poor nutrition were also involved, he said.

“A virus cannot cause a syndrome,” Mr Mbeki told parliament. “A virus can cause a disease, and Aids is not a disease, it is a syndrome.”
Suddenly, the fight was not just for funding. It was against the government, and its new “Aids denialism”. It was up to the TAC, and women like Mabele, to fight when the government delayed the roll out of ARVs to pregnant mothers, which would stop the transfer of the virus from mothers to babies, potentially saving thousands of lives. The TAC took the government to court, and won. But Aids denialism ran deeper than just those at the top of government.

In 2004, Mabele decided to become a sangoma – or traditional healer. By now, she was on ARVs – but many within her new community did not agree with her choices. They accused her of promoting Western medicine over traditional remedies.

“They all looked at me as a traitor,” she told South Africa’s Bhekisisa health news site in 2013. “I remember them coming [down the street], toyi-toying and singing ‘phansi ngo Prudence’ [down with Prudence]!” The two, she maintained, could work alongside each other but Mabele, for one, was not prepared to abandon the ARV to “put my life at stake for an experiment that is not even checked”.

After Mr Mbeki lost power in 2008, the government’s stance on Aids changed. But Mabele did not stop her fight, either on the streets during protests or just being there for people, visiting them in hospital or sitting with grieving relatives. Writer and activist Sisonke Msimang described her friend as “the Pied Piper of the broken hearted” in South Africa’s Mail & Guardian. Her attention also turned to other causes. Violence against women in South Africa and the kidnapped Nigerian school girls among other things.

All the while, the numbers living with HIV continued to rise: by 2015, the figure was estimated to be seven million, according to the UN Aids programme. The World Bank’s figure said that equated to 19.2% of the adult population. Mabele died in hospital on 10 July, at the age of 46, following a battle with pneumonia. Her funeral, held just over a week later, was attended by Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s deputy president, and a host of other dignitaries.

In amongst kind words from across the globe, it was a friend’s tribute which stood out. “Everything that we got from Prudence was how to love,” Phindile Mkhabela told SABC. “Prudence was a force of nature; Prudence was joy and compassion; Prudence was acceptance; Prudence was release; Prudence was forgiveness; Prudence was respect; Prudence was generous, and that generosity cost her life. She didn’t know when to stop. “May we honour her; may we celebrate her, and may we remember how to live, because that’s what she did.”

World on track to reach the 90-90-90 targets for HIV treatment by 2020

The world is on track to reach global targets for reducing AIDS deaths and HIV treatment access by 2020, but some regions of the world risk falling further behind due to lack of political commitment, UNAIDS announced in the run-up to the 9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017), which opened today in Paris.

More than half of all people living with HIV (53%) now have access to HIV treatment and AIDS-related deaths have almost halved since 2005, UNAIDS reports in Ending AIDS: progress towards the 90-90-90 targets.

The 90-90-90 targets endorsed by governments in 2014 call for 90% of people to know their HIV status, 90% of people with diagnosed HIV infection on treatment, and 90% of people on treatment to be virally suppressed. If all these targets can be met, AIDS deaths can be cut dramatically and new infections will begin to fall.

Past the tipping point

The world has passed a tipping point in progress towards the 90-90-90 targets, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé said.

The report shows that in 2016, 70% of people living with HIV knew their HIV status. Of the people who know their status, 77% were accessing treatment, and of the people on treatment, 82% were virally suppressed. In lower- and middle-income countries, progress towards achieving the targets has been especially strong in Cambodia and Botswana, which have already reached the 90-90-90 goals.

“There is no level of funding that compensates for the lack of political commitment. In the two regions that have made the least progress, lack of political commitment and poor policy decisions are more important than the lack of funding.” Marijke Wijnrocks, Global Fund
Eastern and southern Africa has also made good progress and the region is on course to reach the 90-90-90 targets. Seventy-six per cent of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 79% of people who know their HIV-positive status have access to antiretroviral therapy and 83% of people who are on treatment have undetectable levels of HIV – this equates to 50% of all people living with HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa with viral suppression.

