Ambitious plan to fight AIDS

NAMIBIA has submitted “an ambitious yet practical plan” to the Global Fund to turn the HIV-AIDS tide in the country within the next five years.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria recently called for countries to submit proposals for Round Six of its funding programme. The Namibian Co-ordination Committee for HIV-AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (NaCCATuM) had several meetings with local non-governmental and faith-based organisations before submitting the proposal.Health Permanent Secretary Dr Kalumbi Shangula said the Namibian proposal was for significantly less funding than the one submitted in the last round of proposals to the Global Fund, but presented an ambitious, yet practical approach to respond to HIV-AIDS in the country.”We firmly believe that, should the Global Fund finance these efforts in their entirety, we will be able to accelerate the response to the HIV-AIDS epidemic and during the next five years substantially turn the tide of the epidemic,” Shangula wrote to the Executive Director of the Global Fund, Dr Richard Feachem.Namibia has requested US$49 million to tackle HIV-AIDS.That is 45 per cent less than requested in the country’s Round Five proposal.Shangula said the proposal focused especially on those areas of service delivery that were expected to experience inadequate coverage and considerable funding gaps in the next five years.These areas are: orphans and vulnerable children (US$9 million); case management, essentially antiretroviral drugs, including paediatric formulations (US$9 million); community-based prevention, care and support, including advocacy and home-based care and psychosocial support (US$7,5 million); capacity building of civil society and the private sector (US$7,1 million); strengthening of health systems (US$6,5 million); condom marketing and distribution (US$4,7 million); research (US$3 million); and workplace programmes (US$1,6 million).”We are confident that our proposal provides for a very well-crafted approach to Namibia’s current HIV-AIDS situation in that it addresses key priority areas as outlined above, which include focused interventions for vulnerable groups and address environments and stakeholders that drive the epidemic, but have to date been inadequately resourced,” Shangula said in the cover letter with proposal.He said the advantage of Namibia being a small country of only 2.2 million inhabitants was that every effort detailed in the proposal reached, in one way or another, each citizen.”We therefore view our proposal as an opportunity for the Global Fund to comprehensively fill specific resource gaps in our expanded national response, and to have the unusual opportunity to reach every member of one of the most HIV-AIDS-impacted populations on the planet,” he said.According to Shangula, Namibia, situated in the very epicentre of the pandemic in southern Africa, has around 280 000 citizens infected with HIV.He said that, despite foreseen funding from a number of sources, including Phase Two of the Global Fund Round Two grant, US government assistance through its President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) and other partners, and in spite of increasing funding from the Namibian Government over the medium term, the funding gap for Namibia’s response was considerable.”In fact, even if our current submission for Round Six funding would be approved – which we strongly trust – a very significant funding gap still remains,” he said.The Namibian Co-ordination Committee for HIV-AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (NaCCATuM) had several meetings with local non-governmental and faith-based organisations before submitting the proposal.Health Permanent Secretary Dr Kalumbi Shangula said the Namibian proposal was for significantly less funding than the one submitted in the last round of proposals to the Global Fund, but presented an ambitious, yet practical approach to respond to HIV-AIDS in the country.”We firmly believe that, should the Global Fund finance these efforts in their entirety, we will be able to accelerate the response to the HIV-AIDS epidemic and during the next five years substantially turn the tide of the epidemic,” Shangula wrote to the Executive Director of the Global Fund, Dr Richard Feachem.Namibia has requested US$49 million to tackle HIV-AIDS.That is 45 per cent less than requested in the country’s Round Five proposal.Shangula said the proposal focused especially on those areas of service delivery that were expected to experience inadequate coverage and considerable funding gaps in the next five years.These areas are: orphans and vulnerable children (US$9 million); case management, essentially antiretroviral drugs, including paediatric formulations (US$9 million); community-based prevention, care and support, including advocacy and home-based care and psychosocial support (US$7,5 million); capacity building of civil society and the private sector (US$7,1 million); strengthening of health systems (US$6,5 million); condom marketing and distribution (US$4,7 million); research (US$3 million); and workplace programmes (US$1,6 million).”We are confident that our proposal provides for a very well-crafted approach to Namibia’s current HIV-AIDS situation in that it addresses key priority areas as outlined above, which include focused interventions for vulnerable groups and address environments and stakeholders that drive the epidemic, but have to date been inadequately resourced,” Shangula said in the cover letter with proposal.He said the advantage of Namibia being a small country of only 2.2 million inhabitants was that every effort detailed in the proposal reached, in one way or another, each citizen.”We therefore view our proposal as an opportunity for the Global Fund to comprehensively fill specific resource gaps in our expanded national response, and to have the unusual opportunity to reach every member of one of the most HIV-AIDS-impacted populations on the planet,” he said.According to Shangula, Namibia, situated in the very epicentre of the pandemic in southern Africa, has around 280 000 citizens infected with HIV. He said that, despite foreseen funding from a number of sources, including Phase Two of the Global Fund Round Two grant, US government assistance through its President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) and other partners, and in spite of increasing funding from the Namibian Government over the medium term, the funding gap for Namibia’s response was considerable.”In fact, even if our current submission for Round Six funding would be approved – which we strongly trust – a very significant funding gap still remains,” he said.