APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) Washington is helping Addis Ababa stop the spread of HIV by 2030.
Over the past twenty years, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the U.S. government’s international initiative to save and improve the lives of people living with or at risk of AIDS, has invested nearly $3 billion in the fight against HIV in Ethiopia.
These investments “have helped improve the health system by building human resource capacity, upgrading infrastructure to support HIV services, and supporting the establishment of reference laboratories and a national health information system throughout the country,” according to a statement seen by APA on Thursday.
The additional donation of 112 million dollars through the National Operational Plan 2023 (COP23) is part of this effort. The announcement of the approval of this disbursement was made on 23 May by Ambassador Dr John Nkengasong, US coordinator of the global fight against AIDS and special envoy for health diplomacy.
This action, he said, “ensures the continuation of PEPFAR programming in Ethiopia in partnership with the Ministry of Health. This will enable (the country) to remain on track to achieve the goal of eliminating the epidemic by 2030.”
During a series of consultative meetings in Ethiopia and South Africa, the statement said, the PEPFAR team, the Ministry of Health, led by Dr Lia Tadesse, and Ethiopian civil society organisations worked together to ensure that COP23 programming would restore services in conflict-affected areas and support the HIV programme across the country to achieve the 95-95-95 targets (95% of people know their status, 95% of HIV-positive people are on treatment, and 95% of people on treatment are virally suppressed) and bring the epidemic under control by 2025.
Finally, by focusing on improving care and treatment for Ethiopians under the age of 15, PEPFAR and the Ministry of Health hope to “close the gaps in AIDS services and end the threat that HIV poses to public health in Ethiopia”.
ID/ac/lb/as/APA