Society of AIDS calls for domestic funding across Africa
The President of the Society of AIDS in Africa and ICASA 2025 President, Dr David Pagwesese Parirenyatwa, has called on Africans and the diaspora to rise to the challenge of strengthening health systems with accountability, transparency, and universal access to care.
He warned that without innovative approaches to sustainability and domestic financing, Africa risked regressing to the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s when many died from AIDS due to lack of medicine.
Dr Parirenyatwa made the call at the Society for AIDS in Africa’s (SAA) second International Steering Committee meeting to kick-start preparations for the 23rd International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), scheduled to take place in Accra, this year.
The two-day preparatory meeting afforded participants the platform to review an appropriate ICASA timeline and key dates and confirm the community programme committee and vision, focus, components and sub-themes.
The meeting, attended by representatives of 25 member countries, is also to hold briefings on the ICASA 2025 progress report, review and finalise the ICASA 2025 Plenary speakers, review and finalise concurrent sessions (NADS, Workshops and Special sessions), ICASA 2025 draft budget, call for abstract reviewers, review and validate scholarship criteria, call for partnership and call for bid — ICASA 2027 (24th Edition).
“Given the recent action taken by the U.S. government to freeze funding for HIV support, it is crucial that, as we work within our respective committees, we address the domestic financing of health systems and the sustainability of our HIV/AIDS response.
This should be incorporated into one of the proposed plenaries across the three committees, as we believe it is critical for maintaining the momentum of ICASA,” Dr Parirenyatwa said.
Background
SAA has selected Ghana as the host country for the 23rd edition of ICASA scheduled for December 3 to 8, 2025, at the Accra International Conference Centre, as part of a renewed drive to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the continent.
The conference will convene global leaders, community, researchers, advocates, and healthcare professionals from about 150 countries to further the continent's fight against HIV/AIDS, STIs, Hepatitis, Malaria, TB, and emerging viral infections and strengthen Africa's health systems.
It would be held on the theme: ‘Unity in Action: Catalysing Integrated and Resilient Health Systems for Sustainable Responses to HIV and other infectious diseases and emerging threats”.
Commitment
Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, Director, Public Health, Ghana Health Service (GHS), on behalf of the Health Minister, said Ghana recognised that “This is a great platform to showcase the continent’s progress in disease control and public health interventions, especially HIV, hepatitis, and newly emerging epidemics”.
He said HIV prevalence had remained below three per cent for almost a decade, and new infections and deaths were steadily declining.
Dr Asiedu-Bekoe said the country was also making progress in tuberculosis case notification and treatment, as well as moving closer to eliminating syphilis and malaria in some districts.
He, however, acknowledged that despite the achievements, significant challenges remained, both nationally and across the continent.
“Nevertheless, there exists a wealth of knowledge, resources, and best practices that we can leverage through this upcoming conference to strengthen our efforts toward epidemic control,” he added.
Secretariat
Dr Asiedu-Bekoe called for the prompt establishment of the conference secretariat, in line with the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the Ministry of Health and the SAA.
“We will deploy all resources available to ensure a successful conference in Ghana.
We will work with all relevant agencies, including Finance, Tourism, Social Security, and Foreign Affairs to deliver a world-class event come December,” he said.
