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New
infections in Africa still rising - Epidemic continues to be region's
leading cause of death and lost GDP says World Bank
World Bank
May 14, 2008
View this press
releaseon the World Bank website
A new World
Bank report launched today says African countries must continue
to champion HIV prevention efforts to slow and reverse the rate
of new HIV infections, and that HIV/AIDS will remain for the foreseeable
future an unprecedented economic, social, and human challenge to
Sub-Saharan Africa. The region remains the global epicenter of the
disease.
According to
the new report—The
World Bank's Commitment to HIV/AIDS in Africa: Our Agenda
for Action, 2007-2011—for every infected African starting
antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the first time, another four to
six become newly infected, even as regional figures show falling
prevalence in countries such as Kenya, and parts of Botswana, Côte
d' Ivoire, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. About 22.5 million Africans
are HIV positive, and AIDS is the leading cause of premature death
on the continent, especially among productive young people and women.
As a result, some private firms in Southern Africa recruit two workers
for every job in anticipation of losing staff to the disease
In laying out its continuing
plans to help African countries fight the epidemic, the Bank's
new strategy says that more than 60 percent of people living with
HIV in Africa are women, and that young women are six times more
likely to be HIV positive than are young men. As a result of the
epidemic, an estimated 11.4 million children under age 18 have lost
at least one parent.
"With AIDS the
largest single cause of premature death in Africa, we can't
talk about better, lasting development there without also committing
to stay the course in the long-term fight against the disease,"
says Elizabeth Lule, Manager of the World Bank's AIDS Team
for Africa (ACTafrica), whose team consulted widely with African
countries, people living with HIV, sister UN agencies, NGOs, private
companies and others in devising its new HIV/AIDS strategy for Africa.
The World Bank has mobilized
more than $1.5 billion to more than 30 countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa to combat the epidemic since 2000.
Next
Steps Through 2011
With its African HIV/AIDS
'Agenda for Action', the Bank says it is moving away
from its initial 'emergency response' role as the world's
principal financier of HIV/AIDS programs, towards a new mission
with four new strategic objectives.
These include: at the
global level, advising countries on how best to manage the complexity
of the international financing they receive; and at the local level,
helping countries to accelerate implementation and take a long-term
sustainable development response to HIV/AIDS; strengthening the
monitoring and evaluation capacity of countries to track the efficiency,
effectiveness, and transparency of their HIV/AIDS response; and
building up stronger health and fiduciary systems.
Amalgamating HIV/AIDS
services with those for reproductive and maternal health, nutrition,
and other diseases such as malaria and TB, would remedy a long-standing
defect in many national HIV/AIDS programs to date. The 'feminization'
of the epidemic and its links to sexual and reproductive health,
and the frequency of co-infection with TB (and the emerging Extensively
Drug Resistant TB) and other opportunistic diseases, amplify the
importance of providing people with integrated health services.
Specifically, the Bank
would commit to: provide at least $250 million a year for HIV/AIDS
initiatives, based on country demand and establish a grant incentive
fund of $5 million annually to promote capacity building, analysis,
and HIV/AIDS project components in key sectors such as health, education,
transport, public sector management and other sectoral projects.
"After
25 years, it is time to apply the lessons of experience and scale
up what is working. With this Agenda for Action, the World Bank
reaffirms its long-term commitment to assist partner countries achieve . . .
universal access . . . to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support
by integrating AIDS into their national development agendas, scaling
up . . . responses, and strengthening national systems,"
says Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The World Bank
is one of ten co-sponsors of UNAIDS, along with International Labor
Organization(ILO), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees(UNHCR), United Nations Children's Fund(UNICEF), United
Nations Development Programme(UNDP), United Nations Education, Scientific
and Cultural Organization(UNESCO), United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime(UNODC), United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA), World Food
Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization. The Agenda for
Action will be implemented in the context of this partnership.
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