Africa-Press – Kenya. Kenya’s security situation and internet speed will determine whether the country will host a global HIV/AIDs conference next year.
Kenya placed a bid to host the upcoming International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) 2023, which is expected to take place in December.
Five other countries did the bidding with only Kenya and Zimbabwe being voted to go through the assessment visit.
This means the team of three assessors from the Society for Aids in Africa will determine whether Kenya or Zimbwabwe will host the conference that is expected to bring together more than 10,000 to 15,000 people.
Also key determinants will be the ability of the government system to process visas for the huge number of delegates who are to attend the conference.
“We are looking at the visa entry for the delegates for the participants that will be coming in; how fast it is,” Florence Wamala from SAA said.
“We just had a presentation and we were told it is automated but we realise when we are talking about a big number of people coming in, we need to know how fast it will be done,” she added.
The conference which is hosted every two years represents an opportunity to highlight the diverse nature of the African region’s HIV epidemic and the unique response.
It also defines the HIV response trajectory for the world.
The assessors however, appreciated that the government is still in transition but noted that there are things they need to see in place such as security, infrastructure and visa entry for people.
ICASA director Luc Armand Bodea who is also part of the assessors said another key determinant will be any presence of any discriminatory laws especially affecting entry of key populations into the country and access to the conference venue.
“One of the criteria is discrimination; do we have a discriminatory law? For example can the key populations access the country freely? Can they be denied visa and have access to sessions? We want to see if there are some discriminatory laws then it will be tough for us to host ICAS here,” Bodea noted.
Other criteria will be government and civil society commitment to host the conference, ease of access to the venue by the delegates and the sitting capacity of the delegates of the venue.
The National Syndemic Diseases Control Council on their part has noted that Kenya remains best placed to host the conference, as the country has remained committed towards HIV response in the country.
Ruth Laibon-Masha said Kenya’s response to the HIV pandemic is mature adding that the country boasts of more than four decades of HIV response and have the second largest treatment programme after South Africa.
“We do recognise that even though progress has been made globally the number of new infections are not falling fast enough across African countries,” Masha said.
According to the 2020 Global Fund Covid-19 Funding report, the emergence of the Covid-19 is having a catastrophic impact on the most vulnerable communities around the world and threatens progress made in mitigating the impact of HIV, TB and malaria globally.
For More News And Analysis About Kenya Follow Africa-Press
