Caribbean Times Newspaper 07.20.2016

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Caribbean TImes, July 20-26, 2016
Caribbean Times LLC.
P. O. Box 100470
Brooklyn, NY 11210
Production@caribbeantimesnews.com
718-909-1841
Publisher:
Michael Babwar
Editor:
Kenton Kirby
Art Director:
Loucka
Advertising Dir.
Michael Smith
Contributors
Dave Rodney
Anthony Turner
Kevin Bollers
Stephen Carr
Wanda Bryce
Roland Hyde
By CNS
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, Prime Minister
of St. Kitts and Nevis and CARICOM Lead
Head with responsibility for Human Resources,
Health and HIV/AIDS, Dr. Timothy Harris, has
addressed the United Nations General Assembly
High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS at the
U.N. Headquarters in New York on June 08. The
meeting runs from June 8-10, 2016.
In his address, Prime Minister Harris emphasised
that the CARICOM (Caribbean Community)
has made great strides in HIV/AIDS
reduction but that challenges remain and that
“CARICOM member States recognise that
confronting the challenges for fast-tracking the
response to HIV and AIDS collectively and in
global solidarity is our best option for ending
the AIDS epidemic by 2030.”
Dr. Harris outlined that between 2006 and
2015, within Member States of CARICOM, the
HIV prevalence rate has been halved from 2.2
percent to 1.1 percent; the estimated number of
people living with HIV receiving antiretroviral
therapy has increased from under 5 percent to
44 percent; deaths from AIDS-related causes
declined from approximately 20,000 to 8,800;
and the aspiration is to be the first region in the
World to end mother to child transmission of
HIV.
However, he said that the CARICOM “cannot
be lured into a state of complacency” because
many challenges still confront us.
“The Caribbean, for all its successes, is still
second to Sub Sahara Africa in its prevalence
rate,” Prime Minister Harris said, while highlighting
that the vast majority of people living
with HIV are concentrated in three Caribbean
TESSANNE RIVETS NY PUBLIC SCHOOL GRADUA-
TION WITH SURPRISE VISIT
Jamaican songbird Tessanne Chin giving a pep talk to graduation students at Middle School 226 In
Queens, New York
countries and that in these three countries,
prevalence among the key risk groups are men
who have sex with men as high as 32 percent
and that in many countries, data are revealing a
spike in prevalence among women and girls, a
trend he said must stop.
Prime Minister Harris said that CARICOM
Member States are committed to the achievement
of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development
Goals to eliminate AIDS by 2030.
By Dave Rodney
Graduation Day was extraordinary
for students at Middle School 226
in Queens, New York City recently.
Their annual ceremony was in progress
when the proceedings at this school were interrupted
by a surprise visit from Jamaican songbird
Tessanne Chin, the season 5 winner of
NBC’s popular singing competition, The Voice.
Chin is visiting New York, and when she learned
that the school has a population of mostly students
of Caribbean descent, she decided to accept the offer
to inspire and motivate them through a brief pep
talk. The over 1300 students and their parents exploded
in thunderous applause when Chin told them
to never depart from pursuing their dreams as they,
like her, could reach any goal they dreamed about.
“Don’t let anything or anybody stop you from
going after your dreams”, she told the graduation
attendees, and her words resonated with the
parents as much as it did with the graduating students
who are about average age 14 years old.
The school’s principal is a young Jamaican,
Rushell White, and she was thrilled that Tessanne
was able to accept the invitation to appear
amidst a hectic schedule in New York.
“Our students here at MS 226 are very
much aware of and want to celebrate their Caribbean
heritage, and it means the world to them
for Tessanne to stop by, motivate them and sing
a song for them”, principal Rushell White told
Caribbean Times. “Although the visit was brief,
the memories will last a lifetime”, she said.
Tessanne Chin is in New York recently
for a performance at Roy Wilkins Park.w
The CARICOM “cannot be lured into a state of complacency”
Dr. Timothy Harris,
“We are fortunate for the Global and regional
leadership of UNAIDS. It has demonstrated
what can be achieved by the coordinated
policies to fast-track the response to AIDS,
based on clearly articulated scientific information,
multisectoral strategies, partnerships for
global solidarity, and commitments to shared
responsibility. We are fortunate too, for the
Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
without whose investments, many countries
like ours in CARICOM would not survive
these diseases. We are particularly indebted to
the US-led PEPFAR, among other development
partners for keeping the faith in the region as a
whole as we move forward towards 2030,” he
said.
He said that in order for CARICOM Member
States to achieve this goal it is important to
place greater emphasis on building capacity to
gather and analyse reliable disaggregated data
in a timely basis to inform policies; applying
the lessons learned from the AIDS movement
to strengthen health systems and consolidate
an integrated public health response to health
emergencies such as Zika, Dengue and Ebola;
identifying the imperative of ‘health convergence’
and universal health coverage as mechanisms
for effectively coordinating approaches
and monitoring progress on a range of health
and development issues; and placing emphasis
on access to affordable medicines in fulfilling
the right to health, thereby maintaining the momentum
of activists in the early 2000s and the
call by the Commission on HIV and the Law
for using the TRIPS flexibility to achieve this
end.
The Prime Minister said that through the
initiative of CARICOM Ministers of Heath with
the technical assistance of UNAIDS and PAHO,
the Caribbean was the first region in the World
to negotiate and sign an agreement with six pharmaceutical
companies in 2002 in Barcelona.
“This reduced the price of drugs by 85-90
percent. It started a process in collaboration
with the Clinton Foundation, leading to a
dramatic increase in the number of people
on HIV treatment in low and middle income
countries with Continue on page 10