STORY OF INTEREST: US providing millions to help Caribbean deal with HIV/AIDS

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The United States is providing nearly US$100 million over a five year period to help Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean to combat the spread of the deadly HIV/AIDS virus.

Health ministers from Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) will on Tuesday sign a partnership framework agreement with Washington to chart a path for sustained support in the fight against the disease.

The new collaboration worth up to US$100 million over five years is made possible by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The funds will become available from june.

“As the region with the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence in the world, second only to Sub-Saharan Africa, the United States recognises that a regionally targeted program for the Caribbean could directly meet critical public health needs and support the outstanding work already ongoing in the region to combat this disease,” the US Embassy here said in a statement.

It said the AIDS epidemic continues to be a leading cause of death among Caribbean adults age 25-44 years of age and has left nearly a quarter of a million Caribbean children orphaned.

The Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. of the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Dr. Brent Hardt, will sign the document on behalf of the United States together with Ministers of Health of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the OECS HIV/AIDS Program Unit (HAPU).

Similar events will take place in the other participating partner nations including The Bahamas, Belize, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, to include the CARICOM Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP), the statement noted.

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6 Comments

  1. concerned
    April 20, 2010

    could the prime minister and the ministry of health and the minister of comunity and gender set up another enties to managa the PEPFAR money for HIV/AIDS and not the current enties that is in place now.
    The HIV/AIDS programme here has lost it way and focus and allowing the goverment to pay high cost of rent for it friends house.
    so please the patients that are living and affected by HIV/AIDS needs goverment intervension now

  2. only
    April 19, 2010

    The funds are only a bait to loop you in to a plan or program that you will regret. Nothing is free.
    The pentagon scientists created the HIV virus in the ’50s and ’60’s and it was specifically genetically designed to affect the africans the most.
    AIDS was one of the UN’s plans for population control. Get the picture yet?

  3. BMS
    April 19, 2010

    They should they were the ones who bring it there

  4. God Bless America
    April 19, 2010

    Let us pray that those in authority use the funds for the necessary purpose and not for personal gain (because we know that that’s the norm).

  5. Peace
    April 19, 2010

    Thank you America. We appreciate your help. God bless America! And Dominica and the Caribbean region on a whole too!

    • Anonymous
      April 20, 2010

      What are thanking America for!!!. Since at the end of colonialism all America has done is try to distory the Caribbean and Latin America. They distoryed our Banana export programs, and our programs that would enable young people to become engaged in the development of our countries.
      What else is there to do for young people leaving school??? They are all frustrated and idle. That is the cause of most of the problems we face today.

      Take your thanks back now.

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