[ad_1]
Kenya's success in reducing AIDS-related death rates and HIV infections is a result of a national policy that is a world pioneer, said Monday the UN envoy to the United Nations for childhood.
In Kenya, "the inventive and bold location-based approach has become the global standard for HIV programming and resource allocation," Ambassador Lazarus Ombai Amayo said at the conference. 39, a debate on the AIDS epidemic, organized by the UN General Assembly.
The annual rate of new HIV infections has been reduced by 51% – from 100,000 to 50,000 Kenyans – since the adoption in 2014 of a revised "Roadmap" indicating the way forward to end to AIDS, said Ambassador Amayo.
Kenya is on track to reach the UN's "90-90-90 targets by next year," he said.
These figures concern the diagnosis of 90% of all HIV-positive people, the administration of AIDS treatment to 90% of people diagnosed, and the suppression of the virus in 90% of people treated with anti-AIDS drugs -AIDS.
Ambassador Amayo also drew the UN's attention to the "one-of-a-kind" HIV court.
He said that this HIV-based statutory body, created in 2006, "ensures that people living with the virus are not stigmatized or discriminated against because of their status".
Ambassador Amayo also spoke on behalf of the group of African States members of the UN.
In this capacity, he warned that the "upheaval of youth" in sub-Saharan Africa poses particular challenges for HIV prevention efforts.
The Kenyan envoy said that many young Africans are not aware of the risks of HIV transmission
This shortage is having a particularly negative impact on young African women and girls who continue to suffer from high rates of HIV infection, "said Ambassador Amayo to the global body.
The envoy also pointed to the negative effect of "user fees" that some countries impose for diagnostic tests and consultations.
Poor people, who are already most at risk of contracting AIDS, are even more at risk from these unaffordable burdens, said Ambassador Amayo.
Kenya is not the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to make progress in the fight against the AIDS epidemic.
A report by the UN Secretary-General, which accompanied Monday's debate, noted that AIDS-related mortality has decreased by 53% in East and Southern Africa since 2008.
"An epidemic that has already killed more than a million people in the region each year now makes less than 400,000 victims a year," said Secretary General Antonio Guterres in his report.
He further pointed out that four million voluntary male circumcisions had been performed in 2017 in the 14 countries of eastern and southern Africa with the highest levels of HIV prevalence.
Scientific assessments have established that circumcised men have a greatly reduced risk of infection with the AIDS virus.
[ad_2]
Source link