NAPS looks to private sector to help sustain HIV/AIDS gains

May 27, 2014 News

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With talks, in the past few years, about reduced funding, transitioning of donor-funded resources and therefore dwindling support to Government to fight HIV/AIDS, there is an ever increasing need to solicit sustained support from the private sector.
This disclosure was made by Programme Manager of the Ministry of Health’s National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS), Dr. Shanti Singh, on Thursday.

Dr. Singh had moments earlier witnessed the launch of a campaign by the USAID-supported Advancing Partners and Communities Project (APC) intended to expand and strengthen the collaboration between the private sector and Non-Governmental Organisations in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The launch was a collaborative effort with the Guyana Business Coalition on HIV and AIDS (GBCHA).
And this need for continued private sector support was even highlighted a few weeks ago, Dr. Singh said, when a Global Fund Mission visited to aid Guyana’s preparation for additional funding.
Global Fund is an international financing organisation that has over the years doled out resources to countries across the globe to help prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. However, this funding is gradually being reduced.
The recent support was directed to “preparing for what we call a re-programming request that has to go into Global Fund for HIV (funding),” said Dr. Singh. “We had to present what we call investment cases to show to Global Fund what are the critical areas that we would invest in,” said the NAPS Manager.
And according to her, the private sector was in fact seen as a critical area that was identified in recognition of the fact that “there has to be greater investment in the private sector in the sense, that the role of the private sector has to be expanded in supporting this HIV response.”
Dr. Singh in commending the recent campaign spearheaded by the ACP and GBCHA pointed out that “this is a good initiative because there is a lot of potential in the private sector to support this HIV/AIDS fight.”
Already, she noted that such collaborations have been instrumental since they have been able to channel awareness to a crucial faction of the population that are most at risk. Based on the Health Ministry’s HIV/AIDS Epidemiology-profile, the group of people affected the most, accounting for about 80 per cent of annual cases, are those within the productive work force. This faction, according to Dr. Singh, represents those between the ages of 20 and 45.
“Most of those people are within the public sector and the private sector and I think there has been a lot of education that has gone into the private sector in terms of HIV itself, in terms of reducing stigma and discrimination, in terms of setting up workplace policies with the Ministry of Labour and with the International Labour Organisation,” Dr. Singh observed.
And the fact that organisations such as GBCHA are “up and running”, Dr. Singh is convinced that “this is a good sign that we can really tap into the potential of the private sector to be able to assist us sustaining this (HIV/AIDS) response.”
Another example of laudable private sector support, Dr. Singh said, has been towards the sustaining of the NAPS-managed Food Bank. The Food Bank, according to her, is one that caters to the nutritional needs of persons infected with HIV who do not have the means to adequately provide for themselves.
Though on a small scale, when the fight against HIV is considered, Dr. Singh said, “We have seen increases in contributions from the private sector to our Food Bank initiative and so right now we have 35 per cent of our annual needs for the Food Bank coming from the private sector.”
She is optimistic that “we can work with the private sector so that it (the Food Bank) becomes an exclusive private sector driven programme, because I have no doubt in my mind that this Food Bank does support the people who really need the support.”
A number of single parent families are among the main beneficiaries of the Food Bank, with about 2,000 benefiting last year, Dr. Singh said.
“When you look at the profile of the persons accessing the Food Bank I think that the private sector would get their monies worth in terms of that investment.”
Dr. Singh is advocating for more private sector organisations to render their support towards sustaining the gains Guyana has made over the years, reflected in a laudable reduction of HIV cases from 1,258 in 2006 to 758 last year.
“There are innovative ways that the private sector can support the national response. You don’t have to physically come out and donate a cheque of $1 million or $2 Million. You could simply identify your workplace as a testing site and be able to support your site.”
According to Dr. Singh, businesses are in a strategic place to especially help fight the issue of stigma and discrimination whereby persons can feel comfortable being in the workplace and not be afraid of being fired because of their status.
About 45 companies, Dr. Singh said, have signed on to workplace policies and therefore have committed to reducing stigma and discrimination.

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