The President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, has met with the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, during his visit to the country to speak as a special guest at the seventh session of the National AIDS Council.

During the meeting, the President and Mr Sidibé discussed the recent advances in the national response to HIV, including the reduction in new HIV infections, the reduction in AIDS-related deaths and the 25% increase in the number of people living with HIV on treatment in just one year. They also talked about the many challenges that still lie ahead, including scaling up HIV testing, access to treatment and how to avoid loss to follow-up, particularly for children.

Mr Sidibé thanked the President for the US$ 1 million contribution to UNAIDS and welcomed the considerable efforts of Côte d’Ivoire to increase domestic resources for its response to HIV by 400%.

The local production of medicines was also discussed, particularly in the context of western and central Africa, where only one person in four currently has access to treatment.

The President thanked UNAIDS for its continued support to the response to HIV in Côte d’Ivoire and agreed to be a champion for UNAIDS’ catch-up plan for western and central Africa, which will ensure that more people across the region have access to essential HIV prevention and treatment services.

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Côte d’Ivoire’s National AIDS Council has held its seventh session in the capital, Abidjan. The high-level meeting, co-chaired by the Vice-President of Côte d’Ivoire, Daniel Kablan Duncan, and the Prime Minister, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, was attended by government ministers and representatives of the United Nations, civil society and the private sector, as well as religious and community leaders.

The Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, was invited to speak at the meeting and reminded participants that the response to HIV urgently needs stepping up in western and central Africa, since the region has not made the progress seen in other parts of the world.

He emphasized the need to revolutionize HIV testing and called for a multisectoral approach and continued work with religious leaders and mayors to break down stigma and discrimination around HIV in the region. He also asked for Côte d’Ivoire to embrace and champion a catch-up plan for western and central Africa to bolster efforts to increase access to HIV prevention, testing and treatment services.

During the meeting, the Minister of Health, Raymonde Goudou Coffie, presented Côte d’Ivoire’s National Strategic Plan 2016–2020 and gave an overview of the state of the epidemic in the country. She talked about the progress made towards the 90–90–90 targets, saying that the estimates showed that currently 70% of people living with HIV in Côte d’Ivoire knew their HIV status, 44% of people who knew their status were accessing antiretroviral treatment and 36% of people accessing treatment had suppressed viral loads. She announced that Côte d’Ivoire is now offering immediate access to treatment to everyone testing positive for HIV, which is expected to boost progress towards achieving the 90–90–90 targets.

She also announced that 80% of pregnant women living with HIV were now accessing treatment in Côte d'Ivoire and gave a special mention to the contribution of the work of the First Lady, Dominique Ouattara, to increasing access to treatment for expectant mothers living with HIV. The First Lady is a UNAIDS Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission and the Promotion of Paediatric Treatment for HIV.

While in Côte d’Ivoire, Mr Sidibé met with the President of Côte d’Ivoire, the First Lady, the Foreign Minister, the Minister of Health, Imam Cissé Djiguiba and the United Nations Country Team. 

The Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, has been welcomed in Ghana by the country’s senior leadership, which has declared that it is ready to step up engagement on HIV. Mr Sidibé met with the Minister of Health and talked about Ghana leading a revitalized AIDS response in western Africa, where progress urgently needs to be scaled up.

Mr Sidibé talked about the need for a people-centred approach and the importance of taking AIDS out of isolation to create more synergies between HIV and cervical cancer, maternal and child health and sexual and reproductive health programmes. He also talked about the vulnerabilities of adolescent girls, with large numbers still becoming infected with HIV, and poor adherence to treatment, which is compounded by a lack of age-appropriate HIV services to respond to their specific needs.

Ghana will assume the chair of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board in 2017. Mr Sidibé congratulated Ghana on taking up this role and invited the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, to be the first head of state to address the board in 2017. Mr Sidibé also encouraged the President to provide leadership to the regional response to HIV.

In his meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shirley A. Botchway, Mr Sidibé stressed the need to discuss the response to HIV as part of the Economic Community of West African States’ agenda, in order to ensure political commitment so that adequate resources are mobilized to end the AIDS epidemic.

Mr Sidibé also had an opportunity to meet with the First Lady of Ghana, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, and appointed her the Ambassador for HIV Advocacy in Ghana to Achieve the 90–90–90 Targets by 2020. The First Lady will also use her voice to reduce gender-based violence and increase synergies with cervical cancer and HIV programmes. The First Lady thanked the Executive Director for her appointment and committed to mobilizing all efforts and to supporting the country and the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS to end AIDS by 2030.

