HIV/AIDS complacency no more

Written by Cherelle Jackson
Saturday, 12 July 2008
Hiv1: Maire Bopp-Allport, founder of the Pacific Islands Aids Foundation and member of the Commission on AIDS in the Pacific. Maire Bopp-Allport, a UN Commissioner on AIDS in the Pacific and founder of the Pacific Islands Aids Foundation says that after consultations in Samoa, the era of complacency in regards to HIV and AIDS is officially gone. “It gives us a lot of hope in regards to the feedback we have received that there is a great mobilisation on the issue, a consciousness’ on the issue, so I don’t think that we can very much apply the word complacency to HIV now as we could have a few years ago,” she said. In Samoa for the second meeting of the Commission on AIDS in the Pacific, Maire was accompanied by Dr. Rob Moodie and Warren Lindberg, both members of the Commission. During their visit to Samoa, they met representatives from Church groups, Civil Society Organisations, Government Ministries and those working in HIV/AIDS in Samoa. According to the Commission members, the main purpose of the meeting and the current focus of the organisation is to establish the current situation of the epidemic in the Pacific region. An Independent Committee under the auspicious of the United Nations, Dr Moodie says the Commission was established to make recommendation to the National Government and Development Partners in regards to the progress of the epidemic in the Pacific. “We are looking at resources applied to the epidemic, what has worked, what hasn’t worked and has it been enough. We are also looking at modelling the future of the epidemic in this part of the world, and we are looking at what are the social and economic implications of the household level of HIV and AIDS,” Dr. Moodie said. “We’ve also had the opportunity of talking with and learning from people involved in HIV in Samoa and they have been illuminating, we learnt a lot,” Dr. Moodie said. According to the Commissioner the programmes they have seen here have been successful and can be magnified or copied in other parts of the Pacific. He said the committee also made some suggestions about how things may be strengthened here. “Some of the challenges are really knowing what is going on, developing adequate and reliable surveillance systems, monitoring systems and also its and issue here where if youre not sure of the level of HIV and other STIs its hard to work out how important the issue is, its hard to determine what sort of resources should apply to it,” he said. According to Maire once the Committee has a better picture of the epidemic in the region, they will be able to sustain the response to HIV and apply the resources where it is needed. “In the last five years, there has been a huge increase in HIV funding for the Pacific. It is therefore timely that we do a wide research to see whether the increase in epidemic justifies the funding and that it is being applied in the right place.” She said that they are looking at funding effectiveness in Samoa and across the region. One of the ways to monitor effectiveness is to look at the receptiveness of cultures to the programmes. The New Zealand Member of the Committee, Warren Lindberg said: “ It doesn’t matter what health issue you are trying to address, the way in we look after our health is part of our culture. Every culture has ways of looking after its health and what we are looking for is a synergy\ between the issues we face in HIV/AIDS and the culture of each place, we have been encouraged by what we have seen here.” Dr. Moodie agreed saying that if they were to succeed in their mission, the involvement of grassroot level organisations is of utmost importance. “We are about making sure that grassroots are fundamental part of the national response as they talk about issues that Government can’t necessarily talk about and they have a reach into the community that is extensive,” Dr. Moodie said. Comments (1) Subscribe to this comment's feed Every Cuture also has A Responsibility written by And Again, July 12, 2008 responsibility is taught in every culture as well. please keep that in mind sleeping with dogs will give you flea's, so is bad behavior. drink to much you can can ddestroy you liver down the road or die of drunk driving sex with any kind of persons will give you aids, syph, or clapper personal responsibility is the apex of all cultures that survive the long term Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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