International Community Should Support South Africa's HIV Testing Plan

UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in a Mail & Guardian opinion piece that the mood in South Africa is "upbeat ... about the way the country is responding to AIDS. The government and civil society groups are talking and working together. Academics and activists are engaging in evidence-informed discussions with officials to make the right choices about HIV programmes. The government has shown its seriousness by investing more than $1billion (R7.3billion) in the AIDS response this year."

"I believe that South Africa can break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic -- in Africa and globally," Sidibe writes while discussing the importance of the country's HIV counseling and testing campaign, which aims to test nearly 15 million people for HIV by 2011. "[T]he international community should do all it can to support this effort," according to Sidibe. "By taking an HIV test, each South African can say: 'I am responsible.' By creating the right environment for access to testing and counselling and reducing stigma and discrimination, communities and health and social systems can say: 'We are responsible,'" Sidibe writes (4/16).

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