CARICOM signs memo with Clinton Foundation on HIV/AIDS fight
Stabroek News
August 25, 2002
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlining the level of assistance and support CARICOM will receive from the William J Clinton Presidential Foundation for the HIV/AIDS fight across the region was signed on Thursday by Deputy Secretary-General of CARICOM, Dr Carla Barnett.
The total value of the assistance is unclear, but CARICOM is looking for some $260 million to $350 million per year to fight the spread of the disease. The document signed by Barnett will be taken to the US, where the appropriate person will sign on behalf of the Clinton Foundation.
Speaking at the ceremony, Barnett said that agreement was reached after a meeting with former US president Bill Clinton and Prime Minister of St Kitts-Nevis, Denzil Douglas, who has responsibility for health in CARICOM, in Barcelona, Spain recently.
According to Barnett, subsequent to that meeting, Clinton, who was impressed by Douglas’ presentation, made a pledge to assist the region. She said that pledge was followed by a meeting of the Clinton Foundation in St Kitts on July 20 of this year. She said the initiative was formulated at that meeting.
“HIV/AIDS represents the single most important challenge to well-being and development in the Caribbean region. Due to the scale, scope and complexities involved in addressing the situation, the Heads of Governments have opted for a regional approach involving a significant number of regional and international partners under the Pan Caribbean Partnership,” Barnett said.
She said that at this stage the partnership included the Pan American Health Organisation, the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre, the Caribbean Network of people Living With HIV/AIDS, the University of the West Indies, the World Health Organisation, the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the Canadian International Development Agency, the British Department for International Development and the United States Agency for Inter-national Development.
Moreover, Barnett acknowledged that the efforts of the Pan Caribbean Partnership are guided by the Regional Strategic Plan on HIV/AIDS adding that one of the specific areas of the regional plan is the treatment and care for people living with AIDS. According to the deputy secretary-general, in support of the plan, the region has been engaged in a process to negotiate access at affordable prices to the anti-retroviral drugs which are critical to the treatment of persons living with AIDS.
Barnett noted that so far the efforts to negotiate access to the drugs have yielded positive results and the drug companies have agreed to make the drugs available to Caribbean nations at significantly reduced prices. “These drugs which are so essential to treatment are still very costly, particularly when set against the real economic difficulties facing the countries of the region at this time,” Barnett said.
Barnett observed that the current economic situation in the Caribbean constrains the ability of member states to expand the institution’s capacity to operationalise its facilities and procure the drugs and other technologies necessary to deal comprehensively and effectively with the HIV/AIDS crisis and its effects on the region’s societies.
“We are therefore very pleased that president Bill Clinton, a known supporter of the peoples of the Caribbean has decided to join us at this point in time when assistance is desperately needed. As President Clinton himself said, “the Caribbean has cut a deal, it has a plan, but insufficient resources, let’s find out what is the deficit and go and get the money,” Barnett said.
In brief remarks leader of the Clinton Foundation on the AIDS initiative, Ira Magaziner, said that the Clinton Foundation hopes to mobilise both the human and financial resources to implement programmes to stem the growth of HIV in the region. He could not say what the total value of the foundation’s assistance would be but insisted that it would assist greatly in the delivery and the setting up of proper healthcare facilities for the treatment of HIV infected persons.
He said that the foundation would also help in the procurement of the drugs at a reduced cost. (Nigel Williams)