Sierra Leone’s HIV/AIDS Leadership Earns MDG Award

To read about the MDG award given to Nepal, see here.

UNITED NATIONS – Sierra Leone won a coveted Millennium Development Goal award at the United Nations for its fight against HIV/AIDS, officials announced in a ceremony earlier this month. In particular, judges cited the commitment by President Ernest Bai Koroma as noteworthy in the country’s efforts to stem the AIDS epidemic.

The annual prizes, given to eight countries this year, celebrate outstanding government and civil society efforts to realize the MDGs.

“The MDG Awards Committee was impressed by Sierra Leone’s efforts in developing an innovative and comprehensive national HIV strategy and, in particular, the high-level political commitment and involvement of Sierra Leone’s President H.E. Ernest Bai Koroma, who chairs the country’s National AIDS Council,” according to a statement from UNAIDS. “Partners credit a national commitment towards advancing the greater involvement of people living with HIV in the response and the scale up of HIV prevention treatment care and support services.” Foreign Minister Zainab Hawa Bangura accepted the award.

Country officials cited HIV prevalence increases of 0.9 percent in 2005 to 1.5 percent in 2008, but then rates stabilized, according to the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey. Officials attributed improvements to a number of sources, including increases in voluntary counseling and testing and condom distribution; more people taking anti-retroviral therapy; high-level political support; and donor assistance.

According to Sierra Express Media, the President’s commitment to chairing the National AIDS Council (NAC) “has contributed to raise the profile of the national response to HIV in Sierra Leone.” The NAC is the country’s “highest strategic body in the national response” and is made up in equal parts public and non-public representatives a well as people living with AIDS, the Sierra Leone media site added.

Photo by Dominic Chavez.