Author: Bonnie James
28 January 2010
Qatar should be a model in the region by removing travel restrictions on HIV-positive visitors, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids, UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe suggested yesterday.
“Let 2010 be a year of free movement for people with HIV,” he urged while addressing the opening session of a two-day seminar on ‘Empowerment of the family in the modern world: Challenges and promises ahead.’
Pointing out that the US ended three weeks ago a ban on travel and immigration by HIV-positive individuals, a rule that had been in place since 1987, Sidibe said such a ban is no longer necessary anywhere.
The US Centers for Disease Control removed the infection from the category of ‘communicable diseases of public-health significance’ after President Obama said last year the ban was ‘rooted in fear rather than fact.’
The official lauded the 2003 Doha Declaration of Public Health for facilitating better care for HIV/Aids patients the world over by improving the access to medicines, especially for the poor.
“If only 50,000 patients could be provided treatment prior to the Doha Declaration, the number has now reached almost 4mn,” said Sidibe, also an Under Secretary-General of the UN.
Every year 2.5mn people die from HIV, and 400,000 babies are born with HIV. The number of children orphaned after their parents succumbed to HIV is 15mn.
“Every time we put two people on treatment for HIV, we get five more new cases,” he stated while emphasising the need to have a generation free from HIV by stopping the mother to child transmission of the virus.
However, Sidibe revealed that concerted worldwide action against the disease has resulted in a reduction in new infections by 17% in the last eight years.
In Africa alone 400,000 new infections were averted, and in Botswana the infection rate dropped by almost 30% and mortality reduced by half.
“The turning point will be how we move from commodity driven approach to a community approach,” the official maintained while stressing the urgency to protect mothers from HIV.
“When mothers succumb to the disease without having access to medical care, their children end up on the street or as sex workers or child soldiers,” he said, referring to the situation in some countries.
Highlighting the significance of the family, Sidibe asserted that when the family were together the infection rate was lower and the sick got better care and compassion.
“Our families should remain the cornerstone of whatever we are doing,” he added.