16 Oct 2008

Funding available to help fight HIV/AIDS in Pacific region

8:31 am on 16 October 2008

A new pool of money is expected to help assist the Pacific region in fighting HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases over the next five years.

The 23 million US dollars fund has been established by Australia and New Zealand.

It will give money to governments, and non-governmental- as well as regional organisations to assist them in their response against these infections.

"Its manager is the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and its coordinator , Jerry Cole, says countries will receive their funding depending on their population size and needs."

We'll continue to work with providing funding to organisations that work with youth and peer education programmes, doing work with vulnerable groups, such as men who have sex with men, and sex workers; other groups such as seafarers and their families, mobile populations like that, working with prison communities.

Jerry Cole says PNG will be excluded because its high HIV/AIDS rate of about two percent needs a different approach .