Denmark, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom have also reached the 90-90-90 target. Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Swaziland and Switzerland are close to reaching the target, and four ‘fast-track’ cities – Amsterdam, Melbourne, New York City and Paris – have either reached the target or are very close.

AIDS deaths and new infections continue to fall

The sharpest reduction in deaths has been seen in Eastern and Southern Africa – a 62% fall since 2004. Deaths have fallen by 52% in the Caribbean and 39% in the Asia-Pacific region but risen by 48% in the Middle East and North Africa and by 38% in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Deaths were 27% lower among women and girls than among men and boys due to better rates of diagnosis and earlier treatment.

AIDS deaths have almost halved among children from 210,000 to 120,000 a year since 2010.

Since 2010, the annual number of new HIV infections has declined by 16% to 1.8 million, but progress is still far short of the 2020 target of fewer than 500,000 infections per year.

UNAIDS says that the new estimates for 2016 should be more accurate because more countries are producing better-quality data, especially in Eastern and Southern Africa. Independent door-to-door surveys in several countries in the region, Population Health Impact Assessments, have fed into these estimates, giving confidence that the changes seen in the region are real.

National progress towards 90-90-90 shows level of political commitment

The countries that have made the best progress all show strong political commitment to achieving the 90-90-90 targets, speakers at the 90-90-90 Targets Workshop agreed. The workshop, sponsored by UNAIDS and the International Association of Providers in AIDS Care (IAPAC), took place immediately prior to the opening of IAS 2017.

“There is no level of funding that compensates for lack of political commitment. In the two regions that have made the least progress, lack of political commitment and poor policy decisions are more important than lack of funding, I’m convinced,” said Marijke Wijnrocks, Interim Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Least progress towards the targets has been made in Eastern Europe and Central Asia where 63% of people living with HIV know their HIV status but only 43% of those diagnosed are on treatment. Seventy-seven per cent of people on treatment are virally suppressed in this region. Furthermore, new infections have continued to rise in the region even as new infections continue to decline by 29% in Eastern and Southern Africa between 2010 and 2016.

Even fewer people living with HIV know their status in Western and Central Africa: just 42% of people have been diagnosed in this region according to UNAIDS, and of these 83% are on treatment and 73% are virally suppressed.

Dr Debbie Birx, US Global AIDS Coordinator, said that Western and Central Africa had received the highest rate of investment but showed the least success in diagnosing and bringing people onto treatment. She blamed the persistence of formal and informal fees – effectively, tips or gratuities to salaried individuals to obtain medical attention – for the low rates of diagnosis and treatment.

“I think that policy is key. Our money can’t work if we don’t have the policies to make it work. We need to eliminate all clinical and informal fees. I’ve seen fees charged for what we provide for free,” she said.

Community health workers

Another factor determining regional success is the way that services are delivered, argued Dr Badara Samb of UNAIDS. “What is characteristic of health service delivery in eastern and southern Africa? It relies heavily on good community health systems and community health workers,” he told the 90-90-90 Targets Workshop.

UNAIDS won the endorsement of African heads of government at a recent African Union summit for an ambitious plan to recruit, train and put to work 2 million extra community health care workers at a cost of $4-$6 billion a year. UNAIDS calculates that this expenditure will result in a return on investment of $21.75 billion a year from health care savings, disease reduction and expanded employment.

Read the entire UNAIDS Report here.

International study of gay couples reports no transmissions from an HIV-positive partner on treatment

A study of 343 gay couples, where one partner had HIV and the other did not, has not found a single case of HIV transmission in 16,889 acts of condomless anal sex, the 9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017) in Paris, France, was told today.

The Opposites Attract study looked at whether HIV is transmitted between gay male couples of different HIV status when the HIV-positive partner is on treatment that fully suppresses HIV. The HIV-positive partners in Opposites Attract had a so-called ‘undetectable viral load’ 98% of the time.

The study recruited and followed-up gay couples at clinics in Australia, in Bangkok and in Rio de Janeiro.

The evidence from Opposites Attract adds to the evidence from the PARTNER study that HIV-positive people on effective HIV treatment that fully suppresses their virus cannot transmit their infection through sex. Taken together, the two studies have not found a single case of HIV transmission in nearly 40,000 acts of condomless anal sex between gay men.

