WASHINGTON (CMC) – The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Tuesday said it is collaborating with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to eliminate HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, m-pox and other sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis in Latin America and the Caribbean.

PAHO director Dr Jarbas Barbosa and AHF president Michael Weinstein signed the framework agreement on Monday that Dr Barbosa said “will strengthen collaboration between our organisations”.

The agreement aims to strengthen advocacy actions to implement World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to improve prevention programs, quality of care and treatment outcomes by expanding and directly involving LGBTQ+ communities in the implementation of innovations such as self-administered testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV.

PAHO provides technical cooperation to countries in the Americas to support the elimination of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections.

The PAHO elimination seeks to end some 30 diseases and related conditions by 2030, including those covered by the PAHO/AHF agreement.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation is a global nonprofit organisation providing cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to over 1.7 million people in more than 45 countries around the world, including Latin America and the Caribbean. Founded in 1987, it is currently the largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the world.

PAHO said an estimated 2.5 million people live with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2021, approximately 120,000 people acquired the virus and another 35,000 lost their lives from disease-related causes. It said 850 people contract tuberculosis every day in the Americas region and 90 lose their lives.

WHO estimates that 5.4 million people live with hepatitis B and 4.8 million with chronic hepatitis C in the Americas.

The most recent regional data indicates that there are around 10,000 new chronic hepatitis B infections and 23,000 deaths each year in the region. As for hepatitis C, there are 67,000 new infections and 84,000 deaths annually in the region.

As of April 31, more than 59,200 cases of m-pox and 104 deaths were reported in the Americas.