During a visit to Accra, Ghana, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé, met with the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, to encourage his leadership in the regional response to HIV.

Western and central Africa is lagging behind the rest of the continent in advancing progress in the response to HIV and urgently needs to step up efforts to reach the millions of people in need of access to HIV prevention and treatment services.

Mr Sidibé urged the President to make his country a hub of excellence for essential medicines, to which the President underlined his intentions to develop Ghana’s pharmaceutical industry, calling it a “key commitment” and part of his government's “inclusive growth agenda”.

The President expressed his appreciation for the role that UNAIDS has played in leading the AIDS response and said he would champion a revitalised campaign to end mother-to-child transmission of HIV and advance efforts to achieve the 90-90-90 targets—whereby 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people who know their HIV-positive status are accessing treatment and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads—particularly among adolescents.

HIV awareness events have been held at high schools in Ndende and Fougamou, Gabon. Sponsored by the Gabon Ministry of Health, the French embassy, the Pan African Organisation against AIDS and UNAIDS, the events attracted more than 3000 students, 500 of whom found out their HIV status.

A quiz on HIV, entitled “Stoppons le wela, Gabonese slang for “Put an end to this thing”, was given out to the students. Questions such as “Can you tell if someone has HIV?” and “How do you get infected?” tested the students’ knowledge on HIV.

Michael Anicet, dancer and UNAIDS Gabon Youth Advocate, got everyone dancing before he and other youth leaders led an interactive discussion about HIV. “Know your status! And if you are HIV-positive then get yourself on treatment and protect others from getting infected,” Mr Anicet told the students.

During the events, the young people asked about where to get treatment and spoke about sexual harassment, saying that it had to stop. Others told of how they had little access to HIV testing.

Other visitors to the events included the mayors of both cities, who stressed that their cities would do everything possible to make HIV testing and treatment available.

“Each committed city should develop plans to accelerate the AIDS response and allocate a budget to be complemented by public and private partners,” the Mayor of Fougamou, Serge Mandi Mboula, said during his city’s event.

The Mayor of Ndende, Maité Mapangou, concluded her city’s event by saying loud and clear, “We stand in solidarity and are truly committed.” 

The President of Senegal and Chairperson of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), Macky Sall, reaffirmed his commitment to support efforts to ensure that 90% of the 4.5 million people living with HIV in western and central Africa have access to HIV treatment by 2020. The commitment was made during a meeting with Djibril Diallo, Director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for West and Central Africa.

With a treatment coverage of only 28%, the region is not on track to achieve the 90–90–90 targets whereby, by 2020, 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people who know their HIV-positive status are accessing treatment and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads. However, during the High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, which took place in New York, United States of America, in June 2016, heads of state agreed to develop a plan for countries in the region to achieve the 90–90–90 targets on time. President Sall was designated as the champion of the initiative.

In this capacity, President Sall will seek support from his African peers for greater involvement and urgent action in the region. He also committed to discuss with the Presidents of Canada and France a call to raise additional funding for the AIDS response in the region.

Finally, he gave an assurance that he will elevate the profile of the local AIDS response in Senegal in order to make it a model for the other countries in the region. For that, he will mobilize additional annual funding to achieve universal coverage of prevention of mother-to-child transmission by 2018 and the 90–90–90 targets by 2020. 

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Travelling to Gabon to attend the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN 2017), Gervais Yao Kouassi (Gervinho), UNAIDS Special Ambassador for Youth and China–Africa Collaboration, visited the UNAIDS office in Libreville, Gabon, to meet some 50 children and young people living with or affected by HIV.

Accompanied by young Gabonese ambassadors for HIV and by artist Charly Tchatch, the animator of the opening of CAN 2017 and an AIDS activist, the international football star talked to the children and young people and listened to their stories and concerns. The children and young people talked about problems with accepting their status and stigma and depression, but also about happiness, love and how they deal with their daily problems.

“I am very touched. It is the first time I hear such poignant testimonies”, said Gervinho. “As you know, I wanted to play with my team here, but I am injured. Your mental strength and joy of life encourages me to face life’s challenges.” Gervinho signed the Protect the Goal campaign ball to support UNAIDS’ vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths at CAN 2017.