This adds further strength to the “U=U” (Undetectable equals Untransmittable) tagline of the Prevention Access Campaign, whose consensus statement has been signed by NAM and also by the International AIDS Society (IAS), organisers of this week’s Conference on HIV Science in Paris.

The studies also found that if the positive partner is on successful treatment, even having another sexually transmitted infection (STI) does not increase the risk of HIV being transmitted. In Opposites Attract, participants had an STI during 6% of anal sex acts and in PARTNER, 17.5% of participants had an STI at some point in the study.

Sexual position also made no difference even though when viral load is not suppressed, transmission is 10-20 times more likely if the HIV-positive partner is the insertive one; in Opposites Attract, the HIV-positive partner was ‘top’ over a third of the time.

During the Opposites Attract study, three men became infected with HIV, but genetic analysis showed that these infections came from a partner outside the main relationship who was not virally suppressed.

Only 0.9% of the total proportion of condomless anal sex acts happened where the HIV-positive partner had a detectable viral load and only 1.7% during their first six months on antiretroviral therapy. There were no transmissions from men in these groups either. Presenter Andrew Grulich commented: “In our Thai site, 40% of the men who entered the study were not on antiretroviral therapy when they entered the study, but immediately started it and were rapidly virally suppressed. They were really good at using condoms and other strategies to avoid transmission while they were still detectable, so the number of condomless anal sex acts with a detectable partner was very small.”

In PARTNER, despite not many more episodes of condomless sex, there were ten such ‘unlinked’ infections in gay men. The difference may be due to 24% of the HIV-negative partners in Opposites Attract taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Researcher Benjamin Bavinton told aidsmap.com there was evidence that PrEP-takers in Opposites Attract were indeed mostly taking it to protect themselves from HIV infection from partners outside the main relationship.

At a press conference the previous day on viral load and infectiousness, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said: “Scientists never like to use the word “Never” of a possible risk.

“But I think in this case we can say that the risk of transmission from an HIV-positive person who takes treatment and has an undetectable viral load may be so low as to be unmeasurable, and that’s equivalent to saying they are uninfectious. It’s an unusual situation when the overwhelming evidence base in science allows us to be confident that what we are saying is fact.”

Dr Luiz Loures, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS, said that in terms of the public impact of treatment as prevention, the agency was seeing more and more cities where HIV incidence was falling as they reached a tipping point in terms of the number of people who are on therapy and non-infectious: he quoted San Francisco, Sāo Paulo and Nairobi as examples.

Bruce Richman, a Harvard-trained lawyer, is the prime mover behind the “U=U” campaign.

He said: “In 2006 when I was diagnosed, I was terrified of infecting someone I loved and was terrified of taking a pill that reminded me every day I was infectious. But in 2012 when I finally started therapy, my doctor told me that if I suppressed my viral load, I would become non-infectious.

“Terror turned to outrage because every website I found was saying I was still a risk. The breakthrough science was not breaking through to communities that needed to know it. Doctors would tell people on a one-to-one basis while withholding the info from those they deemed irresponsible.

“So we collaborated with doctors to endorse the U=U consensus statement. This is demolishing HIV stigma and encouraging people to start treatment and bring an end to the epidemic. We need people like UNAIDS, as they did today, to confirm it’s true.”

Reference:

Bavinton B et al. (presenter Grulich A) HIV treatment prevents HIV transmission in male serodiscordant couples in Australia, Thailand and Brazil. 9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science, Paris, abstract no TUAC0506LB, July 2017.

PANCAP engaged stakeholders in Belize in high-level advocacy

Dr Edward Greene, Advisor, UNAIDS, and Mr Dereck Springer, Director of the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) met with Mrs Laura Longsworth (Chair, NAC) to engage in high-level discussions with policy makers, faith-based and Civil Society Organizations around the principles of the PANCAP Justice for All Programme (JFA), and the 2016 UN High Level Political Declaration.

The current JFA Roadmap includes the UNAIDS 90-90-90 treatment targets to help end the AIDS epidemic as well as 15 actionable recommendations which fall under five major areas:

• Focusing on family life and those in need.
• Identifying strategies for prevention, including sexual and reproductive health and rights and age-appropriate sexual education.
• Highlighting the need for access to treatment and to affordable medicine as a human right.
• Emphasizing women’s and girls’ empowerment, including reducing gender based violence.
• Eliminating AIDS-related stigma and discrimination including modifying punitive laws.

