HIV | BEATEN | PLO LUMUMBA

Forty years on since the first AIDS cases were reported, Kenyan associate professor of public law, Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, commonly known as Prof PLO Lumumba said he was cautiously optimistic that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) - the virus that causes the disease -- could be beaten by 2030.

Uganda adopted a political declaration by the United Nations General Assembly, to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While delivering a keynote address during the National HIV and AIDS symposium held at Makerere University Business School, PLO noted that if Uganda hopes to end HIV/AIDS by 2030, they should engage in conversation about ending HIV/AIDS with other African Countries if not they should forget to end the disease by 2030.

“If you think you will end HIV by 2030 you need to talk to Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania." "If you have not talked to them, then we shall converge here again in 2030 to talk about ending HIV in 2060,” Prof. Lumumba said.

During the symposium, Uganda Aids Annual Joint AIDS Review Report 2021/2022 showed that 1.4millions of people are living with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS remains one of Africa’s greatest health challenges to date. It is estimated that over 70% of people living with HIV/AIDS reside in Africa.

Lumumba, who served as the director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Agency, said that to curb the disease, Uganda and Africa should make healthcare a priority in national budgets.

“With donor funding now dwindling, the health systems in Africa will suffer unless the African governments increase their funding because inadequate funding hinders the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)." Uganda and, indeed Africa, must find innovative alternative sources for HIV resources to reach many people and also help suppress the spread of the virus,” Prof Lumumba said.

Prof Lumumba noted that African leaders speak too much and take little to no action in implementation, sometimes they do the exact opposite of what they promised.

He noted that in 2001, African Union countries pledged to spend at least 15 percent of their annual national budgets on health (the Abuja Declaration). Ten years later, an analysis by the WHO found that only one country (Tanzania) had achieved the target and 11 countries had cut the share of government expenditures going to health.

The crisis of pandemic diseases is arguably the single largest challenge facing the continent of Africa today. From polio, Ebola, and tuberculosis to HIV/AIDS and many more, Africa has had more than its fair share of endemic diseases.

According to the World Health Organization, the African continent has the world’s largest burden of disease epidemics. This costs the African region $2.4 trillion a year.

Today, the African continent is addressing several infectious disease outbreaks in addition to COVID-19, and there are growing risks looking ahead.