Eleven Central African Countries Introduce Joint $3.7M HIV/AIDS Action Plan

Representatives of 11 member countries of the Economic Community of Central African States on Wednesday announced a two-year joint action plan to fight HIV/AIDS in the region, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. The plan was announced in Congo at a meeting of health ministers from Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda and Congo. Representatives of the other ECCAS nations -- Angola, Burundi, Chad and Sao Tome and Principe -- were not at the meeting. The $3.7 million plan, which will be funded jointly by ECCAS and international donors, will coordinate national AIDS programs. More than four million people in the region are HIV-positive, and more than 400,000 people die from AIDS-related complications in the region each year, according to AFP/Yahoo! News. UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said in a statement to the ministers that they should "widen the response against AIDS to all levels of society, to increase budgets devoted to the fight against the pandemic and to strengthen policies and good governance" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 11/13).