Statement by UN Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Babatunde Ahonsi at the 2021 World AIDS Day – 1st December 2021

GLOBAL THEME: END INEQUALITY. END AIDS. END PANDEMICS

Your Excellency the First Lady of Sierra Leone

Your Excellency the Ambassador to the United States of America

Honourable Minister for Health and Sanitation

Honourable Minister for Information

Members of the Diplomatic Corps

UN Colleagues

Members of the Media

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

Once again, we are gathered here to commemorate another World AIDS Day celebration.  The theme for this year’s World AIDS Day celebration: End Inequalities, End AIDS, End Pandemics draws attention to the underlying inequalities that fuels the scope, scale and impact of HIV, COVID-19 and other colliding pandemics.  Today, the world acknowledges that if we don’t end inequalities, we will not be able to end AIDS, COVID-19 and other pandemics now and in the future

It’s been forty years since the first AIDS cases were reported, yet HIV/AIDS remains a major public health threat to the world. Today, the world is off track from delivering on the shared commitment to end AIDS by 2030, not because of a lack of knowledge or tools to beat AIDS, but because of structural inequalities that obstruct proven solutions to HIV prevention and treatment.

Structural inequalities have put women, girls and other marginalized population groups at greater risk of HIV infection. The epidemic in Sierra Leone is feminized and concentrated among key populations. Although HIV prevalence among the general population remains low at 1.7%, prevalence among women aged 15 years and above is double the rate among men at 2.2% and 1.1% respectively.  Similarly, young girls 15-24 years are three times more likely to be infected at 1.5% compared to boys of the same age 0.5%. Marginalization, stigma, and discrimination have resulted in a disproportionately high HIV prevalence among key and vulnerable populations groups with prevalence ranging from 6.8% among sex workers and 15% among transgenders.

As clearly stated by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ “To beat AIDS — and build resilience against the pandemics of tomorrow — we need collective action.  That includes harnessing the leadership of communities to drive change, combating stigma and eliminating discriminatory and punitive laws, policies and practices.

We must also dismantle financial barriers to health care and increase investment in vital public services to achieve universal health coverage for everyone, everywhere.  This will ensure equal access to HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care, including COVID-19 vaccinations and services”.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is heartwarming to note that the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the National AIDS Secretariat are embarking on a cervical cancer campaign targeting 10,000 women living with HIV, female sex workers and other vulnerable population groups. Like HIV, cervical cancer is a disease of gender and other inequalities. These two interconnected diseases starkly expose the links between inequity, social and health injustice. Ninety per cent of 311, 000 cervical cancer annual deaths globally occur in low- and middle-income countries. Globally, 6% of all cases of cervical cancer are in women with HIV. Yet, evidence from Southern Africa has shown that 63% of all women diagnosed with cervical cancer were HIV positive. Although the rates may be lower in other regions of the World and we do not have reliable data on the situation in Sierra Leone, cervical cancer remains a matter of public health concern.

Lessons from other countries clearly show that facility-based screening and treatment is ineffective and inadequate in guaranteeing equal access to cervical cancer services to marginalized women. Consequently, to achieve the 10,000 target, we need to invest in innovative technologies and approaches that make cervical cancer screening and treatment increasing available to poor and marginalized women in places that are most convenient and easily accessible.

Finally, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:

We are all witnessing the fourth wave of COVID-19 in many countries. It is sad to note that inspite of Government and Development Partners efforts to bring close to one million vaccines into the country, we still have less than 10% of the population fully vaccinated. The threat of a more virulent, infectious, and deadly COVID-19 variant should be a matter of grave concern.  I call on all Sierra Leoneans to get vaccinated today, particularly people living with HIV, key populations, and other vulnerable population groups. We must also ensure that we wear our face masks all the time when we are in public and maintain social distance to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19.

Let us all commit ourselves to work together to create an equal and just society in which all Sierra Leoneans can live in an environment free from stigma, discrimination, and violence. This is an important prerequisite for achieving the Human Capital Development agenda of the government. It is also the key for all citizens to realize their full potential as envisioned in the National Medium Term Development Plan and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.  Together we can end all forms of inequalities, end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and end today’s and tomorrow’s pandemics. The time to act is now

On this note, I wish you all a very successful World AIDS Day Celebration.