World AIDS Day 2022 – NAPS Head urges collective approach to end HIV/AIDS by 2030

As World AIDS Day 2022 is being observed, National AIDS Programme Secretariat Head Dr. Tariq Jagnarine urges that stakeholders at every level work together Guyana reaches closer to the goal of eradicating AIDS by 2030.

This World AIDS Day, December 1, is being observed globally under the theme “Equalise”.

This theme is a call to action to address the inequalities which are holding back progress in ending AIDS.

Dr Tariq Jagnarine, Programme Manager of the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) says that locally, it is essential that all individuals and communities work together in tackling this.

“Ultimately, we want to work together towards addressing just HIV but STIs and other chronic and infectious diseases as well as noncommunicable diseases and communicable diseases.”

UNAIDS launched the 95-95-95 targets several years ago seeking to diagnose 95 percent of all HIV-positive individuals, provide antiretroviral therapy for 95 percent of those diagnosed and achieve viral suppression for 95 percent of those treated by 2030.

While over the past two years, the covid pandemic would have inhibited progress in some of these areas.

Under the first target for diagnosis, Guyana managed to maintain 94 percent throughout pandemic.

However, under the second target, provision of antiretroviral therapy had dropped to 64 percent. New initiatives introduced this year, such as the loss to follow up initiative, managed to bring this up to 74 percent. This initiative is currently being carried out in Regions Two, Three, Four, Six and Ten.

Viral load suppression is currently at 83 percent.

HIV prevalence in Guyana overall decreased 1.4 percent to 1.3 percent. Statistics up to September 2022 showed 9500 persons living with HIV in Guyana with over 230 new cases this year.

Dr Jagnarine emphasised the need for a collective approach to achieving these targets.

“Once we can do that; working together, looking out for each other, we can achieve anything when it comes to being a healthier population. We want to ensure people can think safe when it comes to their sexual practices and be safe in all of their practices too.”

In line with this year’s theme “Equalise”, NAPS is planning to cooperate with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to conduct a stigma index. This index will collect information about the experiences of people living with HIV, related to stigma, discrimination and human rights.