"Of the estimated 34 million people living with HIV/AIDS across the world, almost three quarters live in Eastern and Southern Africa." This is a staggering statistic. Combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the United Nations (UN) has made great strides in places like Botswana where mother-to-child infections have been reduced from 40% to 4% in just four years. But in regions of Eastern and Southern Africa, lack of proper medical care combined with impoverished communities have stalled efforts to prevent the transmission of the HIV/AIDS virus. Luckily, UN leaders and activists alike have already started taking crucial steps toward prevention.Sheila Tlou, the Director of the Regional Support Team for the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) spoke at a conference in Geneva with words of encouragement for preventative care. Focusing on behavioral change and mother-to-child transmission, the UNAIDS program will help expand anti-retroviral treatments to those who need it most. Currently, of the 15 million HIV-infected individuals eligible for anti-retroviral treatment, only 4.2 million are receiving the care they need. Tlou looks with optimism to areas in the Asian-Pacific where there has been a 20% reduction in new infections in the past ten years.
Efforts to prevent new infections and mother-to-child transmissions must start at the root. As stressed by Tlou and the UNAIDS committee, behavior modification and crucial poverty reduction efforts are a necessity. Education, proper medical treatments, and access to hygienic facilities are all steps toward preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in the world's most impoverished communities. Tlou states, "We have to now focus on making sure that we scale up voluntary medical male circumcision, behaviour change, and all those [interventions] to make sure that we reduce infections." Although a mounting challenge, programs and successes such as these give millions living with HIV/AIDS the hope they need.
-Kenneth Louis
SOURCE: UN News Centre
