Jamaica urged to keep HIV/AIDS high on health care agenda

By Kimone Witter    

 

Jamaica is being encouraged to keep HIV/AIDS high on the agenda of the health system as it celebrates the milestone of having eliminated mother to child transmission of HIV and Syphillis.

 

UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Christine Stegling says political will assisted the country to achieve this validation from the World Health Organization.

 

Ms. Stegling says there are measures that the government can continue implementing to prevent any setback. 

 

These include offering regular HIV testing to all persons, but especially to women during prenatal care. 

 

"And to always offer an HIV test in an unthreatening way and with the opportunity to show the opportunities that will be there. And then we have to make sure that the babies who grow into adolescents and eventually into adults, that they stay HIV negative, that we do all the best we can to do the right HIV prevention programmes, and that we maintain that political will to ensure that HIV remains on our agenda within our health facilities, but also in our wider...development agenda in any country," she suggested. 

 

Ms. Stegling was speaking Tuesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.

 

Belize and St. Vincent & The Grenadines have also received certification from the WHO.