Dr Greene also used this opportunity to discuss the ‘Every Caribbean Woman, Every Caribbean Child Initiative’ (ECWECC) – the regionally specific programme of work that emerged directly from the United Nations Secretary-General’s ‘Every Woman, Every Child’ flagship programme. ECWECC aims to enhance the health, well-being and empowerment of women, girls and adolescents through:

• Eliminating gender-based violence.
• Reducing the rates of teenage pregnancies.
• Preventing cervical cancer.
• Reducing people trafficking, with special reference to girls.
• Making the Caribbean the first region in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Read more about the PANCAP Justice for All Initiative here.

Belize initiates social media campaign for Regional Testing Day 2017

Over the last 6 years, Belize has participated in the Caribbean Regional Testing Day initiative led by the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP). In 2017, the region celebrated the 10th anniversary of Regional HIV Testing Day (RTD), with a goal of reaching 100,000 people tested throughout the Caribbean over the 10 years of the initiative. RTD has, to date, tested some 90,807 people and is on track to meet the UNAIDS targets which lead to ending AIDS by 2030.

The National AIDS Commission (NAC) Belize, as a part of this Public Private Partnership; in collaboration with Scotiabank, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Belize Telemedia Ltd. joined PANCAP and twenty other countries in the region to observe Regional Testing Day (RTD) on Friday, June 30th, 2017; under the theme: #knowurstatus! This year the NAC expanded the reach of the programme by utilising eight testing sites.

The NAC launched a social media campaign utilising local celebrities, partners, media personalities and community activists to engage in a simple but effective message, ‘Get Tested, Know Your Status!’

In addition, the NAC in collaboration with MOH engaged the Police Department, Coast Guard and Fire Departments nationwide in the regionally recognised and awarded best-practice “On-site Testing Programme”. This programme, which ran from May 19th to June 26th, was designed to take the testing directly to these organisations to accommodate their busy schedules.

Belize continues to be a lead entity in the region in the promotion and implementation of this event. Nationwide 32,635 HIV tests were done in 2016, with the general scale up in services, and a reduction in the total number of new infections; Belize has seen an HIV prevalence rate of 1.2%, the lowest in years.

Regional Testing Day is a Caribbean initiative spearheaded under the guidance of PANCAP with key sponsorship from Scotiabank and support from LIVE Up: The Caribbean Media Alliance. This year Belize recognised Regional Testing Day under the theme: RU + UR- #knowurstatus!

Visit the NAC (Belize) website here.

Prime Minister Harris Discusses Regional and Global Issues with President Clinton

Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr the Honourable Timothy Harris met with the 42nd President of the USA, President Bill Clinton, at the Clinton Global Foundation in New York on July 24. Prime Minister Harris was in New York for a forum geared at promoting partnership for expanding health care to ‘Every Caribbean Woman, Every Caribbean Child’.

President Clinton was a special guest at the event. Also present were the Most Honourable Mrs Juliet Holness, First Lady of Jamaica, Her Excellency Mrs Sandra Granger, First Lady of The Co-operative Republic of Guyana, as well as representatives from several women groups including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

In the meeting with Prime Minister Harris and President Clinton, the two statesmen discussed the success of the Clinton Global Initiative.

President Clinton, who founded the Clinton Foundation, later established the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2005 to bring together world leaders, business executives, and philanthropists as well as non-governmental organisations to effect positive change.

Prime Minister Harris, in his capacity of CARICOM’s lead Head on human resources, health and HIV/AIDS, also discussed with President Clinton the progress of the region in eliminating the transmission of HIV from mother to child. Cuba was the first country to totally eliminate transmission of HIV from mother to child.

St. Kitts and Nevis is on the path to receiving the World Health Organization (WHO) certification as the first English-speaking country to achieve the elimination of transmission of HIV from mother to child and congenital syphilis.

