Guyana announces its HIVision2020.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011 – 1:26 pm

“The Guyana National HIV Strategy 2007 to 2011” will soon be coming to its end.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) recognises that this Strategy has brought Guyana to a point where it is a now strong leader in the Caribbean, because the country has the capacity to lead a vibrant and successful HIV response; leverages local finances and mobilises the necessary external resources; advocates internationally on behalf of Guyana, for its Caribbean neighbours, and the rest of the world; is innovative in its achievements towards HIV prevention; shares its knowledge and competencies with others; stimulates, appreciates, learns from and transfers local action.

On Friday 24 June 2011, the Minister of Health, Honourable Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, in his keynote address to the ‘Guyana Business Coalition on AIDS Annual Awards Dinner,’ launched the country’s upcoming development of ‘Guyana HIVision2020.’ He said: “We are now at a point where we can move more aggressively towards achieving a vision that has been guiding us from the very beginning, but has not necessarily been articulated as a national vision: “No child born with HIV, anywhere in Guyana!” — “HIV treatment for all persons living with HIV, based on science, international guidelines, and the judgment of a physician” – “Integration of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support into primary care” — Guyana stood firm on not having a parallel programme for parents-to-child transmission. We’ve strengthened our systems (supply chain, etc) to ensure that we can deliver on our promises to Guyanese, in HIV, and in all areas of health.”

In his keynote address, Minister Ramsammy further said: “ ‘Guyana HIVision2020,’ will serve in developing our and our partners’ activities and strategies to ensure more focused, aligned and country-owned responses and to guide investments to deliver innovation and maximum returns for our people; whoever they are and wherever they are living in Guyana.
As Guyana prepares for its nation-wide vision for HIV in 2020, a decision has been made by my Ministry that our country’s next HIV activities and strategies will be captured by a clear and concise document that represents

1. The vision of where we want to be in the year 2020 when it comes to the PREVENTION of HIV: the elimination of all forms of HIV transmission; including the elimination of parents-to-child transmission, by 2015, and keeping mothers and their children alive;

2. The vision of all persons living with HIV receiving highly active anti-retroval TREATMENT – especially since we know that treatment is prevention,

and 3. The vision of INFORMATION, INTEGRATION and INNOVATION that will capture systems’ strengthening; involvement of all relevant public and non government sectors, and research and development, to remain up-to-date and ahead of the epidemic. This vision includes strategic intelligence to adequately prioritise and plan evidence-informed, efficient and effective actions that will move us from vision to implementation.

Colleagues, friends, all, we must courageously face up to the challenges and embrace wholeheartedly the opportunities to realise our vision of a trajectory of elimination of the HIV epidemic in Guyana. Our common ‘Guyana HIVision2020,’ our commitment, and our joint, harmonised actions will get us there.”
The UNAIDS Country Coordinator in Guyana, Dr. Ruben del Prado, reiterates that his Office and the Joint United Team on AIDS, are partnering with the people of Guyana in the development of ‘Guyana HIVision2020’ that will be a pronouncement of where Guyana wants to be in the year 2020, in the areas of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

He says that “the next step will be the development of Guyana’s ‘National HIV Plan’ that will describe the activities of all partners, government and non-government, to achieve this vision. The HIV Plan must contain a budget for undertaking these actions, including strategies to leverage and mobilise the needed resources.

The HIV Plan must describe the scope, scale, intensity and quality of all proposed activities. The choice of these activities, through prioritisation, will be instrumental in order for ‘Guyana HIVision 2020’ to become a reality”
On 10 June 2011 the United Nations General Assembly, in a special High Level Meeting on HIV adopted the Political Declaration on HIV: Intensifying our Efforts to eliminate HIV . The Ministry of Health has already developed 10 key indicators out of this Declaration that will be incorporated in ‘Guyana HIVision2020.’ The National AIDS Programme of the Ministry will soon announce national targets for Guyana, based on these indicators, to be achieved by 2015.

Contact: UNAIDS Country Office in Guyana | unaidsguyana@unaids.org