By NAC Chief Executive Officer Dr Bernard Madzima
It gives me great honour and pleasure to officially welcome you to the home of the national response to HIV, as we hold this press conference, which we have called to update the press and nation on the recently completed Global AIDS Monitoring Report.
As has become customary, this event is live on Zoom as we have to respect the COVID-19 containment measures in place. Once again, let me again reiterate the need for us to observe the WHO guidelines, which include maintaining social distance, washing or sanitising hands, temperature screening, correct wearing of face masks and others.
The United Nations General Assembly Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS has a resolution of intensifying efforts to eliminate HIV and AIDS. In order to achieve this, fast track ambitious targets were set, of which the overall target is to end AIDS by 2030.
As you are aware ladies and gentlemen, we have been pursuing the 90-90-90 fast track targets until the end of 2020, which sought to sharpen our focus on diagnosing people with HIV, linking them to ART and supporting them to achieve virologic suppression as a means to reduce global HIV infections to 500 000 per year.
In order to monitor progress towards these targets, a framework of core indicators was developed to reflect the new targets and elimination commitments.
To this end, the Declaration requests that the UN Secretary General reports to the General Assembly on progress in implementation, in accordance with the global reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Global AIDS Monitoring Report therefore comes in that sense and is one of the main HIV and AIDS progress monitoring tools that we use.
It provides information on national programmes and scale-up of priority health sector interventions for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, including intervention for women and children.
The report also outlines the financial support for HIV and AIDS intervention programmes.
As you will soon learn, the report shows that we have dramatically succeeded in bending the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic, and achieved all the three 90s.
I am glad to say that this has also been confirmed by the recent ZIMPHIA whose results are now out.
These achievements have emboldened us to pursue the 95-95-95 as we inch towards ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will listen to detailed presentations on the progress we have made in relation to the 90-90-90 fast track targets and the United Nations General Assembly Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS core indicators framework.
We will then have a question and answer session after that to address any questions you may have.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am therefore exceedingly happy to once again warmly welcome you. Feel at home at the home of the national response to HIV!
I Thank You,
