Money is available, treatment is better and much of the mystery is gone from prevention, treatment and care of AIDS. Yet, more people will become infected with the AIDS virus and will die from the disease itself in 2005 than in any previous year, the World Bank said Wednesday.
In light of the reality, the World Bank announced on the eve of World AIDS Day a strategic plan to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The main purpose of the project is to strengthen the World Banks approach to the disease with no-interest lending, grants, analysis, technical support and advice on AIDS policy for poor and middle-income countries, where the disease is hitting hardest.
The program will emphasize the “Three Ones” approach of fighting AIDS on an international level: in each country, one national HIV/AIDS authority, one national strategic plan and one system to monitor and evaluate the effort’s effectiveness.
The Global Program will help spur more effective action in more funding for national and regional HIV/AIDS programs, while strengthening underlying health systems; improve the quality and scope of national HIV/AIDS strategies; and speed up work on the ground by working more closely with donors.
The program, which reflects the advice of developing and middle-income countries, international NGOs and other groups, will also boost program monitoring and evaluation at country level, and sharing the best practices. The World Bank will remain one of the major financers of AIDS work in developing and middle-income countries.
Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank noted: – The barriers that blunt our collective efforts to reverse the spread of HIV/Aids are a mixture of long-standing, as well as newly emerging challenges.
Wolfowitz further explained that national HIV/AIDS plans are not well devised nor have clear priorities.
– Care and treatment levels are nowhere near equal to slowing down, or stopping, the virus, Wolfowitz said, and thus progress is damped by “pitfalls in management and implementation.” He pointed that now more than ever it is necessary to coordinate work between international donors and developing countries.
The Director of the World Banks HIV/AIDS program, Debrework Zewdie, meanwhile said that “At the heart of our strategy is an urgency to prevent new infections and to provide care and treatment for those who are infected and affected by the epidemic.”
The Banks announcement said the global fight against the disease is profiting from “considerably more political commitment on the part of countries and donors, with the worldwide level of HIV/AIDS funding having surged from 300 million US dollar in 1996 to about 8 billion dollar in 2005.
The plan will ensure that evidence is reliable as to risk, the pattern and rate of spreading and the diseases affect on local areas. It also will target women, young people and high-risk groups, the plans outline said.
Project figures show that since the World Banks first anti-AIDS project in 1988, it has spent more than 2,5 billion dollar fighting the disease.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
