EHP AIDS council signs K60,000 deals with centres

By ZACHERY PER
THE Eastern Highlands Provincial AIDS Council (PAC) has signed K60,000 deals with a church and the provincial health division to improve HIV facilities in two health centres.
The Nupuru Health Centre in Lufa district and Kassam Evangelical Brotherhood church in Obura-Wonenara district will receive K30,000 each to refurbish existing HIV testing and counselling facilities.
The money, which came from the National AIDS Council (NAC), was successfully facilitated by PAC and Eastern Highlands provincial disease controller Jackson Apo.
Apo said the funds were initially earmarked for the Asaro and Henganofi health centres but it was decided Nupuru and Kassam should receive the funding.
He said the funding came under the “capacity building priority” of the National HIV/AIDS Council strengthening programme 2011-15.
Nupuru has a small space and faces and an influx of HIV patients seeking treatment and counselling, as does Kassam, especially as it is located along the Highlands Highway.
Eastern Highlands provincial church medical council chairman Japalis Kaiok thanked the PAC headed by Dr Thomas Koimbo and Apo for successfully facilitating with the National AIDS Council for the money.
Koimbo said the PAC was only a coordinating and monitoring agent in the process.
He said the NAC was determined to see HIV treatment facilities going into rural areas because “awareness on the epidemic does not reach the bulk of the rural masses”.
He said there was an alarming prevalence rate in rural areas.
Director of health services in Eastern Highlands Ben Haili thanked the PAC and NAC for the money to improve health facilities.