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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