Ethiopia: Ministry Seeks Joint Efforts Towards HIV Elimination

Frontline Aids
Domestic financing for HIV prevention and Abuja Declaration targets Our reports show that funding from international donors remains the highest contributor to HIV prevention in Africa, especially for programmes aimed at key population communities, such as men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers and people who use and inject drugs. Beyond HIV prevention, governments of all nine African countries analysed in our reports are falling far short of meeting the target to spend 15% of their national budgets on health, as set out within the Abuja Declaration. This reliance on international donors threatens the sustainability of the HIV prevention response, particularly now with international funding for HIV decreasing and a number of donor countries cutting their aid budgets, or reallocating aid to other areas. It also raises questions about each governments’ commitment to ending AIDS as a public health priority.
2 December 2023
The Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa)

- Commemorates 2023 World AIDS Day

ADDIS ABABA - The Ministry of Health (MoH) has called for stakeholders' joint efforts towards HIV elimination by 2030.

This was disclosed here yesterday while commemorating the 2023 World AIDS Day under the theme "Let Communities Lead" in the presence of global institutions representatives, Ambassadors, bureau heads among others were in attendance.

Speaking at the occasion, MoH Minister LiaTadesse (MD) said that Ethiopia has been exerting its significant efforts towards reducing mortality rate of the virus thereby registering a significant progress in this regard.

She further remarked that strong political commitment and combined involvements of diverse partners play a leading role to ensure our plan of eliminating HIV by 2023 and health and wellbeing of the entire community.

The minister said: "The challenge of addressing the maternal child transmission of HIV and restoration of services that are disrupted by displacement are among the ministries priority that requires much emphasis."

As to Lia, MoH managed to minimize the death toll rate of the virus by 52% .

"Lack of sufficient response mechanisms of leader's at all levels; awareness and manmade and natural disasters are the main impacting factors to halt the spread of the virus."

Therefore, the minister emphasized that it is critical to further strengthen innovative activities hand in hand with religious leaders, media, civil society and other stakeholders to achieve a common goal.

UNAIDS Ethiopia Country Director and Representative Ethiopia Country Office Francoise Ndayishimiye (MD) said that empowering communities and exerting collective efforts of communities is crucial in ending the AIDS epidemic and bringing an AIDS free world.

Moreover, she said Ethiopia has strong community structures that can be considered to scale up the community led monitoring.

Francoise said: "This World AIDS Day is more than a celebration of the achievements of communities HIV response, advancing progress toward the end of AIDS. Besides, it is a call to action to enable and support communities in their leadership roles."

It was indicated that in 2022, about 39 million people globally were living with HIV; 1.3 million people became newly infected with HIV, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses.

"Currently, Ethiopia has been leading the HIV/AIDS response and showing its commitment despite the different challenges the country is facing thereby managing to diminish to 0.91%."

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Country Representative, KoffiKouame for his part said that they have been empowering the communities to design, implement and monitor tailored interventions to combat HIV/AIDS effectively.

"It is highly important leveraging the wisdom and expertise of community leaders and grassroots initiatives to bring about inclusive strategies that embrace the entire community. Also, Ethiopia deserves commendation for its outstanding efforts in combating HIV/AIDS spearheaded by the Ethiopian Government in collaboration with various partners," he remarked.

BY ASHENAFI ANIMUT

THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 2 DECEMBER 2023

Read the original article on Ethiopian Herald.

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