The National AIDS Commission (NAC) on Wednesday hosted the UNAIDS Executive Director, Mr. Michel Sedibe who is on a two- day official visit to Lesotho.

In his welcome remarks, the NAC Board Chairperson Advocate Thabo Makeka conveyed NAC’s appreciation of Mr. Sedibe’s visit, which indicated UNAIDS’s commitment to support countries like Lesotho with high HIV prevalence rates, to fight the pandemic. He expressed gratitude on the moral support Mr. Sedibe’s visit gave to the country amid the challenges it still faces, which include lack of capacity and research gaps.

In her presentation about national response to HIV and Aids, the acting Chief Executive Mrs. ‘Manneheng Mopeli briefed Mr. Sedibe on the mandate of the National AIDS Commission further highlighting progress made in the fight against HIV and AIDS to the extent of decentralising the response to all the ten districts of the country.

She further mentioned the various fora in which NAC convenes with stakeholders to monitor progress of the national response to HIV and AIDS and highlighted recent programmes such as partnership with Parliamentarians and those targeting high risk populations. Mr. Sedibe was also informed that the National HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan had recently been reviewed and had now incorporated emerging issues.

Responding to the presentations, Mr. Sedibe pointed out that the fight against AIDS needed strong leadership, a lot of advocacy and more social mobilisation and giving a voice to people living with HIV and AIDS, partnerships with all stakeholders, evidence based decision making and ability to track the disease as well as resources. He emphasised that if these are not met, then it becomes difficult to fight the disease.

He further emphasised the need for a well established structure to coordinate these responsibilities, hence the establishment of National AIDS Commissions, which UNAIDS works closely with. He alluded to the importance of NAC not falling to the trap of other countries’ National AIDS Commissions, which paralyse the fight against AIDS by implementing instead of coordinating.

Mr. Sedibe’s final advice to Lesotho was for the country to focus on a large campaign to reduce the number of HIV infection per day, as opposed to reducing infections by half, which is abstract and does not have much impact. However, with the former, people will appreciate more what it means to reduce HIV infections in a day.

Mr. Sedibe was appointed Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS on January 01 2009 and is based in Geneva.

Media Contacts:

Section Head, Advocacy & Communications— Phumla Moleko (Mrs)

Communications Officer— Mpolokeng Mpeli (Mrs)
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