DEPUTY health minister Juliet Kavetuna on Wednesday announced that her ministry will allocate 25% of its budget towards the prevention of HIV-AIDS and other programmes.

This means out of the currently-allocated budget of N$7 billion, N$175 million will go to the primary healthcare unit and other units which deal with prevention measures.
Kavetuna said this at the Namibian stakeholders' consultative meeting in preparation for the 2016 United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting (HLM) on HIV-AIDS to be held in New York from 8 June this year.
This HLM will undertake a comprehensive review of the progress achieved in realising the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV-AIDS, and the 2006 and 2011 Political Declarations on HIV-AIDS.
“This demonstrates Namibia's ambition to achieve a new generation free of AIDS as a health threat by 2030,” she noted.
She further highlighted Namibia's achievements towards combating HIV-AIDS, and listed the reduced rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, which is at 5% now.
If Namibia continues at this rate, it would be the first country in Africa to eliminate mother-to-child transmission completely, she added.
Kavetuna said Namibia has 130 000 people who are currently on antiretroviral treatment, while the number of those who are counselled and tested for HIV has also increased over the years.
“Furthermore, Namibia has seen improvements with regards to sexual and reproductive health in terms of decreasing fertility rates, low unmet needs of family planning and relatively high contraceptive prevalence”.
Touching on the global aspect, UN representative in Namibia Kiki Gbeho said the number of people living with HIV and accessing antiretroviral treatment has increased from 700 000 people to 15 million globally since 2000.
Gbeho also pointed out how Namibia should celebrate the fact that they have halted and reversed the spread of HIV, and are on track to eliminate mother-to-child transmission and malaria by 2030.
UNAIDS country director Tharcisse Barihuta said the HLM will allow one to send a clear message of urgency to fast-track the HIV-AIDS response and demonstrate the tremendous costs of inaction.
In conjunction with Barihuta's statements, UNAIDS representative Mohammed Turay said areas such as gender inequality, stigma and the integration of people living with the virus are key areas which still need to be improved.