Organization of American States Summits of the Americas
 
Follow-up and Implementation: Mandates
  

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HEALTH: HIV/AIDS
 MANDATES

  1. We are committed to meeting the Millennium Declaration objective of halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015 through, inter alia, identification and implementation of strategies to scale up towards the goal of universal access to comprehensive prevention programmes, treatment, care and support. We will promote scientific research and social awareness geared towards producing safe and high quality medicines and supplies with the aim of increasing access to treatment. We will implement the Regional HIV/STI Plan for the Health Sector 2006-2015, in coordination with PAHO, UNAIDS and other relevant institutions. We commit to strengthening public policies aimed at reducing the incidence of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to less than 5% by 2015. We reiterate our commitment to participating in and strengthening the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, including through resource mobilisation. (Declaration of Port of Spain, 2009).

  1. We will strengthen cooperation and exchanges of information in the struggle against chronic diseases as well as emerging and re-emerging diseases such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, malaria, tuberculosis, avian flu, and other health risks. We commit to fighting the stigma, misinformation, and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in the workplace and favor their full access to employment with dignity. We propose to develop crosscutting strategies and cooperation mechanisms, principally within the framework of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), to combat these diseases, including the strengthening and adequate financing of the Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria as well as the development of national preparedness plans to fight potential pandemics, such as avian flu. We urge all countries to accelerate the process of ratification of the new international health regulations and seek to enhance the cooperation mechanisms that would facilitate access to pertinent measures of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the population at risk (Declaration of Mar del Plata, 2005).

  1. To implement – with the support of the PanAmerican Health Organization (PAHO) – the “Three Ones Initiative: one HIV/AIDS action framework, one national AIDS coordinating authority, and one country-level surveillance and evaluation system” developing primary prevention of HIV/AIDS and strengthening health services for young people and other vulnerable groups, with special attention to the problem of stigma and discrimination in the labor environment, taking into account the ILO Code of Conduct on HIV/AIDS in the workplace. To promote efforts to provide integral prevention, treatment, and care to HIV/AIDS carriers with the aim of providing as close as possible universal access to treatment for all those who need it as soon as possible (Plan of Action Mar del Plata, 2005).

  1. We recognize the positive results of the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria (GFATM) and we reaffirm our support to their activities and goals. We recommend the continued important participation of civil society in the fulfillment of these goals, and we urge the Global Fund Board to evaluate the eligibility criteria with the intent of addressing middle income countries in the hemisphere (Plan of Action Mar del Plata, 2005).

  1. We are particularly concerned with the toll that HIV/AIDS is taking on our respective societies, the proliferation of the disease, and the threat that it poses to the security of our peoples. We recognize that in order to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic we must intensify our prevention, care, and treatment efforts within the Hemisphere. Our political leadership is essential to confront the stigma, discrimination, and fear, which deter people from being tested and from accessing treatment and care. We recognize that to confront the challenge posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is necessary to continue increasing global cooperation efforts (Declaration of Nuevo León, 2004).

  1. Pursuant to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the relevant decisions of the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization’s 3x5 Initiative, we commit to facilitate affordable treatment for HIV/AIDS, with the goal of providing antiretroviral therapy to all who need it as soon as possible and to at least 600,000 individuals needing treatment by the year 2005 (Declaration of Nuevo León, 2004).

  1. We also urge the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to identify criteria to enable the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to have greater access to its resources (Declaration of Nuevo León, 2004).

  1. We acknowledge that another major threat to the security of our people is HIV/AIDS. We are united in our resolve to adopt multi-sectoral strategies and to develop our cooperation to combat this disease and its consequences (Declaration of Québec, 2001).

  1. Commit, at the highest level, to combat HIV/AIDS and its consequences, recognizing that this disease is a major threat to the security of our people; in particular seek to increase resources for prevention, education and access to care and treatment as well as research; adopt a multi sectoral and gender sensitive approach to education, to prevention and to controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) by developing participatory programs especially with high risk populations, and by fostering partnerships with civil society including the mass media, the business sector and voluntary organizations; promote the use of ongoing horizontal mechanisms of cooperation to secure the safety of blood; increase national access to treatment of HIV/AIDS related illnesses through measures striving to ensure the provision and affordability of drugs, including reliable distribution and delivery systems and appropriate financing mechanisms consistent with national laws and international agreements acceded to; continue dialogue with the pharmaceutical industry and the private sector in general to encourage the availability of affordable antiretrovirals and other drugs for HIV/AIDS treatment, and promote strategies to facilitate the sharing of drug pricing information including, where appropriate, that available in national data banks; promote and protect the human rights of all persons living with HIV/AIDS, without gender or age discrimination; utilize the June 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS as a platform to generate support for hemispheric and national HIV/AIDS programs; (Plan of Action Québec, 2001).

  • 17.3 Endorse a basic package of clinical, preventive and public health services consistent with World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and World Bank recommendations and with the Program of Action agreed to at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. The package will address child, maternal and reproductive health interventions, including prenatal, delivery and postnatal care, family planning information and services, and HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as immunizations and programs combating the other major causes of infant mortality. The plans and programs will be developed according to a mechanism to be decided upon by each country. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).

  • 17.6 Take the opportunity of the annual PAHO Directing Council Meeting of Western Hemisphere Ministers of Health, with participation of the IDB and donors, to develop a program to combat endemic and communicable diseases as well as a program to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to identify sources of funding. (Plan of Action Miami, 1994).

 

 
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