Prime Minister Harris exchanged views on violence in the region, the need for the US government to do more to curtail the shipment of illegal arms to the region and the spike in gun-related violence that has occurred as a consequence of such shipments. President Clinton promises to help the region in mobilising the support of its neighbour, the USA.

Other issues of bilateral concern between the Caribbean region and the United States were also discussed.

Prime Minister Harris is accompanied by the Honourable Senator Wendy Phipps, Minister of State within the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender Affairs and Social Services, and Ms Ghislaine Williams from the Permanent Mission of St. Kitts and Nevis to the United Nations.

Caribbean can reach treatment targets to end AIDS if it accelerates progress

UNAIDS has released its annual flagship report, showing that the Caribbean could reach the testing and treatment targets that will put it on course to end its AIDS epidemic if it accelerates its response. According to Ending AIDS: progress towards the 90-90-90 targets, in order to speed up progress the region must improve strategies to ensure more people living with HIV are diagnosed and that there are higher levels of viral suppression among those on treatment.

“The region has achieved remarkable progress in expanding HIV services,” said UNAIDS Regional Support Team Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Dr César Núñez. “We need to continue work to ensure that we leave no one behind.”

The report gives a detailed analysis of progress and challenges toward achieving the benchmarks set to help the world achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. These targets are for 90% of all people living with HIV to know their status, 90% of diagnosed people to access sustained antiretroviral treatment and 90% of all people accessing treatment to achieve viral suppression by 2020.

Caribbean on track to reach treatment coverage target

The Caribbean has achieved strong progress related to getting people living with HIV on treatment and reducing deaths due to AIDS, but gaps remain. In the region four of five (81%) people living with HIV who know their status are accessing antiretroviral therapy. This means the region as a whole is doing a fairly good job at starting people on treatment following diagnosis. Haiti is the only country in the region to have achieved the second target–at least 90% of diagnosed people on treatment.

HIV treatment coverage has contributed to a 52% decline in AIDS-related deaths in the Caribbean over the last decade. Another positive note is that the scale has tipped and more than half of all people (52%) living with HIV in the region are on antiretroviral therapy. However, there is still a significant proportion of people (48%) not yet accessing treatment.

Region lagging behind on testing and viral suppression

Of concern is the fact that the region is lagging behind on HIV testing and viral suppression. Progress must be accelerated for the Caribbean to achieve the 90-90-90 targets that will set it on course to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

One-third of people (36%) living with HIV in the Caribbean are not aware of their HIV status. Community-centred strategies are urgently needed to reach those who have not yet been diagnosed.

The Caribbean must also improve efforts to keep people in care once they’ve started treatment and to ensure that treatment is successful. Only about half of people accessing antiretroviral therapy in the Caribbean had access to routine viral load testing. In 2016 one-third (33%) of those on treatment were not virally suppressed. (“Viral suppression” means that people living with HIV have been treated to lower the level of HIV in their blood to undetectable levels. This protects their health while preventing transmission of the virus). Notably, several countries are getting closer to reaching the target. Three of four people on treatment achieved viral suppression in Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Nunez emphasised that “community health workers and civil society are critical to securing early HIV diagnosis and successful treatment”. The report called for greater community involvement in Caribbean health-care provision in order to reach the 90-90-90 targets.

To view the full report click here.

Updated data here.

Resources: Parliamentarians for Global Action LGBTI Inclusion Site

Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) LGBTI Inclusion Site (available in English and Spanish) provides user-friendly tools designed to help parliamentarians, and other relevant stakeholders, better understand their role in ensuring equality and non-discrimination of all individuals, regardless of who they are or whom they love. The Site describes relevant human rights frameworks and highlights the role of parliamentarians, civil society and other stakeholders in implementing Agenda 2030 (the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by world leaders in 2015), to ensure no one, including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) persons, is left behind. It offers practical tips, tools and resources designed to support parliamentarians to undertake legislative, representational and oversight activities that advance the rights and inclusion of LGBTI people.

The LGBTI Handbook for Parliamentarians produced with UNDP is available for download in PDF form (in English and Spanish) on the Site.

Access the website here.

On a separate note, here you can find more information about PGA’s Parliamentary Delegation to Belize on Human Rights, Equality and Non-Discrimination.