Private sector urged to support national HIV response
The Minister of State for Private Sector Development and Public Private Partnerships, Mr Rashid Pelpuo, has called on the private sector to support the government in its fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS.
He said the fight against HIV and AIDS was a national issue which called for total commitment to ensure the menace was eliminated; hence the need for all to come on board and help the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) in its quest to fight the pandemic.
Mr Pelpuo was speaking at a private sector roundtable breakfast meeting on resource mobilisation by the Ghana AIDS Commission in Accra last Friday.
The objective of the meeting was to explore opportunities to deepen the collaboration with the private sector towards mobilising adequate resources for the national HIV and AIDS response.
He said the call on the private sector to help in the fight had become iminent because of the decision by development partners to withdraw their aid because the nation had attained a low-middle income status.
“Because of our status as a low-middle income country, our development partners are beginning to scale back in the fight against HIV and as a result the GAC will have to rely on all, including the private sector to help in the fight,” he added.
Resource mobilisation
The minister called on businesses in the country to support the commission in its fight against the infection to prove to Africa and the rest of the world that left alone (or without much assistance from outside) “we could still make an impact.”
He urged Ghanaians to come on board as the prevalence rate in the country had risen from 1.37 per cent in 2013 to 1.47 per cent in 2014.
For her part, the Director General of the GAC, Dr Angela El-Adas, said the commission had had to appeal for financial support from the private sector to meet its funding needs to enable it to procure more test kits and anti-retroviral drugs to manage the national response.
She mentioned the dwindling funds for public health programmes, including HIV, inadequate supplies of commodities such as HIV and syphilis test kits, condoms and drugs, cost of treatment for HIV positive mothers and children and stigmatisation of HIV people as some of the major challenges of the GAC.
Achievements
She said the country had achieved positive results in the management of the HIV infection over the decade and recent reports indicated that the HIV situation in Ghana had improved, although there was more room for improvement.
“Among the successes of the Ghana AIDS Commission and its partners are significant increase in the demand for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services, driving up the cost of implementing the national strategic plan for HIV and AIDS,” she added.
Other achievements she mentioned are an improved coordination at decentralised levels through the establishment of technical support units at regional co-ordinating councils and an increase in the coverage of Persons Living with HIV from 30.5 per cent in 2009 to 63 per cent in 2013.
She announced that the commission was also working assiduously on the establishment of an HIV Fund, which is currently before Parliament.
Appreciation
The Managing Director of Stanbic Bank Ghana, Mr Alhassan Imoro Andani, who chaired the function, expressed his appreciation to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) for its financial assistance to the GAC and called on all private organisations to emulate the example of the company.
During an open forum, the participants (who were drawn from private companies in the country) called on the GAC to explore other means of raising funds (such as using social media) and also endeavour to put pressure on companies to redeem their pledges to the GAC.