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St. Kitts'
PM Douglas to lead Caribbean delegation at UN General
Assembly Special Session on HIV and AIDS in New York
Date Posted: April 19, 2008.
BASSETERRE,
ST. KITTS,(CUOPM) St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister
and Chairman of the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV
and AIDSD is to lead the Caribbean delegation to the Third
High-Level United Nations General Assembly Special Session
on AIDS in New York.
He told the Opening Ceremony of the 10th Meeting of the
Regional Coordinating Mechanism of the Pan-Caribbean
Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) at the Royal St.
Kitts Hotel and Casino on Wednesday that the June 10th and
11th meeting will again give him the opportunity to
articulate the regional position on critical policy and
programmatic measures that must be adopted by governments
and international partners in battling the exploding AIDS
epidemic.
In addition, I will have the opportunity to present the
Caribbean mid-term score-card on how far we have advanced
along the path towards the target that we have set ourselves
to achieve universal access to HIV and AIDS-related
prevention, treatment, care and support services by 2010,
said Dr. Douglas, who expressed pleasure that some
twenty-four countries within PANCAP have completed their
national assessment and progress reports that will be
consolidated for submission to the Assembly.
Of course, there are some persons in some quarters who
insist that the Caribbean may have been brash in its
commitment to the 2006 Assembly to achieve universal access
by 2010. Others are of the view that the Caribbean needed
such an impetus to generate the type of intensity that is
required to turn the tide of the epidemic in the region,
said Prime Minister Douglas, who stated unequivocally that
he embraces the latter view fully given the burden of the
epidemic in the region and, consequently, the inescapable
need for urgent purposive action.
The time for action is now! declared Prime Minister Douglas,
who made it clear that it is no gimmick when it is stated
that the Caribbean remains the most heavily HIV-infected
region of the world, behind Sub-Saharan Africa.
The region must not be allowed to forget that its HIV
prevalence rate is 1½ times that of the global average,
twice that of North America and Eastern Europe, and more
than five-fold that of Western and Central Europe, Dr.
Douglas reiterated.
He also pointed out that in a region as small as the
Caribbean, there were more than 17,000 new HIV infections in
2007 and in excess of 11,000 deaths from AIDS.
The projection is that life expectancy at birth would have
declined by as much as 9 to 10 years in some countries by
2010 attributable to the disease, said Dr. Douglas, who
declared: In all reasonable circumstances, therefore, these
are grim statistics that must propel urgent action and which
vindicate the Caribbean in its commitment towards achieving
universal access within the shortest time frame.
He said those were the painful realities that propelled the
Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community to establish
PANCAP in February 2001, as a vehicle for providing the most
effective regional response to the epidemic.
The wisdom of this decision has been demonstrated by the
phenomenal successes recorded over the seven short years of
existence. For instance, it is a matter of public record
that, even while still in its fledgling stage, PANCAP won
the acclamation of UNAIDS as an International Best Practice
and the experiment has been replicated in many other regions
of the world, as far away as Central Asia, said the St.
Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister.
