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The Ministry of Health, through Global Fund has received $857 million (US$4.1 million) to aid the country’s efforts to control and eliminate the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Tuberculosis (TB).
Last Thursday Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, and Executive Director of the National Coordination Coalition (NCC), Simone Sills signed an agreement which will see a partnership to implement activities and programmes to tackle the diseases.
Speaking about HIV, the minister said, “We believe that the partnership that we have here would help us to extend the kind of programmes that we need to reach people, especially those who have fallen out of the treatment programme.”
Dr. Anthony said this partnership will also assist the government in getting more educational content out to the regions, especially on the importance of TB treatment to prevent drug resistance. “Part of this relationship that we have would help us to do more TB education so that people can become more compliant and in addition to becoming more compliant, we would then be able to prevent multiple drug resistance TB,” Dr. Anthony said.
The health minister added that the non-governmental bodies will help the ministry to reach its target of achieving 90 percent of the population knowing their HIV status, 90 percent who tested positive receiving treatment and 90 percent on treatment being virally suppressed. Meanwhile, Sills said the non-governmental organisations are pleased to be a partner in the fight against the diseases. “This partnership will entail, working in six regions across Guyana to assist in addressing the three what we call the three 90s goal for persons living with HIV, as well as increasing the number of persons that have access and treatment to TB treatment as well as services,” she said.
