National Consultation on Universal access

[Guest guest]

Announcement

Universal access to HIV prevention, treatment care and support for

Women and Children. A National consultation.

(March 8th and 9th 2007: New Delhi)

`India, along with other Member States adopted the Declaration of

Commitment on HIV/AIDS, in the United Nations General Assembly

Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS in June 2006. The Declaration of

Commitment reflects global consensus on a comprehensive framework to

achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halting and beginning to

reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2015'.

The call for scaling up efforts to provide universal access to

prevention, treatment and care has gathered momentum ever since.

However, there is a need for greater focus on scaling up of efforts

to provide universal access to prevention, treatment, and care for

Women and Children.

It is essential to initiate an urgent national dialogue among key

stake holders on universal access to HIV prevention, treatment care

and support and particularly on setting up targets for ARV coverage

for women and children, 1st and 2nd line, between now and 2010. And

universal means 85-100% coverage.

In response to this need, MAITRI along with several other key

stakeholders are proposing to hold a national consultation on the

International Women's Day to bring focused attention to this issue.

The objectives of the consultation are;

• To review the progress of scaling up universal access to HIV

prevention, treatment and care for Women and Children.

• To identify the barriers of scaling up universal access to

HIV prevention, treatment and care for Women and Children.

• To develop a national advocacy strategy to enhance scaling up

universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care for Women and

Children.

• To set targets for scaling up universal access to HIV

prevention, treatment and care for Women and Children

Some of the specific Issues to be addressed are;

1. Scaling up universal access is slow

2. Enhancing Community-based initiatives for universal access

3. Gaining Political support for universal access.

4. Financial support and deployment.

5. Addressing Technical problems.

6. Addressing Logistics support needs.

7. Legal, economic and social issues remain significant barriers.

8. Equity considerations

9. Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMCT)

10. Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP)

11. Universal access to women and families of Uniformed Services

12. Universal access to Children infected and affected by HIV

and AIDS

MAITRI is an NGO, which endeavours to address the causes and

consequences of HIV and AIDS, with a particular focus on uniformed

personnel, women and children, ex-servicemen and aspirants to the

uniformed services, and has a geographical focus on the Northeast

region.

Several key stake holders have already expressed their support and

intention to participate in this crucial consultation.

A detailed list of partners, collaborators and sponsors will be

announced soon.

Representing some of the key stake holders, a preliminary working

committee has been established to develop a broad based coalition to

host this consultation.

We would like to invite Expressions of Interest to collaborate,

attend, present papers during the course of the 2-day conference.

Please do reach us in case of any questions / clarifications that you

require.

Thanking you,

With Best Regards.

Sonal Singh Wadhwa

For the Organizing committee

e-mail: < universal.access2007@...>