The United Nations (UN) on Sunday (16) highlighted Mozambique’s ‘progress’ in reducing new HIV/AIDS infections and advocated a discussion with the United States to maintain funding for health programmes while the country mobilises other resources.
According to Lusa, Mozambique has made ‘a lot of progress, reducing new infections and cutting deaths. However, the country still faces a major challenge, since it has two million people who are on treatment, 400,000 still to be taken to treatment and 80,000 new infections every year,’ said the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Winnie Byanyima, after a meeting with Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on the sidelines of the 38th African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia, which ends this Sunday (16).
At the meeting, Byanyima discussed with Chapo ways forward for Mozambique in the face of the US government’s reduced support for health programmes, defending initiatives to produce medicines locally in order to reduce dependence on imports and the creation of a solid infrastructure to ensure HIV/AIDS treatment in the country.
‘We agree that there should be a collective approach to discuss with the US government how to have an organised transition, not to stop immediately [with funding], but to give Mozambique time to mobilise resources,’ said the UNAIDS executive director.
In the first days of his second term, US President Donald Trump suspended all international aid for 90 days, with the exception of humanitarian food programmes and military aid to Israel and Egypt.
The Mozambican government said on February 7 that the suspension of US international aid compromises health programmes in the country, especially HIV/AIDS, and that it is in ‘dialogue’ with the US embassy to ‘mitigate the impacts’.
‘The sudden withdrawal of this support compromises, as you can imagine in some way, the efficiency of the implementation of these programmes (…). The US government’s support finances a considerable part of the provision of health professionals, especially in the area of HIV/AIDS care,’ said Inocêncio Impissa, spokesman for the Mozambican government and Minister of State Administration and Civil Service, during a press conference in Maputo, in the south of the country.
The 38th African Union (AU) summit has been taking place in Ethiopia since Saturday (15)
Still in Ethiopia, Chapo met with the new AU president and also Angolan head of state, João Lourenço, in which he presented the country’s political situation and discussed formulas for closer economic and political relations with that country.
‘We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Angola on being elected to chair the AU. We expect great leadership, let it be said that the last time a Portuguese-speaking African country presided over the organisation was in 2003 through President Joaquim Chissano (…) and to return today with a Portuguese-speaking country presiding over it is truly a great victory,’ said Chapo.
The Mozambican President also met with his Zimbabwean counterpart, Emmerson Mnangagwa, where they discussed new fronts for co-operation in the field of economic development between the two countries and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The African Union has been meeting since Saturday in Addis Ababa for its 38th summit and the central theme is the payment of reparations for colonial domination, but the debates will inevitably be dominated by regional conflicts and the lack of security.
