Brazzaville, 2 November 2005 -- The World Health Organization is spearheading an unprecedented initiative to partner with sister UN agencies to accelerate the prevention of HIV infection in Africa in 2006.

Representatives of UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNESCO, UNIFEM, UNFPA and WHO will meet from 2 to 4 November in Brazzaville to discuss ways of supporting countries to accelerate the prevention of HIV infection in the African Region in the coming year. The meeting follows a decision by the region’s health leaders in August to declare 2006 as “The Year for Acceleration of HIV Prevention in the African Region.”

According to the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Gomes Sambo, the November consultation will define the implications of the resolution declaring 2006 as the year for acceleration of HIV prevention; discuss the contribution of UN agencies to the implementation of the resolution, develop a joint multi-agency plan to support the resolution, and reach a consensus by partnering agencies to support the plan.

He commended the participants of the fifty-fifth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for their boldness and initiative in adopting the resolution. He further expressed confidence that the decision would generate the momentum to address HIV prevention with the requisite urgency and focus, and, hopefully, unlock donor, partner and other funds to help stem and reverse the tide of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the Region.

Dr Sambo stated that the momentum will come from communities whose actions create the enabling environments in which individuals can adopt safer lifestyles. Dialogue and action at community level must therefore be at the centre of all efforts to accelerate HIV prevention.

The Regional Director added: “There are already clear indications that participating agencies will commit to intensify their support for the HIV prevention agenda; mobilize national and regional leadership for more focused and concrete action; assist with the mobilization of resources; advocate for the action of other sectors, organizations and stakeholders; and provide technical support for national programmes, especially through the strengthening of health systems in Member States.”

UNAIDS and WHO estimate that 50% of newly-infected individuals in the African Region are young people aged between 15 and 24, with escalating risk evident among girls and women who constitute 57% of the people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).

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Experts at the WHO Regional Office for Africa attribute the situation to several factors, including poverty and lack of economic opportunity which drive women to take up sex work, inter-generational sexual relations between young girls and older men, weak and dysfunctional national health systems, and the acute shortage of health-care workers.

They also urge Africans to place greater emphasis on HIV prevention as the key to curbing the spread of the deadly virus which was estimated to have killed at least 2.3 million people on the continent in 2004. The disease has also created 13 million orphans in Africa.

Dr Sambo observed that although some countries in the Region had recorded commendable success in stabilizing or reducing the numbers of people with HIV infection, new infection rates were on the rise in the majority of Member States. This suggests that prevention efforts have not been adequate.

He emphasized that prevention efforts must be expanded for more impact and in order to sustain the progress in access to HIV/AIDS treatment. This is a clear reference to the fact that in 2004 the number of PLWHA receiving antiretroviral therapy in the Region trebled.

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