KINGSTON, Jamaica — Caribbean Regional Director for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), Dr Kevin Harvey is calling on national Governments to address the implementation of treatment for those infected with HIV/AIDS as a national emergency.

Harvey in a release today, said an intervention will not only save the lives of the individuals treated but will protect the whole society due to the resultant reduction in transmission at the community level.

“We must continue to discuss sustainability of the response and country ownership in light of retreating donors and restricted funding. However we believe there is an even more urgent need to discuss the mammoth task of doubling and in some cases tripling the number of persons receiving treatment,” Harvey explained.

Moreover, the AHF has hardly started to address the social barriers that limit one’s ability to stay on treatment and that it is committed to expanding its role in the response in this region and around the world and is scaling up the resources it provides, he added.

“AHF however remains concerned about the slow implementation of test and treat within the region and the reduction as well as the inefficiency of utilisation of existing donor funds,” Harvey said.

According to him, the percentage of overall funding allocated to treatment in the region is not in keeping with the evidence, which now indisputably indicates that getting to sustained viral suppression removes the risk of transmission.

He also noted that only a half of those infected are on treatment and worse maybe less than half of those on treatment are virally suppressed.

“Our goal is to directly support one million persons in care by 2020 and we will not be neglecting small developing States such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago,” added Michael Kahane, Southern Bureau Chief.