World AIDS day observed in Cameroon

By Rachel NtubeNgwese

Dignitaries at World AIDS Day ceremony

The 29th edition of the international day for the fight against HIV/AIDS was on 1 December celebrated in Yaoundé with an objective to establish an AIDS-free society by 2030.The celebration was placed under the patronage of the first lady Madam Chantal Biya, who is also special ambassador of ONUSIDA, was hosted at the Yaoundé Red Cross conference hall with numerous activities and demonstrations to mark the importance of the day and the need to stop the spread of aids.

                Prior to the celebration, a weeklong of activities was launched in Yaoundé by the minister of public health who doubles as the president for the national committee for the fight against aids. The activities include sensitization campaigns and free screening exercises in different health centers to encourage people to know their HIV status and prevent unpleasant future surprises.

                 At the Chantal Biya international reference centre, one of the areas which hosted the voluntary free screening exercise, there was massive turn out mostly of university students and some passersby. According to Dr. Sylvie Moudourou, Chief of the technical medical unit of CIRCB, most of their new visitors came to reconfirm their already known status. In the same perspective, the centre had organize a two day training program for over 50 health professionals drawn from across the ten regions of the country to reinforce their knowhow in the follow-up of HIV infected persons.

                This year’s celebrations that was hosted under the theme ‘hand up for the prevention of HIV’ with the main slogan ‘monparis 2030’ seeks to disseminate the Paris principle to establish an HIV free generation by 2030.The first phase of this program to be evaluated by 2020 according to the minister of public health is a super fast track framework for ending aids amongst children, adolescents and young women by 2020 with the slogan ‘start free, stay free, aids free’. Accordingly, it seeks principally to prevent the emergence of new infections amongst women, youths and new born babies

                Also as part of the celebration activities, a press conference was co organized by the united nations program on hiv/aids and the ministry of public health which equally saw in participation the ministers of women empowerment, communication and a representative from the African football confederation who appreciated the initiative at the time when the country is hoisting the African nations cup and confirmed the engagement of the confederation to use sports and football most particularly as a vector for the dissemination of educative ideas against the spread of HIV/AIDS. According to statistics presented by the UN representative at the press conference, efforts deployed so far for the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS as resulted to a 60 percent reduction of new infections amongst children worldwide, a reduction of deaths resulting from HIV amongst children to 44percent,while the drop of new infections amongst young women has witnessed only a 5 percent reduction still representing the most vulnerable group of the society with over 4.5 million new infections registered within this group between 2009-2015 in 21 priority sub Saharan African countries.