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The Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (FHAPCO) of Ethiopia released a report on HIV and AIDS the celebration of World AIDS Day which under the theme of the year “Universal Access and Human right”. The celebration of World AIDS Day and the theme selected for this year has created opportunity for the nation to assess previous activities in the effort to arrest HIV/AIDS; which was found to be perplexed with tremendous success and combined with various impediments and flaws. Let’s share you the success and the challenges that the government of Ethiopia has been acquiring and facing respectively.
To begin with the success, HIV/AIDS transmission has shown a dramatic decline according to the report FHAPCO’s report made two years ago indicate that only 500,000 people received voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) out of which the HIV transmission rate was over 10 percent reaching 13 per cent when the first quarter from the next budget year was included. This year until September, 2009 six million people were voluntary tested for HIV/AIDS and the transmission rate dramatically declined to 3 percent.
According to the report 159,314 newly infected people received VCT by the reporting year; out of which 53 per cent were men and 43 percent were found to be women. When the transmission of the virus looked closer in terms of sexual distribution, out of the total transmission rate for women and men is 3 and 2.7 per cent respectively, according the report testifying that women are more venerable than men.
The decline in the transmission rate regarding HIV could be explained by various factors. According to the report one factor could be the greater emphasis given by governmental and non governmental institutions which mainstreamed the campaign in their respective duties by assessing budget and establishing AIDS funds. The other national successes observed in the report are in terms of mainstreaming and expansion of HIV/AIDS services to areas that were previously in accessible. During the last reporting year, the number of health centers in the nation was 1336. This has increased to 1596 by July, 2009 and the construction of many more is well underway.
Despite all praiseworthy activities, HIV/AIDS endeavors were challenged by various draw backs specially in terms of achieving Universal Access Goals. One of the problems deals with collection of pledged financial resources from major donors like the Global Fund and the RCC. Even if the Global Fund and RCC granted Ethiopia with 896.4 million USD in various phases, only 395.9(44.1 per cent) million USD was collected during the reporting period. Even if FHAPCO have finalized all the preparation and pre conditions set to collect the 305.6 million USD pledged by the RCC, nothing of the grant has so far been collected.
‘‘Let there be no more shame, no more discrimination and no more stigma. Let the politicization and endless debates about HIV and AIDS stop.’’ President Jacob Zuma of South Africa
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by Anatic09
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