UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé has met with the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and discussed how to keep western and central Africa from sliding further behind in efforts to end the AIDS epidemic.
President Sirleaf recently assumed the role of chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States and Mr Sidibé hoped that she would use this platform and opportunity to bring leaders together to adopt an emergency plan for scaling up the AIDS response for western and central Africa.
President Sirleaf said that the country is emerging from rebuilding trust in health services after the Ebola crisis and agreed that it was time to assess what countries can do to focus and stay on course to end the AIDS epidemic.
Historically, western and central Africa has had lower levels of new HIV infections than other parts of the continent. However, new data are showing that while southern and eastern Africa has seen the number of new HIV infections decline, western and central Africa has not seen the same progress, in what is becoming an emerging emergency.
“It is true that AIDS has not drawn the attention in this part of the world as incidence was not as high; that is not the case now and we must evaluate how we respond.”
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf President of Liberia
“During your presidency you have given us hope and we are counting on you again to give hope to the region and the continent that we will end this epidemic.”
Michel Sidibé Executive Director of UNAIDS
