African Union endorses major new initiatives to end AIDS
UNAIDS, GENEVA, ADDIS ABABA, 3 July 2017 - "African heads of state have endorsed two major new initiatives to help end AIDS by 2030. The community health workers initiative aims to recruit, train and deploy 2 million community health workers across Africa by 2020.
The western and central Africa catch-up plan aims to rapidly accelerate access to HIV treatment in the region and close the gap in access between African regions. The initiatives were endorsed at the AIDS Watch Africa Heads of State and Government Meeting, held on 3 July during the 29th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Western and central Africa catch-up plan
Under the leadership of countries and regional economic communities, and in collaboration with UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders and other partners, the catch-up plan in western and central Africa, which started implementation in late 2016, seeks to dramatically accelerate the scale-up of HIV testing, prevention and treatment programmes, with the goal of putting the region on the Fast-Track to meet the 90–90–90 targets by December 2020." (Photo: African Union headquarters/UNAMID/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)