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Use AIDS money carefully, Tanzania told
2007-08-27 08:30:45
By Simon Kivamwo
Visiting US Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt has urged Tanzania and other beneficiaries of the President`s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to utilize it carefully.
Speaking in an exclusive interview, Leavitt said:`My government will fund all the necessary infrastructures in hospitals and health facilities in Tanzania. However, I would like to encourage governments to ensure that they have long term plans to sustain themselves.`
`They should seek for alternative ways to maintain health service delivery in the future,` said Leavitt, citing a PEPFAR funded new care and treatment centre for HIV/Aids which he had inaugurated earlier at Mwananyamala, Dar es Salaam.
Leavitt said his mission to Tanzania and other three African countries was geared at developing the huge investment the US was putting in those countries.
He applauded Tanzania for responding positively in the drive against the two major diseases, Malaria and HIV/AIDS.
`I was anxious to see the response of the people we deal with. I am glad Tanzanians are responding,` said Leavitt.
He challenged Tanzania to maintain the pace of the recently inaugurated HIV Testing Campaign, saying failure to do so would amount to bowing to the pandemic.
He further said: `I have advised the Minister for Health to increase HIV testing. Simple technologies like pin-prick can help to have most people tested.`
Speaking in Dar es Salaam last week while inaugurating the Mwananyamala Care and Treatment Centre, Leavitt said US President George Bush was keen to have PEPFAR extended for five more years and the partnership’s funding increased to 39tr/-.
He said the second phase of the partnership would seek to provide treatment for 2.5 million people, prevent more than 12 million new infections and provide care to more than 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children.
According to Leavitt, there were only 50,000 people in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS when President Bush proposed the plan.
`At the moment, America supports treatment for 1.1 million people in 15 focus countries with more than a million being in Africa,` he noted.
The US Congress supported the first phase by committing over 19.5tr/- for its implementation.
Congress will extend the plan for five more years and the partnership`s funding will be increased to 39tr/- in a few months to come.
Official data shows the infection rate in Tanzania is about 7.7 per cent while only one in ten of those infected are enrolled in anti-retroviral treatment.
Stigmatization remains widespread, causing a number of people to refrain from undergoing HIV/Aids testing.
PEPFAR was proposed in 2003 by President Bush and
is said to be the largest international health initiative in history dedicated to a single disease by scaling up prevention, treatment and care in developing countries.
Other health initiatives supported by the US President include the President`s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
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