End to punitive laws could arrest HIV stigma and discrimination

Jun 01, 2016 News

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– UN Special Envoy

Although the war against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) continues valiantly, there are yet some populations that are being left behind.

This assertion was made by United Nations (UN) Secretary General Special Envoy on HIV and AIDS, Dr. Edward Greene, during a press conference at the Ministry of Public Health.
Among the populations that are being left behind are vulnerable groups such as Men who have sex with Men (MSM) and Sex Workers. There may be others who are being left behind as well.
This daunting development remains a challenge to the HIV/AIDS fight, according to Dr. Greene, because of the persistence of discriminatory laws. And this, he theorised, may serve as a deterrent – particularly to the MSM and Sex worker populations – from seeking help and by extension access to treatment.
Dr. Greene moreover stressed the need for intervening measures to be put in place to target and reduce existing discrimination.
“On behalf of the Secretary General, I continue to appeal to countries to do something about punitive laws. People say they (laws) are not implemented, but that’s not the response,” Dr. Greene stressed.
According to him, the state of affairs that obtains is that discriminatory laws are on the books and they are utilised by the authorities, whether police or health system workers, to sustain stigma and discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS. And since persons from these populations are not inclined to come forward and be tested, the spread of HIV is likely to remain a challenge. Those that are likely to be at great risk because of this development, Dr. Greene said, are in fact young women.
“As a SG Special Envoy, I continue to appeal to governments to re-examine their positions on discriminatory laws which continue to fan the flame of the disease,” Dr. Greene emphasised.
But even as the struggle continues to arrest the spread of the disease, the UN Special Envoy revealed that the Government of Guyana has exhibited the right attitude in terms of financing.
“When we met the Minister of Finance in late January, I must say he was very sensitive to the need to sustain the investment in health, and particular in HIV, where it is important,” said Dr Greene. He pointed out that unlike many other diseases, there is no vaccine for HIV, thus the need to sustain the support for infected people. This, he noted, is designed to ensure that they remain on affordable medicine, even as efforts to educate and emphasise prevention methods are fast-tracked.
“What is a good thing is that your Minister of Finance, unlike some Ministers of Finance, is not saying that we have so many other things to do…there is recognition that unless we sustain the investment in health and HIV/AIDS we will not overcome, but we will increase and reverse the trends,” Dr. Greene underscored.
According to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, while an estimated sum of US$19.2 billion was made available to low and middle income countries in 2014 to combat HIV, by 2020 it is expected that that amount will have to increase to about US$26.2 billion to achieve the 2030 target of ending the AIDS epidemic.
Moreover, a Fast-Track initiative to end AIDS was introduced. A report on the ‘Fast-Track to end the AIDS epidemic’, revealed that the extraordinary acceleration of progress made over the past 15 years could be lost, and urges all partners to concentrate their efforts to increase and front-load investments to ensure that the global AIDS epidemic is ended as a public health threat by 2030.
A number of countries, including Guyana, have accepted the global challenge to put measures in place to help bring an end to the epidemic by 2030.
The report urges countries to embrace the UNAIDS Fast-Track approach to ending the AIDS epidemic, which will require reaching an ambitious set of goals by 2020, including reducing the numbers of people newly infected with HIV and people dying from AIDS-related causes to fewer than 500,000 per annum, and eliminating HIV-related discrimination.
Targets to reach these goals include reaching the 90–90–90 treatment target for 2020, which calls for 90 per cent of people living with HIV to know their status, 90 per cent of people who know their HIV-positive status to access treatment and 90 per cent of people on treatment to have suppressed viral loads.
In order to achieve the outlined goals, efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS may very well have to be redoubled or even tripled. This is in light of the belief that the AIDS epidemic could be prolonged indefinitely if urgent action is not implemented within the next five years, the UN Secretary General posited.
According to Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton, while funding for HIV has over the years been dwindling, Guyana has continued to receive funding from Global Fund.
“We have managed to try to prolong the funding we have been getting in that particular area and also there was some amount of funding form PEPFAR, and we also were seeking the extension of the funds we received from them,” said Dr Norton. In addition to this, he assured that “government has been taking on more than we actually have in the budget for HIV/AIDS.”

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