By Alpha Abu
The United States Ambassador, David Reimer says Sierra Leone is marching towards epidemic control. The Envoy made the assertion whilst addressing health workers at the close of five day training on the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) at the Bintumani hotel in Freetown last Friday.
“This training and the site level support that will follow, will enable you to improve the services and outcomes in your communities and contribute to the rapidly improving National HIV Response”, the ambassador said.
He praised PEPFAR’s work in addressing HIV/AIDS in the country citing its safe and effective approach to finding new cases of the disease. Reimer said he was proud of what the United States and Sierra Leone are accomplishing together fighting HIV/AIDS and encouraged the health workers to apply the new strategies they’ve learned.
The visiting Lead for PEPFAR in the United States George Tidwell in reviewing the state of the project in Sierra Leone reminded the health workers of the progress they’ve made in the battle against HIV/AIDS.
Discussing the statistics, he highlighted how some 85,000 people are living with the disease in Sierra Leone.It was also revealed that 38,400 people were diagnosed in 2020 whilst 2021 saw the figure jump to 51,097, over 20 percent increase. According to Tidwell, from the 2020 diagnosed cases, 34,400 were on treatment. He then spoke about the need for new strategies this year to contain the spread of the disease.
According to a Press release from the Public Affairs Office, US Mission in Sierra Leone, because of the program’s success in its first year, the United States “has nearly doubled funding for the program this year to $9 million”. Western Urban, Port Loko , Western Rural and Kambia are the four districts with 15 high volume sites that PEPFAR supported last year. The project is to be extended to cater for an additional 15 sites this year, according to the public affairs office of the US embassy.
“US support of expanded treatment facilities and accessibility will enable Sierra Leone to meet the UNAIDS global goal of 95% of people living with HIV should know their status , 95% of those who know are on treatment, and 95% of those on treatment will have achieved viral suppression by 2030”, the release states.
The training of the health workers was for the 15 new facilities in the country. The release disclosed that: “Between 2020 and 2021,PEPFAR has increased the number of people receiving treatment for HIV by over 20% and they hope to continue the trend increasing the number of people receiving treatment”.
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