Inge Tack, the UNAIDS Country Director, mentioned to Gervinho that despite AIDS budget cuts of 60% in Gabon since 2012, treatment rates have doubled and new HIV infections have been reduced by 30%, while paediatric treatment rates have tripled and coverage of prevention of mother-to-child transmission is at 78%. However, she also noted the need to improve the management of HIV treatment provision to achieve the 90–90–90 targets. “A radical shift in the organization and management of treatment delivery services is required to achieve the 90–90–90 targets in Gabon. Medicines need to be in the centre at all times and services reoriented to better serve patients’ needs,” said Ms Tack.

Gabon experiences persistent treatment stock-outs and poor care services result in no treatment adherence follow-up, no monitoring of drug resistance and no viral load measurement. Ms Tack stressed the need for a decentralized approach for the provision of antiretroviral therapy and an increase in community-led services.

The Executive Director of UNAIDS has been nominated by the new United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, to represent him at the 2017 Africa–France Summit in Bamako, Mali. The summit, co-organized by France and Mali and taking place on 13 and 14 January, will welcome around 2000 participants across the two days. Around 30 heads of state and government are expected to attend, including the President of France, François Hollande, and the President of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.

The theme of the summit is partnerships, peace and security, and in addition to strengthening cooperation between Africa and France, discussions will take place on the current and emerging threats to peace and security and ways of countering them, including improving education and training, increasing investment and bolstering development efforts.

The heads of state will meet in closed sessions devoted to two overarching themes: security, including the fight against terrorism, the economy and development.

On the eve of the event, Mr Sidibé gave the keynote speech at the Youth Forum, which is supported by the United Nations Population Fund, where he called for the empowerment of young people and for social safety nets to be put in place to ensure a more secure future for African youth. The young people prepared a statement in which they called for more investment in young people to enable them to reach their full potential.

As well as participating in the official Africa–France Summit programme and holding one-on-one meetings with high-level representatives, Mr Sidibé will attend an event for first ladies, hosted by the First Lady of Mali, Keita Aminata Maiga, which is aimed at moving the reproductive health agenda forward for young people across Africa. At the end of the session, the first ladies are expected to adopt a commitment to action on health and young people. 

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On 6 January, Lordina Mahama, First Lady of Ghana, was awarded a UNAIDS Certificate of Appreciation by UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé in recognition of her Presidency of the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS and her commitment to, and leadership in, ending AIDS in Ghana.

On the same day, UNAIDS was formally accredited by the Government of Ghana through the signing of a Basic Cooperation Agreement by Hanna Tetteh, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ghana, and Mr Sidibé. The signing ceremony was followed by the inauguration of the UNAIDS country office in Accra by Mr Sidibé, attended by representatives of civil society and the private sector and United Nations partners.

During the mission, Mr Sidibé paid a courtesy call to the former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, and attended the inauguration of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

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A high-level panel organized by UNAIDS and the Government of Togo and held on 14 October in Lomé, Togo, discussed HIV, security and humanitarian emergencies in Africa. The panel discussion took place in the margins of the African Union Extraordinary Summit on Maritime Security and Safety and Development in Africa.

There were more than 314 million people affected by humanitarian emergencies in the world in 2014, of which 67 million were forcibly displaced. An estimated 1.7 million people are living with HIV within these emergency contexts.

The meeting focused on the importance of implementing United Nations Security Council resolution 1983, on addressing the HIV response in conflict and emergency settings, increasing the focus, action and results on sexual violence and mainstreaming HIV in peacekeeping missions.

Special attention was directed towards the western and central African region, which is affected by many crisis and post-crisis situations and where only one out of three people living with HIV is accessing antiretroviral therapy. 

Key messages

• The evaluation report of resolution 1983 should be discussed at the next United Nations Security Council meeting, in November.
• The HIV response should be strengthened in conflict and emergency settings and there should be more focus and actions to address sexual violence.
• HIV should be further incorporated in peacekeeping missions.
• People should be at the front and centre of the response, and no one should be left behind in the response to HIV in emergencies and conflicts.
• Humanitarian and development funding for HIV and gender-based violence prevention and response should be included in national HIV and humanitarian strategies.
• Human rights and dignity should be fully respected in all humanitarian emergencies.

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