African leaders must take lead to meet Aids Free Africa deadline, says Monica Geingos

Namibian First Lady, Monica Geingos, says African leaders must take the lead in ensuring that the continent is able to meet the deadline of an AIDS Free Africa in 2030. She was speaking in an exclusive interview with the SABC.

Geingos says 90% of young people living with HIV are on the African continent. She made the comments at the time where the US Africa are observing 20 years since President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief was launched. This week there will be a special event to celebrate achievements of the initiative.

Geingos says the world has dropped the ball in terms of fighting HIV/AIDS.

“People got distracted by new crisis. People are still dealing with the aftermath of Covid. There is Ukraine crisis that is diverting resources and naturally even the messaging people have almost forgotten about HIV response. So it is a number of balls that were dropped and they were dropped at an unfortunate time because it is started to happen at the time where they was progress being made and to see these reversals is heart breaking because we all know what it means Africans dying.”

Namibia’s First Lady, Monica Geingos on observing 20 years since the PEPFAR was launched: