WORLD AIDS Day is being observed under the theme, 'Live and Let Live', and aims to reduce the stigma and discrimination facing persons infected with and affected by HIV and AIDS.
As part of activities for the day, the World Health Organisation (WHO), will launch a global initiative, aimed at getting anti-retroviral treatment (HIV-fighting medication) to three million people by 2005. According to the WHO, only 400,000 of the five to six million people infected with HIV in the developing world who need anti-retroviral therapy (ART), have access to it. The initiative is being launched against the background of the 'AIDS Epidemic Update 2003', a new report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, which showed that five million people became infected with HIV worldwide and three million died this year alone the highest ever.
The new report estimates that more than 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide, including 2.5 million children under the age of 15. Sub-Saharan Africa is still the most severely affected region and women still the hardest hit by the illness. According to Lovette Byfield, behaviour change communication specialist in the Ministry of Health, there has been some improvement in local attitudes toward persons living with or affected by HIV and AIDS.
"We are finding more families who are willing to take care of persons who are HIV-positive..."
However, with an estimated 25,000 people in Jamaica living with HIV, there needs to be more tolerance and acceptance, she said.
Dr. Kevin Harvey, director of Treatment and Care in the National HIV/STI Control Programme, is hoping health officials will soon be able to access the US$23 million approved for Jamaica by the Global Fund on Malaria and AIDS so Government can begin getting anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to all those who can not access HIV-fighting drugs through private means.
