Ali­cia Llanos

Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis says her min­istry aims to re­duce the es­ti­mat­ed num­ber of new­ly- di­ag­nosed HIV in­fec­tions by 25 per cent by 2013.

She said that would be done through the Pres­i­dent's Emer­gency Pro­gramme for AIDS Re­lief (PEP­FAR). Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis was speak­ing yes­ter­day at the sign­ing of a PEP­FAR agree­ment with Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador Beat­rice Wel­ters at the min­istry's head of­fice, Park Street, Port-of-Spain. Be­fore the sign­ing she said: "This rep­re­sents a five-year part­ner­ship be­tween the Unit­ed States Em­bassy and the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go." Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis said the pro­posed bud­get for the first year of the pro­gramme was US$2,062,289.

She said fund­ing for the sub­se­quent years would be based on a bi­en­ni­al eval­u­a­tion and re­port and ap­proval by US Con­gress for the re­lease of funds. Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis said the funds from the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the US and T&T Gov­ern­ments would fo­cus on pre­ven­tion, lab­o­ra­to­ry strength­en­ing, strate­gic in­for­ma­tion, ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the fight against HIV/AIDS. She said: "This will pos­i­tive­ly im­pact up­on the de­liv­ery of HIV pre­ven­tion, treat­ment and care pro­grammes and will im­prove the mor­tal­i­ty and mor­bid­i­ty sta­tus of per­sons liv­ing with HIV and those at high risk of the dis­ease."

Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis said through PEP­FAR the min­istry was aim­ing to re­duce the es­ti­mat­ed num­ber of new­ly-di­ag­nosed HIV in­fec­tions by 25 per cent. Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador Beat­rice Wel­ters said PEP­FAR rep­re­sent­ed a glob­al com­mit­ment to re­duce the in­ci­dence and lim­it the spread of HIV/AIDS while as­sist­ing those who had con­tract­ed the dis­ease. She said: "PEP­FAR rep­re­sents the largest com­mit­ment in his­to­ry made by a na­tion to a sin­gle dis­ease."