This year’s World AIDS Day theme challenges Caribbean policy makers, programme managers and implementers to identify and develop strategies and policies for ‘Closing the Gap’ in resources and to universal access, PANCAP Coordinating Unit Director Dereck Springer says.
In a message to mark World AIDS Day being observed today, Springer notes that this is crucial since the epidemiology of HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean provides strong evidence that the groups most vulnerable to HIV and which have the least access to prevention, treatment, care and support services are members of our key population groups including men who have sex with men, sex workers, persons who use drugs and youth.
While there has been significant progress in the region including as regards the elimination of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV and a reduction in deaths due to AIDS, challenges remain.
He listed among these challenges, inadequate access to services for those most in need; inadequate access to financial resources and a less than optimal response to human rights, gender and gender-based violence.
Springer also pointed to dependence on diminishing external funding, inadequate investments in laboratories, limited strategies for addressing the vulnerability of youth and the dissonance between the age of consent and the age of access to sexual and reproductive services for adolescents, adding that addressing these challenges requires more cost effective and efficient strategies.
Hailing recent events that have served as a catalyst for a regional dialogue on stigma and discrimination, he said this dialogue must continue to occur at every level of our society but must encompass all forms of discrimination. PANCAP’s Justice for All programme, which has so far produced a roadmap with 15 actionable points and a declaration, he said, must be seen as a bold initiative to advance this dialogue and engage in meaningful and dispassionate discussions with all sectors of society including parliamentarians, the judiciary, faith-based, youth, media, private sector, civil society organisations, military and para military, medical and nursing associations, bar associations, women and men’s groups.
Springer said this World AIDS Day therefore “provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and to acknowledge the work that is still to be done to achieve universal access for all our citizens thereby closing the gap.”
