Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday urged African countries to allocate additional local resources to the fight against HIV/AIDS in order to cut the financing gap brought about by reduced external support.
President Kenyatta made the call when he met a delegation from the Champions for an AIDS Free Generation in Africa. Some of the dignitaries in the delegation included former Botswana President Festus Mogae, former Malawian President Joyce Banda and Professor Miriam Were.
The Champions for an AIDS Free Generation, a group of former presidents and influential African leaders committed to an AIDS-free generation, rallies and supports regional leaders towards ending the AIDS epidemic.
The dignitaries urged President Kenyatta to continue rallying other African leaders to show more political goodwill in the fight against HIV/AIDS on the continent.
“External assistance is declining and even where it is available it is in decline and its covering fewer and fewer of the population on our continent. That means we have to try and do something about it including allocating more local resources,” former president Mogae said.
HIV remains a major global public health issue with an estimated 32 million people having died so far.
Last year, an estimated 770,000 people died from HIV-related causes globally.
According to the World Health Organisation, Africa accounts for almost two thirds of the global total of new HIV infections.
Additionally, the WHO says that Africa is the most affected region, with 25.7 million people living with HIV in 2018.
