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UNAIDS Executive Director to visit Namibia ahead of United Nations High-Level meeting

UNAIDS Executive Director to visit Namibia ahead of United Nations High-Level meeting

UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima will kick off a three-day official visit to Namibia, until 14 April, according to an announcement on Monday.

Her visit follows the adoption of the new Global AIDS Strategy 2021‒2026, End Inequality. End AIDS. by the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) in late March 2021. Namibia, as Chair of the PCB, played a significant role in facilitating the adoption of the strategy.

Byanyima’s visit precedes the United Nations High-Level Meeting on AIDS which takes place in New York in June 2021 and of which Namibia is a co-facilitator, along with Australia.

Namibia has demonstrated great success in its AIDS response. It achieved the ambitious UNAIDS 90‒90‒90 treatment targets two years ahead of the 2020 deadline.

Currently, in Namibia, 95% of people living with HIV know their HIV status; 90% of people who know their status are on HIV treatment and 91% of people on HIV treatment are virally suppressed.
Despite this great progress, AIDS is not yet over. In 2019, there were 1400 new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 24 in Namibia, almost double the number of new infections (600) among their male peers.

While in Namibia, Byanyima will conduct several high-level meetings, including with the President HE Dr. Hage Geingob, and Monica Geingos, First Lady of Namibia.

Byanyima will conduct site visits to community projects in Windhoek, as well as participate in dialogues with young people and women leaders.


 

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