MESSAGE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL, CARICOM, AMBASSADOR IRWIN LAROCQUE, ON THE OCCASION OF WORLD AIDS DAY 2014
World AIDS Day provides an opportunity for reflection and resolution. Not long ago an affliction with HIV and AIDS was literally a death sentence. Today, thanks to scientific breakthroughs and access to treatment, people with HIV and AIDS are living longer and leading productive lives. Yet there are lingering challenges to overcome. Among them are the increases in new infections in young women and vulnerable populations. Only 50 percent of the people living with HIV in the Caribbean are on treatment, and there exists the persistence of relatively high dependency on external assistance, ranging from 40-80 percent, to finance the AIDS response.
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat notes the recommendations resulting from the recently concluded Thirteenth Annual General Meeting of PANCAP held in Guadeloupe aimed at accelerating the AIDS response. Pivotal to this objective is the emphasis on treatment, prevention and the elimination of stigma and discrimination. Targets and indicators for each of these priorities provide the basis for accountability through monitoring and evaluation. In this way, it identifies the gaps and inequalities to be addressed and, as a result, how best to allocate scarce resources in the fight against the spread of the epidemic.
There is also emphasis on health systems strengthening and universal access to treatment, care and support which strikes at the core of the lingering challenges. It is a recognition that overcoming these challenges requires combined public health responses to HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, non-communicable diseases and Chikungunya and other health emergencies.
This development is consistent with the call by CARICOM Heads of Government in 2012 for PANCAP and the newly established Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) to work in tandem to secure the health and wellbeing of the Region. It resonates with the CARICOM Strategic Plan 2015-2019 which identifies health as one of its priorities. It also sits well with emerging proposals for the Post-2015 Development Agenda in which sustainable and universal health loom as essential components. Moreover, it fulfils the aspirations of the Nassau Declaration of CARICOM Heads 2001 that the ‘Health of the Region Is The Wealth of The Region’.
As we celebrate World AIDS Day 2014 let us join in the resolution to ‘’close the gap’’. Let us resolve, to accelerate treatment so that we leave no one behind; to emphasise prevention, thereby reducing prevalence; and to stamp out HIV and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination as recognition that social justice and human rights are values that apply to all.
