Accra: Dr. David Pagwesese Parirenyatwa, President of the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA), has called on the three committees of the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) 2025 to reassess their plenary topics to ensure sustainable funding for the HIV response. The committees in focus are the Leadership, Scientific, and Community programmes.
According to Ghana News Agency, Dr. Parirenyatwa emphasized the importance of addressing domestic financing of health systems to sustain the HIV/AIDS response, especially following the U.S Government's decision to freeze funding for HIV support. Speaking at the second International Steering Committee (ISC) meeting in Accra, he advocated for the inclusion of domestic funding as a key topic across the committees' proposed plenaries, highlighting its critical role in maintaining ICASA's momentum.
Dr. Parirenyatwa underscored the challenging context in which ICASA 2025 will be organized, warning against a regression to the periods in the '80s and '90s when inadequate medicine led to numerous AIDS-related deaths. He cited recent promising results from a groundbreaking HIV Cure Trial in South Africa as a beacon of hope, urging African governments and the African Union to take ownership of such trials to alleviate the disease burden on the continent.
He also called for Africans, including those in the diaspora, to strengthen health systems with a focus on accountability, transparency, and universal access to care. The upcoming ICASA 2025 in Ghana, themed 'Unity in Action: Catalysing Integrated and Resilient Health Systems for Sustainable Responses to HIV, Other Infectious Diseases, and Emerging Threats,' aims to propel Africa towards achieving resilient health systems and the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets through innovation and cooperation among various stakeholders.
Dr. Franklyn Asiedu-Bekoe, Director of Public Health of the Ghana Health Service, praised the SAA for choosing Ghana as the host and committed the Government's support for the conference's success. He noted Ghana's stable HIV prevalence and improvements in TB treatment while acknowledging existing gaps in the national and continental response. He urged sustained momentum and collaboration with private and corporate partners to bolster the health sector's efforts to eradicate HIV and STIs.
The two-day ISC meeting included discussions on ICASA 2025's progress, plenary speaker selection, session planning, budget drafting, abstract reviewer calls, scholarship criteria validation, and partnership bids.
